Chapter 1364 Boston

After this incident, there was nothing left to linger over in Cannes. Even Fan Baobao no longer had the heart to continue sightseeing.

After discussing it, Zhao Fusheng decided to start his trip to the United States ahead of schedule.

Naturally, on this trip to America, Wu Sijie, as Zhao Fusheng's newly appointed assistant to the chairman, would accompany him throughout.

After calling Zuckerberg and confirming he was in Boston, Zhao Fusheng and the others flew to the United States.

Upon arriving in Boston, Zhao Fusheng had Wu Sijie find a tour guide and assigned half of Hu Donghai's team to protect Fan Baobao while she went shopping. He himself, accompanied by Wu Sijie, went to meet Mark Zuckerberg and Sean Parker.

Those two were attending a celebration at a university here.

Compared to metropolises like New York and Paris, Boston's cityscape appeared much more elegant and tidy, and even the air carried an academic atmosphere.

The city was built on a peninsula, connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus. It was not large, covering only 125 square kilometers, and even including the water area that accounted for nearly half the land area, it was less than a quarter of Shanghai.

Yet in such a small city, there were over eighty institutions of higher learning, with more than 200,000 college students studying here, accounting for one-third of the city's total population.

This meant that walking down the streets of Boston, you might run into someone wearing an Ivy League student uniform.

World-renowned top universities such as Harvard and MIT were also located here.

Boston was truly a university town in every sense.

"Zhao, my friend, it's great to see you again."

Sean Parker, seeing Zhao Fusheng, broke into a smile and walked quickly toward him, extending his hand.

Clearly, the guy was in a very good mood.

After all, with Facebook developing so rapidly, he as CEO had played an indispensable role. Zuckerberg had also promised to give him a portion of the equity, which allowed Sean Parker, who had been on the verge of bankruptcy, to see the dawn of life again.

"Sean, you're too enthusiastic. I only like women." Zhao Fusheng hugged Sean Parker and said with a smile, "I'm a newly married man. If you keep this up, my wife will get jealous."

"Oh, you actually got married!" Sean Parker exclaimed in surprise, shaking his head as he looked at Zhao Fusheng. "You know, you gave up the whole forest for one tree..."

The guy was a complete party king, whose favorite thing was throwing parties at home late at night.

A playboy—that was the kind of person Sean Parker was.

"Zhao, congratulations."

At that moment, Mark Zuckerberg walked over from not far away. Hearing the conversation between Zhao Fusheng and Sean Parker, he smiled and interrupted Sean's musings, saying to Zhao Fusheng, "Don't mind Sean. He's a lifelong bachelor."

Zhao Fusheng smiled faintly and said nothing. In his memory, Sean Parker eventually got married, and it was said that he even drew criticism from environmentalists. But he didn't know if this time around Sean would meet his true love.

After all, the trajectory of life is always different. In his previous life, Sean Parker had left Facebook's management early, holding shares in Facebook and living a life entirely different from now.

"Mark, thank you for your blessing." Zhao Fusheng nodded to Mark Zuckerberg. This guy was probably the purest programmer, caring only about his Facebook. Apart from that, his emotional life was incredibly simple. After all, Zhao Fusheng had seen a photo of Zuckerberg's girlfriend, and honestly, she wasn't much of a beauty.

"You're welcome. We're the best partners." Zuckerberg smiled.

As long as it didn't involve ownership of Facebook, the guy was a harmless programmer. But if anyone showed any intention or thought of coveting Facebook, he would instantly transform into the most terrifying prehistoric beast.

No one understood this better than Zhao Fusheng. So over the years, he had carefully maintained his relationship with Zuckerberg, always believing that one day this relationship would prove useful.

Just like now, Zhao Fusheng knew he needed to lay his cards on the table with Zuckerberg.

The reason for laying his cards on the table was simple: Zhao Fusheng was very short of money right now.

It was funny to say, but Zhao Fusheng had never understood why those billionaires, who were already worth billions or even tens of billions, still had to borrow from banks.

Now, he understood what was going on.

The reason was simple: net worth was an illusion.

In simple terms, a billionaire might become a five-billionaire tomorrow because of a stock market crash.

Such net worth could change at any time.

And even celebrities sometimes couldn't afford legal fees when they went to court and had to rely on friends for support.

The reason was simple: their assets were all fixed.

The same was true for Zhao Fusheng.

Although he was now said to be worth billions of yuan, the problem was that the projects in his hands were like money-devouring monsters. Not to mention anything else, just to maintain his position as a major shareholder of Alibaba, the funds needed were astronomical.

To put it bluntly, Zhao Fusheng now had a bunch of good projects, but the problem was that he didn't have that much cash.

Isn't that ridiculous?

But that was the fact.

The reason why the wealth of top billionaires rarely vanished overnight was largely because even if they lost billions, they still had billions left to invest in new projects and recoup their losses.

But ordinary people didn't have such opportunities. They had to be cautious every step of the way, afraid that one wrong move would lead to total defeat.

The problem Zhao Fusheng needed to solve now was the cash flow issue.

And Facebook and Twitter were the best cards in his hand.

Zhao Fusheng firmly believed that as long as he held shares in these two websites, he would be able to raise enough funds. Of course, this required the cooperation of Mark Zuckerberg and Evan Williams, the future internet tycoons.

If it were five years later, Zhao Fusheng wouldn't dare say that, but now, both of them were still very green, giving him enough time and space to maneuver.

With that thought, Zhao Fusheng looked at Mark Zuckerberg and showed a warm smile: "Mark, I think we need to have a good talk."

At that moment, Mark Zuckerberg, for some reason, felt a strange sensation.

Hmm, it seemed like a bad premonition.