classifiedscript Chapter 142 iPod
Chapter 142 iPod
Chapter 142 iPod
Stirring the large pieces of wood and firewood inside the iron bucket, flames instantly spread into the air.
Rodrigo turned and exchanged a glance with Nathan, wondering why Ernst, who was casually fiddling with the roasted venison on his silver fork, had suddenly brought up the parts assembly plant they ran.
If the Ernst and Thede families were the landowners of the Arlington family, then Jason Arlington was the accountant, and the Paul Arlington family served as legal counsel and government officials.
Nathan and Rodrigo were the Arlington family's business representatives.
Nathan's family used to run a car repair shop. In America, repair shops are more or less related to car modifications, so they lived a pretty good life.
Rodrigo, despite his thin build, short stature, and unremarkable appearance, rose to a junior management position at Ford within just two years.
Through his position at Ford, Rodrigo established connections with Ford executives, found Nathan, and the two partnered to open a parts assembly plant.
"Well, I won't make a fortune, but I won't starve either. I'm doing alright," Rodrigo shrugged and said truthfully.
The two men's assembly plant mainly assembles various car mirrors for Ford, such as rearview mirrors and side mirrors.
The factory has a total of more than 30 workers and can assemble 2,000 sets of car mirrors every day.
These products will be sent to Ford's final assembly plant, installed on Ford vehicles, and driven to dealerships across the United States.
"How so?" Rodrigo asked, holding a glass filled with more ice than beer, looking just like one of those drunkards who refuse to drink anymore.
"After deducting union dues, taxes, labor costs, and consulting fees to relevant departments, we can probably still make a profit of three to five hundred thousand US dollars a year." He deliberately blurred some words, but everyone present understood what he meant.
Having a good product is far from enough to secure long-term orders from Ford.
The whiskey delivered to the purchasing department every quarter, the ski vacation vouchers sent to the quality control supervisor at Christmas, and the executive who places the orders for him—these are all necessary costs to maintain the business.
Nathan added, "The factory's main business is rearview mirrors and side mirrors. Now we occasionally take orders for turn signals, so things are slowly getting better."
Rodrigo didn't hide anything and said whatever came to mind: "The reason for this is because of the union. There are many employees, so Ford is willing to give them orders."
Ernst understood what the other party meant; most of his peers were content to be middlemen, importing semi-finished products from Asia and reselling them to local car manufacturers at a markup.
To put it bluntly, they colluded with outsiders and were sucking the blood off Ford.
But Rodrigo and his partner were different; they had their own factory, hired workers, bought equipment, and assembled the equipment themselves.
Despite having a small number of employees, it carries considerable weight in a small city like Auckland.
What is this? This is a ballot, or more specifically, Ford's influence.
"Interested in changing tracks?" Ernst asked, wiping his mouth with a napkin and glancing at the two men.
The two men perked up, realizing that Ernst was trying to help them.
At the age of 25, he controlled an internet company worth billions of dollars and a Hollywood tycoon. Their sense for wealth was unmatched.
"What business?" Nathan's voice was tinged with urgency, and he leaned forward slightly.
Rodrigo didn't speak, but his gaze was fixed on Ernst's face.
Ernst took a bite of the roast meat that Lilysa was holding up for him. When he saw that her mother, Sherry, was afraid of disturbing his business, she gestured for him to take the little one away. Ernst smiled and said it was okay.
After swallowing the food in his mouth, he finally spoke, "It's still assembly, but it's electronic products."
Both men frowned simultaneously. Nathan instinctively looked at Rodrigo, whose eyes were also filled with doubt.
"But we have no experience at all," Nathan said, expressing their shared concern. "Electronic products have much higher precision requirements than car mirrors, right? We don't even recognize all the parts, and our workers probably won't be able to figure them out."
"Experience?" Ernst waved his hand. "The essence of all assembly work is the same: just putting the parts together in order."
"The car mirror needs to be aligned with the clip, and the circuit board needs to be soldered to the correct pins. In the end, it's all work that requires skilled workers."
"We're not asking you to manufacture electronic components, we're asking you to assemble them. Give your workers a month to practice, and they can all become skilled workers."
After thinking for a moment, Ernst said confidently, "Well, it's definitely a multi-million dollar order a year, and it might even go up to a hundred million in the future. But wages in America are too high, I can't offer you that kind of price."
Rodrigo understood. "You want us to build factories in Asia?"
The low cost of labor in Asia is already widely recognized in the United States, leading to the relocation of many factories to Asia. Even in their current assembly plant, most of the parts are sourced from Asia.
Purchasing is different from building a factory. Given the size of the order Ernst provided, building a factory would require a large sum of money.
Money is not a problem; we can definitely take out a loan.
The problem is that the two of them will be burdened with a large amount of debt as a result. Both of them have families, and this is not something that can be decided simply by talking.
The Arlington family is a large family that places great importance on family, and Ernst, a playboy, is a complete anomaly.
The Arlington family's own excuse is, "Well, what can we do? The other party's surname is Garfield."
As for his deceased father, he was a law-abiding and honest man, a fact that was automatically overlooked by them.
There has never been a case of illegitimate children in the history of the Arlington family, nor has there ever been any mention of mistresses.
Ernst's unrestrained and unconventional behavior led them to believe that the Garfield family had inherited this restless gene, which had awakened in his lineage.
However, the two also knew that Ernst would not cheat them; this was a great opportunity, a great opportunity for the two companies' capital to leapfrog.
Sure enough, Ernst's subsequent words proved this point: "If the initial scale is small, I can give you a good price."
"But then other manufacturers followed suit, and profits declined. My suggestion is that you build factories directly in Asia. As for the current workers, you can train them into your own team and send them to work in Asia."
"If you need funds, I can lend them to you."
Ernst will definitely not get involved in low-end manufacturing, but he will definitely get involved in the manufacturing industry.
How did the MP3 audio format develop so rapidly? The answer is the promotion of MP3 players.
However, it would still be a year before the world's first MP3 player was launched.
In March of this year, Moon Jae-hee, then a division manager at Samsung, was inspired on a plane to believe that the MP3 format was suitable for personal stereo devices.
After returning to his home country, he presented his idea to the president of Samsung, but it was not taken seriously.
Moon Jae-hee then left Samsung to join Sehan, and the following year launched the world's first MP3 player, MPman.
F10.
However, this is the normal historical trajectory, and Ernst can't afford to wait.
Even after the MP3 player was launched, for the first three years it was just a fashionable electronic product.
Because its storage capacity was too small, it could initially only store about ten songs, but it gradually improved to be able to store about twenty or thirty songs.
But none of that was enough. The product that truly revolutionized the MP3 music format was Apple's iPod.
An iPod can store five hundred songs, truly enabling freedom of song listening.
If iTunes copied it, Ernst has no reason not to release the iPod as well.
Moreover, he can use this opportunity to suppress Apple.
Steve Jobs' takeover of Apple is a done deal, but Ernst can't let Apple fully recover; in other words, he can't let Apple have the funds to invest in other research and development projects.
Only with a barely thriving Apple could Ernst seize control of the company and make Jobs work for him.
Moreover, there were no major difficulties in developing MP3 players; the challenge with the iPod lay in its 1.8-inch hard drive.
Hard drives of this size have not yet been developed, but if it's only a few GB in capacity, development shouldn't be a big problem.
Currently, the major hard drive manufacturers in the United States are only a handful, such as Seagate, Western Digital, and IBM. Ernst knew that if he went to them seeking cooperation, he would definitely not be taken seriously.
First, the rise of the Internet meant that hard drive manufacturers had no shortage of orders.
Another issue is that the target audience for a 1.8-inch hard drive is too small. It can be said that it was developed for Ernst alone. If his product does not sell well, it will be a failed and useless product.
However, Ernst had a solution: the Asian financial crisis.
Now that we've got the admission ticket, we should make good use of it.
There are many hard drive manufacturers in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. We could acquire one that develops 1.8-inch hard drives, and then wait for MP3 players to popularize the 1.8-inch model.
With a small hard drive, Ernst could directly negotiate mergers and acquisitions with those large hard drive manufacturers and take a stake in them.
Once the hard drive issue is resolved, other components can be procured in large quantities, so Ernst needs an assembly plant to assemble these electronic products for him.
They could have looked in China, but they wanted to keep the money in the family, and seeing the two of them today reminded them of their assembly plant, so they brought it up.
As the saying goes, even if bones are broken, tendons are still connected. If possible, Ernst would definitely lead the branch of his family to a more prosperous future.
It's impossible for a family to rely entirely on its own contributions while everyone else it supports is useless, right?