Chapter 2281: Answering Questions

The entertainment industry is like a city.

Moreover, it’s an ancient city, heavily guarded, not just anyone can enter it casually.

Some people, due to the convenience of their status, can swagger in openly and legitimately become part of the entertainment circle. Others have to disguise themselves, carefully concealing their identities to avoid having their secrets discovered.

And some don’t even dare to go through the main gate; they can only enter through a side door, or simply find another way, like climbing over the wall.

Even worse, those outside the city, in order to get in, choose to become dependents of certain city dwellers, whether it’s wuwu or gugu, sparing no effort.

As long as they can become famous overnight, they are willing to pay any price, whether it’s moral底线 or physical money.

Zhao Fusheng had long known that the entertainment industry was a mixed bag.

For instance, when he was back in China, he had encountered such things many times.

Even knowing his identity, those people would go crazy, disregarding everything.

But he didn’t expect that such a thing would happen in Hollywood.

And right by his side.

Even though he knew he was there to chat with Scarlett Johansson, soon a large group of blonde, blue-eyed foreign women surrounded him.

And although he couldn’t name each one, Zhao Fusheng was sure they were all Hollywood actresses, including some A-listers.

“Isn’t this too exaggerated?”

Seeing his boss surrounded by a bunch of foreign women, one of the bodyguards, Old Huang, sidled up to Old Ma and whispered, “Does the chairman need our help?”

Old Ma helplessly glared at his old comrade: “Help with what? They’re not trying to harm the chairman. Watch the surroundings!”

“Okay.”

Since the head bodyguard said so, the others naturally had no objections, and they all began to focus on the surroundings.

As for Zhao Fusheng, surrounded by those chirping women...

Ahem.

The boss doesn’t get many chances to enjoy this; everyone should silently wish him well.

In fact, at that moment, Zhao Fusheng wasn’t really paying attention to what those women were thinking.

He wasn’t a naive young man; he naturally understood what they meant—they were just trying to latch onto someone powerful, given his status.

A super-rich man!

A super-rich man worth tens of billions!

In some people’s minds, even if they just had a fling with him, even if it only made the entertainment gossip magazines, it would probably be hot enough to make a big profit.

Not to mention, if they happened to have his child, they’d be set for life.

In fact, everyone has that kind of thought.

The only question is whether he would take the bait.

Would he?

Of course not.

Zhao Fusheng hadn’t even chosen to sleep with Scarlett Johansson when she offered herself; how could he be tempted by others?

Maybe these actresses and celebrities were indeed beautiful, but for Zhao Fusheng, they weren’t his type.

There are plenty of beautiful women; if he had to have an affair with every one of them, Zhao Fusheng felt he might exhaust himself to death.

So he just politely greeted and chatted with each one.

“Mr. Zhao, is this big party of yours to celebrate your investment in Uber?”

Charlize Theron, the South African beauty, asked Zhao Fusheng with a smile.

She wasn’t really interested in Zhao Fusheng himself, but rather in his business.

This woman was a tough cookie; Zhao Fusheng knew that well.

Charlize Theron is South African. When her father was drunk and tried to assault her, her mother killed him. It was because of this that she chose to leave for America.

After a decade of obscurity in Hollywood, she finally became a true A-list actress.

How she endured those ten years goes without saying.

So this woman was no pushover.

Hearing her question, Zhao Fusheng chuckled and nodded: “Miss Theron is also interested in investments?”

“Me?”

Charlize Theron smiled and nodded: “Yes, I’m just curious.”

“Uber is a very good internet company.”

Zhao Fusheng smiled and patiently explained to her: “Among the internet companies I’ve invested in, Uber ranks in the top three, second only to Facebook and Alibaba. To be honest, I’m very optimistic about this company’s prospects, even though it will be a long process.”

“A long process?”

Charlize Theron was a bit surprised, not quite understanding what Zhao Fusheng meant.

After all, for her, this kind of thing involved areas outside her field; she had to rely on her own intuition to grasp his words.

Zhao Fusheng laughed and explained: “Investing in a company is like investing in stocks. Stocks have short-term, medium-term, and long-term distinctions. Short-term stocks might require buying and selling within days. Medium-term stocks take a bit longer. But for long-term stocks, you don’t need to worry about a few cents or dollars in cost, because you’re looking at the company’s future development, just like Mr. Buffett invested in Coca-Cola back then.”

In the years before 1987, Warren Buffett had been studying Coca-Cola. He believed that Coca-Cola’s strong brand formed a lasting competitive advantage, and with excellent management led by Roberto Goizueta, this capital-light business model would generate very strong cash flow in the future.

Buffett himself loved sweets and was very fond of drinking Coke.

Before cherry Coke appeared, he often poured syrup into Pepsi.

When he was a child, he was very interested in bottle caps. He found that among the discarded caps around vending machines, the proportion of Coca-Cola caps was astonishingly high, over 80%.

Buffett carefully studied Coca-Cola’s annual reports for the past eighty years. He discovered that Coca-Cola, which sold syrup to bottling companies, had gross margins of over 80%, much like a software company.

The company’s future success depended on how much Coke it could sell worldwide; the more it sold, the more it earned. He found that in the past eighty years, there wasn’t a single year when sales hadn’t increased!

The major catastrophic events in those eighty years included: World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, countless economic recessions, and being driven out of the Indian market in the 1970s.

Throughout this entire process, Coca-Cola grew every year.

To be honest, Zhao Fusheng asked himself: if he were in that situation, he would probably have made the same choice as Buffett.

The reasoning was simple: suppose he was going to a place for ten years, and before leaving, he planned to arrange an investment, knowing that once made, it couldn’t be changed during his absence.

So, what would be the most suitable investment?

The answer was only one.

The business must be simple and easy to understand, must have proven sustainability over many years, and must have good prospects.

So in 1987, when Coca-Cola was in trouble, taking advantage of the market crash, Buffett bought nearly 600 million shares of Coca-Cola.

This investment nearly tripled within two years.

Then in 1994, he continued to increase his holdings, investing up to $1.3 billion.

By 1998, the value of this investment was $13.4 billion.

And Zhao Fusheng knew that in a few more years, excluding dividends, the American stock god’s profit from Coca-Cola would exceed $15 billion.

This was a crazy number.

This story had long been widely circulated in America.

The people present naturally knew it.

When Charlize Theron heard Zhao Fusheng’s words, her expression was quite surprised.

“Dear sir, do you mean that Uber has the chance to become the next Coca-Cola?”

Looking at Zhao Fusheng, she asked slowly.

But Zhao Fusheng laughed and waved his hand: “Miss Theron, don’t misunderstand. I didn’t mean that.”

Of course, he didn’t mean that.

Investing in internet companies is different from investing in stocks.

Although in principle, they have commonalities.

“Could you explain more clearly?” Charlize Theron handed Zhao Fusheng a glass of champagne, looking eager to learn.

She really had no intention of currying favor or getting into Zhao Fusheng’s bed.

After all, she was already a top-tier Hollywood actress, and this woman had a natural distrust of men.

In her view, no matter how rich a man was, it was safer to save money herself.

Those women who constantly dreamed of marrying into wealth were idiots, not knowing that the richer a man was, the more cautious he often was. Their wariness of women was beyond anyone’s imagination.

Take this man in front of her: if he wanted, he could probably win over any Hollywood woman, but did he?

He didn’t have that intention at all.

Even a seductress like Scarlett Johansson, who offered herself, couldn’t move him. Among those present today, who could guarantee they were more attractive to men than Scarlett Johansson?

Since she had no such intention, it was better to behave normally and at least learn something useful from him.

That would be beneficial for her future development.

That was Charlize Theron’s life philosophy.

It had to be said, she successfully caught Zhao Fusheng’s attention.

Or rather, this Oscar-winning actress from South Africa made Zhao Fusheng find her very interesting.

He hadn’t met such an interesting person in a long time.

“Uber, this software company, is probably similar to Twitter.”

Seeing that there were still people listening, Zhao Fusheng smiled and said calmly: “This kind of software is something many people use in their daily lives. For example, we might need to take a taxi at some point, or share our feelings with friends. That’s the soil for Twitter and Uber to thrive, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“It’s too hard to get a taxi in New York.”

“Same in Los Angeles, and it’s also congested.”

The people around looked at each other and soon empathized.

For these people living in big cities, not everyone had their own private jet. Often, whether going out to shoot a film or doing other things, they faced the problem Zhao Fusheng mentioned.

And as Zhao Fusheng said, if this software could provide enough convenience for their lives, they wouldn’t mind using it.

“So, Mr. Zhao, do you mean this company will develop like Twitter?”

Hearing Zhao Fusheng mention Twitter, Charlize Theron was a bit surprised.

Even if she was ignorant, she knew that Twitter, as an internet company Zhao Fusheng had invested in, was already valued at over ten billion dollars before going public.

Like Facebook, it was hailed as one of the most valuable unicorn companies in Silicon Valley.

And now, Zhao Fusheng was saying that this company called Uber had the same development potential as Twitter!

Oh my God!

Wasn’t this a joke?

When had internet companies developed so well!

But she had to admit that what Zhao Fusheng said did make some sense.

If it were someone else saying this, including Charlize Theron, many actresses might think that person was exaggerating or talking nonsense.

But the problem was, it was Zhao Fusheng who said it.

This mysterious rich man, known as the Oriental Magician, had invested in both Facebook and Twitter years ago.

And now, the value of those two companies was evident to all.

Even when he sold Twitter back then, no one thought it was a wrong decision.

After all, although Twitter had developed well, Zhao Fusheng had obtained over three billion dollars in cash and shares of Samsung Group from that deal, which was very helpful for his business development in Asia.

“Thank you.”

Charlize Theron nodded to Zhao Fusheng, expressing gratitude for his explanation.

Zhao Fusheng smiled, nodded to Scarlett Johansson, and left.

Although he wanted to stay, he had to admit that with a different status came different actions.

If it were five years ago, Zhao Fusheng might have done so, but now, he naturally couldn’t spend time chatting with a group of actresses, even though he knew they all liked talking to him.

“Chairman, Robert Iger is here.”

At that moment, Liu Yiming came to Zhao Fusheng’s side and said softly.

“Is he alone?”

Zhao Fusheng asked, puzzled.

Obviously, Robert Iger hadn’t come alone; otherwise, Liu Yiming wouldn’t have specifically come to tell him.

It seemed Robert Iger had brought someone Zhao Fusheng didn’t want to see.