I am Hollywood

[Chapter 551: You Are a Very Interesting Person]

Located about five kilometers from Los Angeles International Airport, Eric arranged for his luggage to be sent back to Malibu and, along with Jeffrey, made his way to Firefly Studios.

August was typically one of the busiest times for Hollywood film companies. Even though the summer blockbuster season was winding down, many small to mid-sized productions began entering their official production phases for the year's end, while big-budget films for the next summer were getting underway too. Fall television shows were also starting to shoot during this time. Sitting in the limousine as it drove through the lot, Eric witnessed the bustling activity at the studio. Various vehicles filled the parking lots alongside the main street, with spaces overcrowded.

Once they got out of the car, Jeffrey walked alongside Eric out of the parking area, commenting, "At this rate, the ten sound stages we have just won't be enough. We discussed this at the weekly meeting last week, and decided we should expand westward and build at least five more stages. The final proposal will come through in a few days, just in time for your input."

"Yeah, we'll tackle that later," Eric responded, nodding his head. He remembered that Warner Burbank had over twenty sound stages. Although they varied in size, the number at Firefly did seem a bit lacking.

However, Eric refrained from giving his opinion outright. He figured it was best to wait until the final expansion proposal was presented. After all, his fleeting thoughts couldn't compare to the professional strategy development plans from Firefly's team. When it came to managing Firefly, Eric typically only offered negative feedback when the company's plans diverged starkly from industry developments he remembered. For details he wasn't familiar with and wouldn't disrupt the bigger picture, he usually stayed out of it. No company could avoid making mistakes entirely during its growth.

As they crossed the concrete path along the parking lot to a small square adjacent to Digital Domain, Jeffrey said, "They've been shooting Interview with the Vampire here recently. Want to check it out?"

Eric glanced over at the busy soundstage and shook his head. "Not right now. I'll find time to review some of the footage already shot."

According to the plan, Firefly was set to release Interview with the Vampire, Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, and Pulp Fiction by year-end. For successful commercial films in his previous life, unless he is particularly interested in them, Eric usually directed them according to the original version in his memory. For the films he wasn't directing himself, his focus remained on the script and post-production editing, while he looked for the right creative team that matched the original's tone. Generally, unless a producer and director were acting out of line together, he wouldn't interfere too much -- something he hadn't yet encountered.

Looking at the box office results from past films like The others and the collaboration with Sony on Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Eric found his approach effective. With Hollywood's well-defined industrial processes, executing this plan faced minimal resistance. There were rarely directors strong enough to claim full control over a film, and he felt comfortable handing over projects to someone like James Cameron, who had the capability to manage.

In contrast to the noise coming from the soundstages, Digital Domain seemed to operate with order. Eric and Jeffrey chatted while strolling towards the administration building, exchanging greetings with both familiar and unfamiliar employees. They arrived at Eric's personal office, which, due to his absence, was notably clean but lacked a certain liveliness.

Eric's assistant team was based at Burbank headquarters, so there was no permanent secretary at the studio. However, the studio's general manager quickly sent over a secretary to help Eric and Jeffrey with coffee duties.

Settling into the office, Eric's mobile phone began to ring periodically, mostly from senior staff at Firefly, along with a few greeting calls from various contacts who had learned of Eric's return to Los Angeles. However, everyone seemed to understand he had just gotten off a long flight and opted not to disturb him.

As Jeffrey watched Eric sit in a leather chair and efficiently boot up the office computer, he finished his coffee brought by the secretary. After exchanging a few casual words, Jeffrey got up and said, "Since there's not much going on, I'll head out. You just got back, so don't work too hard. Make sure you rest up."

"I'll walk you down," Eric replied and accompanied Jeffrey to the elevator before returning to his office.

...

Despite the rapid growth of the internet, Hotmail's online email service was still limited to the U.S. This meant that once Eric left the country, he couldn't keep in touch promptly via email, which had been quite the frustration during his time in Europe and Japan.

After seeing Jeffrey off, Eric connected to the internet and quickly opened Internet Explorer, which brought up the Yahoo homepage.

Since its launch late last year, Eric had given many suggestions to Yahoo's tech team based on his prior experiences. Following his input and the current capabilities in software and hardware, the Yahoo team had gone ahead and revamped the homepage once again.

What he saw was Yahoo's fresh new look. On the left side, the elements included the Hotmail email login, the Yahoo news section, and the Yahoo forum section, while the right side displayed a navigation page with search features.

He remembered seeing Yahoo's homepage back in 1995 in his university's computer lab. What struck him the most were the four bright red and yellow spiral icons flanking the Yahoo brand logo. The design came off as particularly flashy, bordering on ridiculous in hindsight.

Now that he had the opportunity to shape things, Eric insisted on simplicity, using simple icon shortcuts.

The news and forums were both products of Eric's suggestions. He envisioned that the news section would expand significantly, ultimately transforming Yahoo into a primary news portal.

However, given the current user base of the internet, Yahoo's news wouldn't compete with printed or televised media just yet, as it remained in experimental stages. Yahoo was principally focused on forum development at the moment and, to rapidly grow its user base, it integrated Hotmail users without creating a separate database. While this faced some dissent within the Yahoo team, Eric, as owner, had pushed for this integration. After a few years of growth, he planned to consolidate both companies, for with the asset of Hotmail, it made no sense for Yahoo to maintain its separate email services.

Even if Yahoo's news section was still emerging, it had garnered various media partnerships, allowing it to deliver far more information than what average users would see in several daily newspapers. Although some information lagged, it was a perfect fit for Eric, who hadn't kept up with American current events in quite a while.

As Eric scrolled through the news section, he quickly found information about Hollywood that piqued his interest.

Aside from the numerous box office updates on Jurassic Park, the biggest news in Hollywood over the past year was the bidding war between Viacom and QVC for Paramount.

After an initial round of bidding yielded no results earlier in the year, there had been several minor confrontations until Viacom's Sumner Redstone redirected his focus towards acquiring Blockbuster, the largest video rental company in America, thereby pausing negotiations with QVC.

From recent articles, it appeared Redstone had nearly finalized negotiations with Blockbuster, and it was expected that by September, the acquisition might be completed. If Viacom secured Blockbuster, they would greatly enhance their chances of acquiring Paramount thanks to the substantial cash flow from the video rental business and the leverage gained from this asset-based financing.

On the other hand, Barry Diller of QVC was not letting off his pursuit of Paramount; however, one of QVC's shareholders, Tele-Communications, began merger talks with another telecommunications giant, AT&T. If AT&T managed to acquire Tele-Communications, it would effectively reduce QVC's support for acquiring Paramount by half. Consequently, most media outlets were skeptical about Diller's prospects with Paramount.

After reading this news, Eric's thoughts drifted elsewhere. He recalled how Viacom's massive purchase of Paramount for over ten billion dollars ended up being eroded a few years later by the rise of a company named Netflix, which caused both Viacom and Blockbuster to significantly lose market value and business.

Thinking of Netflix made Eric smile with a sense of dark humor, but there was no hurry. To establish Netflix, the first step was developing convenient online payment options, which in turn required e-commerce to flourish.

Everything had to evolve step by step.

Eric sighed at this thought, closing the Yahoo news page and switching to the Yahoo forum. Due to network limitations, Yahoo's forum only offered specific topic sections for now. Users wanting to create their own forums had to set them up independently. Regardless, with the existing Hotmail user base, Yahoo's forum was the largest online community at the time.

Online forums were a novel concept for many internet users. Eric casually browsed a few sections and noticed users were quite active, but he also spotted some minor issues. Users were identified solely by their nicknames, without any other tags.

From recollection, a straightforward user identification system typically involved a ranking system. Implementing such an approach would increase user engagement significantly -- much like in online games where lower-ranking accounts are often less cared for while higher-ranking users tend to stick around.

After giving it some thought, Eric opened his email to draft this suggestion to the teams at Yahoo and Hotmail, considering that since the forum operated on the Hotmail user base, any new features would need cooperation between both sides.

Even though Eric had been away from the U.S., his inbox still had accumulated dozens of unread emails from multiple sources. Typical users faced limits on storage, but that certainly didn't apply to Eric.

After composing and sending off his recent idea, Eric turned to tackle the existing emails piled up in his inbox.

Just as he was finishing up, he suddenly heard the alert for a new incoming email.

He looked and saw it was from Steve Mitnick, the current head at Hotmail.

Curious, Eric opened it to find a single line: "What do you mean by level of user engagement?"

Eric realized the concepts of 'engagement' and 'level' might make sense to him but could be perplexing to others.

After a moment's thought, Eric quickly typed out a brief explanatory response.

A moment later, another reply appeared from Steve Mitnick: "Interesting theory; you're quite an interesting person as well."

Eric replied, "If you're complimenting me, thank you."

Seconds later, a new message came in: "Of course I am! For us, you're like Jesus."

Eric was taken aback. "Why do you say that?"

Steve Mitnick responded, "Because you've invested over $50 million into three companies without any clear profit prospects. That's a substantial amount of money, and previously we lacked the funds to bring many ideas to life. Now, it's different for us. So, for us, you really feel like Jesus."

Unable to help himself, Eric chuckled. "I'm just investing in the future."

Steve Mitnick replied, "Can you see the future?"

Eric said, "I can't specifically answer that, but I can see one future now."

Steve Mitnick asked, "Oh, what is it?"

Eric explained, "Real-time communication software. If we could develop a chat tool, then we wouldn't need to rely on emails to communicate anymore. Do you think that's a feasible idea?"

There was a moment of silence from the other end before Steve Mitnick responded again: "Great idea; plus, it's not a high-barrier technology. Give me $5 million, and I'll have a working product for you in three months."

Eric quickly replied, "No problem. By the way, you're also quite an interesting person. Let's meet up sometime."

Steve Mitnick responded, "Sounds good."

*****

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