American History 1988
Chapter 207 - 201 - To Each Their Own

Chapter 207: Chapter 201 - To Each Their Own

As March approached, the shock caused by Byte Company’s third fundraising became increasingly intense.

It was as if everyone had made a pact, each showcasing their magic to catch the last train.

The round of funding attracted so many people’s attention not only because of the financial report that had been announced earlier.

Recently, Byte Company’s Teams 3.0 version was officially launched.

With the hot sales of the Microsoft Windows 3.0 system, most enterprise users had already updated to the latest system version.

It’s said that the new Windows system had sold nearly ten million copies—a huge ecological market.

Thus, Teams 3.0 had already been upgraded in many companies, and just as Dean and his team had predicted, the new version received rave reviews from customers.

A completely new software interface, more detailed features—these made white-collar workers more reliant on this office software.

In less than a year and a half, Teams had completed three major version updates; the speed was just too fast.

Lotus Software’s average cycle was 12 months, Oracle’s was 16 months, and Microsoft’s might be 24 months.

But Byte Company’s update cycle was averaging only six months! This far exceeded the update law of the software market.

Also, due to the frequent update speed, most of Byte Company’s users had chosen the annual subscription model.

As long as they opened an annual membership, they could enjoy the latest version upgrades from Byte Company for free.

Moreover, since the 3.0 version upgrade had much content, it also won Byte Company a large number of new user orders.

Especially from user groups from schools and government agencies, their proportion in Byte Company’s customers began to gradually stand out.

These market feedbacks had been slowly grasped by well-informed investors, and thus the competition for Byte Company’s fundraising shares became increasingly fierce.

However, the shares flowing out of Byte Company were getting fewer and fewer, and most had already been pre-booked.

For example, an admiral from the Navy and a Supreme Court Justice like Anthony—Dean would of course not refuse them.

Dean wasn’t sure if he would need their relationships in the future, but even with a mind to not offend, he wouldn’t turn away their money.

For Byte Company, there was no difference between high and low capital. As long as the fundraising was completed, who cared where it came from.

In addition to these, there were some personal debts to repay.

For example, James from the Federal District Court, Jim Clark from Silicon Graphics, as well as relatives and close friends.

Dean had to reserve some shares for them, and there also had to be a certain discount in price.

However, considering the limited 10% equity release, Dean planned to reallocate these related parties’ shares from elsewhere.

The primary purpose of the fundraising was to raise funds, and the expected target of 40 million US dollars could not be discounted.

Big shots and major institutions had nearly wrapped up these shares; they all had their specialized foundations, and a division among them was about right.

Thus, many investors who hadn’t caught Byte Company’s direct tickets started taking detours.

Arthur Locke went to Dick from Enyi Investment, and Glenn from Mayfield persistently nagged Durell.

Now Valentine had come to Dean as well; he had many debts of gratitude to pay.

"The Capital Group you introduced, didn’t they already get an investment quota of 3 million dollars?"

Dean had already satisfied most of the internal relations upfront. For example, the investment institutions introduced by Jim and others also had their shares.

Valentine lit a cigarette somewhat embarrassedly, "Unexpected situation. This time it’s a personal relationship, a shareholder of Sears."

Valentine previously introduced investment institutions, such as Capital Group, which has a deep connection with Sequoia Capital.

But now, it wasn’t just those investment companies that wanted to get on board; many capable individuals also wanted to hitch a ride.

The very first successful investment of Sequoia Capital in its early days came from the Atari gaming console.

It brought tens of millions of dollars in revenue to Valentine and the partners behind Sequoia Capital.

It was this investment that allowed the newly established Sequoia Capital to stabilize its footing.

The reason Atari was successful in the first place was because Valentine opened the channels at Sears.

With the help of a former colleague’s relationships, Valentine successfully placed the Atari gaming consoles on the shelves of Sears.

Then the sales channels for Atari opened up, and Sequoia Capital’s investment paid off.

And now, that colleague who had helped was a shareholder at Sears, and Valentine needed to repay that favor.

Alright, there would always be various unexpected situations, and lately, Dean had developed some immunity to them.

"How many shares do you want?" Dean decided to first hear out Valentine’s demand.

"300,000 or 500,000, that’s enough for him to make a small fortune." Valentine anticipated the value of these stocks could double by IPO time.

For an individual investor, this was quite a nice return.

With Byte Company’s fundraising target of 40 million US dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock should be easy for Valentine to secure.

But March was just around the corner, and Byte Company had already finalized the list for the third round of fundraising internally.

This was a matter of cutting in line at the last minute, and Valentine found the names on the list very troublesome, seemingly impossible to change easily.

Thus, he could only turn to Dean, who had the final say in all this.

"Sears..." Dean pondered briefly before giving his reply, "I can give you some more investment shares."

"Oh, thank God." Valentine smiled, expressing gratitude. This favor was very important to him.

"I’ve been thinking of buying some more Cisco stock recently," Dean added.

"What do you mean?" Valentine, mid-exhale of a smoke ring, looked startled.

"I invested all my Christmas bonus in Cisco stocks." Dean spread his hands, "Which means, my ownership of Cisco stocks will soon exceed the 5% threshold."

Valentine put down his cigarette, silently exhaled, and understood what Dean meant.

A 5% ownership stake is a crucial number in the capital game.

"I’ll call a board meeting after a while and create a new seat on the board."

"Good, a pleasure doing business." Dean got what he wanted.

He had already bought 2% of Cisco’s shares before, and the last dividend brought in ten million dollars.

Dean couldn’t possibly leave that money sitting in an account. The normal play is to make money from money.

As for the stocks Dean was most bullish on, Cisco, Intel, and Microsoft were the top three on his list.

Although Intel’s market cap wasn’t as exaggerated as in later years, it was nearing ten billion dollars even now.

Not to mention Microsoft; ever since Windows 3.0 became a hit, its stock had soared, now even surpassing 25 billion dollars.

Whether it was Intel or Microsoft, Dean’s ten million dollars wouldn’t make much of a splash if he invested it in them.

But Cisco was an exception, because its market cap was low enough.

Although Cisco’s stock had been rising over the past half year, as of now, its total market value had not exceeded 400 million dollars.

Dean’s ten million dollars could fetch a 2.5% share, adding to the previous 2%, totaling 4.5%.

There you have it, the 5% notice threshold was within reach—an opportunity.

Coincidentally, Valentine took the initiative to knock on his door. Before that, Dean had been pondering how to get involved with Cisco and provide him with a reasonable explanation.

Now, there was no need. Each had their own needs; it was all business.

Valentine marveled at Dean’s growth; his methods were undoubtedly aggressive, yet they didn’t incite a strong urge to resist.

Rather than giving control of Cisco’s shares to Wall Street vultures, Valentine felt more at ease with someone from his own circle, like Dean.

Because, to his knowledge, Dean genuinely believed in the development of the internet and Cisco’s prospects in routers and gateway devices.

This meant that Dean wouldn’t suddenly sell off a massive amount of Cisco stocks just for the profit margin.

As the chairman of Cisco, Valentine did not wish to see his company’s stock price experience significant volatility.

A shareholder like Dean, who emphasizes long-term benefits, was the best choice for Cisco.

...

The kind of transactions brought by Byte Company’s financing happen constantly in Silicon Valley.

Glenn Miller tried all methods, but in the end, he was denied access.

After returning from Durell, he took Go Company’s financing request to his own boss, Wally Davis.

Unfortunately, Mayfield stood by their initial decision; they still believed that the company had too high a chance of failure.

Therefore, Glenn didn’t get the financing that Durell hoped for, which meant he couldn’t get back on board.

But the pressure from Mayfield was far from diminishing, in fact, it was growing.

Glenn decided he had to join in Byte Company’s financing round. It was a matter of his reputation in the venture capital industry.

Today, he had prepared an overcoat and a toothbrush for himself.

He planned to set up a tent right at Durell’s doorstep until he agreed to divide a portion of Byte Company’s shares.

Some might call him a quirky clown or a pesky nuisance.

But Glenn no longer cared about those labels; he knew he had to take action, otherwise, Byte’s success would pin him to the pillar of shame in venture capital.

Letting go of the pride in heart and readying himself to be chased away by Durell, Glenn drove directly to the latter’s San Francisco villa.

But as he took the tent and such from the trunk and approached the gate, he was stunned by the For Sale sign hanging there.

"Damn it!" Glenn, in his overcoat, finally lost his composure at that moment.

He dropped his venture capitalist pride and was prepared to play the fool, but there wasn’t even an audience?!

"F*ck you, Durell!" Glenn, furious, rolled up his belongings and left, completely ignoring the strange looks from the patrolling police officers.

He needed to find Durell and curse him out; Glenn felt like a clown!

...

"Hahaha," Jim Clark, who heard the funny story in the bar, laughed harder than anyone else.

"Oh, my God, why did I have to miss such a fantastic scene?!"

Jim Clark and Glenn had a long-standing feud; at Silicon Graphics, Glenn had thwarted him at every turn, and later stole the first round of Byte Company’s investment right from under his nose.

Glenn’s present downfall gave him a sense of sweet revenge.

"Dean, a toast to Byte Company!" Jim Clark, his face flushed, raised his glass.

"Cheers!" Dean, who rarely relaxed in a bar, watched all this with a smile.

Beep beep beep... the annoying ring of the phone interrupted again.

"Hello~"

"Boss, can we meet?" came Jim’s voice from the phone.

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.