Extraordinary Genius

Chapter 333 – Developing VCD



After returning from the phone booth, everyone could tell Feng Yu was excited.

Feng Yu had asked Fu Guagzheng to look for a genius he heard off in his previous life. Jiang Wanmeng!

In the future years, Jiang Wanmeng had many identities like Engineer, entrepreneur, etc.

But Jiang Wanmeng was most famous for being the inventor of VCD. He had changed the world with this invention!

This can be considered the first time China had to lead the world with an electronic product. But it only lasted for 3 years. Jiang Wanmeng and his partner set up a company called Wanyan Inc., and he disappeared from the limelight. It was because he did not apply for the patent and the Japanese had patented this technology.

Jiang Wanmeng was not still a manager at a research facility’s subsidiary company. Although he had some shares in this company, his total wealth amounted to only 1 to 2 million RMB. Compared to others, he might seem successful. But to Feng Yu, he was just a poor engineer!

Jiang Wanmeng’s company was manufacturing TV, and it was doing well. Their market was limited to the local province, and Jiang Wanmeng was just researching on TV-related technologies.

Based on history, Jiang Wanmeng would be attending an exhibition in the US next year, and he saw a technology invented by a Chinese American, Sun Yanshen, which can compress a picture file into a microchip. This technology gave him the inspiration to start to develop VCD.

But now, this would not happen. It was because Feng Yu had bought the compressing technology from Sun Yanshen company!

During the past summer, Feng Yu had asked his lawyer Wilson to make a trip to the US. He had instructed Wilson to do two things. First, it was to buy as many Microsoft shares as possible.

Microsoft had just stopped their corporation with IBM and Apple. Their share prices were now at rock bottom.

Some of Microsoft shareholders had wanted to sell off their shares, and Wilson had brought a large amount of USD to buy over their shares. Wilson was like a god of fortune to them.

Although the market value of Microsoft at this time was over 1 billion USD, these shareholders had already made lots of profits. When Microsoft was listed in 1986, it was only worth 2 million USD. Those shareholders were criticising Bill Gates for their fallout with Apple and IBM.

Paul Allen, the second biggest shareholder of Microsoft, had returned to the board of directors last year, and he was also cited as one of the reasons for the company’s poor performance. He had his own company and had been selling off his Microsoft shares over the past few years to raise funds for his private company.

Wilson had acted very fast. He did not care whether if the Microsoft shares were still falling. He offered high prices for these shares and had acquired a few hundred million worths of shares. Feng Yu was not the official third-largest shareholder of Microsoft. He now owns 18% of shares. Now, Bill Gates, Paul Allen and Feng Yu own more than 90% of Microsoft.

Among these shares, a part of it had no voting rights. Feng Yu does not care. He will only attend the shareholders meeting and was not interested in meddling with Microsoft operations.

With Bill Gates running Microsoft, Feng Yu does not need to do anything. From next year, Microsoft shares will rise rapidly. By 1995, Microsoft will be worth more than 20 billion USD! That would be the time when Bill Gates became the richest man in the world. He will be holding on to this title for several years!

After the separation, Apple and IBM will also suffer losses for these two years. They need to focus on both the hardware and software. Not many companies can be like these two companies.

The second task was to contact Sun Yanshen. Wilson had used 18 million USD to buy the compressing technology from him. Although it was overpriced, Feng Yu wanted to get this technology fast and apply for a patent.

This technology was patented, and Feng Yu had own all the rights to this technology!

In Feng Yu’s previous life, Sun Yanshen will be introducing this technology at a TV technology exhibition next year. But now, this technology is in Feng Yu’s hands, and Feng Yu was not interested in showcasing this technology at the exhibition.

Feng Yu wants to give this technology to Jiang Wanmeng to let him invent VCD. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Jiang Wanmeng had only used less than 600,000 USD to develop VCD.

In this life, Feng Yu will give Jiang Wanmeng 1 million or even 10 million USD for him to develop VCD. Feng Yu wants the VCD to be developed as soon as possible at all cost.

This would be a monopoly. It will bring him high profits, just like his humidifiers and bladeless fans. There will be no competitors, and the profits will be stable.

In the previous life, after VCD was launched, more than 100 million units were sold within 2 years. The profits were at least 1 billion USD!

Having bought the technology, Feng Yu was not assured to let others research on it and to develop VCD. This was a technological breakthrough. Sometimes, it will need talent and luck. This was the reason why Feng Yu asked Fu Guangzheng to look for Jiang Wanmeng.

Fu Guangzheng was also confused. The person Feng Yu was looking for, was only an engineer at a TV factory. There was nothing special about him, yet Feng Yu was willing to spend his money to search for this person.

Was this person worth spending so much effort to look for him? Even in China, there were lots of engineers that was more famous than this Jiang Wanmeng. Why did Feng Yu just wanted this guy?

Fu Guangzheng felt that Feng Yu must have thought of some new ideas to make money and he need this person to help him. Could it be that Feng Yu wants to manufacture TV sets?

There were many TV factories in China. Outshining all the factories was difficult. Fu Guangzheng could not tell how Feng Yu would be able to beat the rest of the competitors. Manufacturing a bigger TV set or a better screen?

If Feng Yu wanted to go into TV manufacturing, should he follow? Feng Yu would not be able to manage so many companies by himself. If he tells Feng Yu, Feng Yu might allow him to buy a stake in this project.

But can manufacturing TV really make money?

Fu Guangzheng had found Jiang Wanmeng a few days ago and had been in touch with him. He did not see anything special about Jiang Wanmeng. He only felt that this person had ambition and creativity. But many people in China were like this too!

Fu Guangzheng called his eldest uncle Fu Rongqi and told him about this. Fu Rongqi was also puzzled. He also does not know what Feng Yu was thinking. In the end, he asked Fu Guangzheng to inform Feng Yu that he had found Jiang Wanmeng.

Fu Rongqi was also curious about what Feng Yu was planning to invest. He needs to know more about this before he can decide whether to let Fu Guangzheng tag along.

Jiang Wanmeng had been found, and he will be coming to Beijing to meet Feng Yu. Feng Yu also called Wilson to go to Beijing tomorrow. He must recruit Jiang Wanmeng!


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