Simon was chatting with his Female Assistant when Sophia walked over from not far away.
Noticing the worry in Sophia's expression, Simon asked, "Is there a problem?"
Sophia stood beside Simon and nodded, "The editor-in-chief of the French edition of Vogue, Colombe Pringle, had agreed to attend this party with me, but suddenly called this evening to say she had a temporary matter and couldn't make it. Paris-Match magazine just called, and the eight-page special feature we had agreed upon has been cancelled".
Music started playing in the hall at this time.
The fashion show on the T-stage began. This was a performance-oriented show, themed after Audrey Hepburn's Roman Holiday from that year. Gregory Peck, the male lead of Roman Holiday, who was about to be awarded the Cannes Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award, was also specially invited to attend.
Simon looked at the luxurious clothes, beautiful decorations, and the revelry not far away, and pressed, "Anything else?"
"Claudia Schiffer, Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, and Christy Turlington, among others, have all declined our party invitation. Moreover, this party isn't the most important thing; I'm worried that for Fashion Week in September, we might not be able to get these models to participate in the show".
Simon wasn't surprised to hear Sophia mention these situations.
The 'cake' in the luxury goods industry is also limited. Gucci's aggressive resurgence in recent months naturally made other luxury brands feel threatened.
Gucci's recovery in North America didn't encounter any obstacles due to Daenerys Entertainment's support, but in France, where luxury brands are concentrated, local tyrants like Dior, Chanel, Hermès, and Louis Vuitton clearly wouldn't allow Gucci, an outsider, to dominate their territory.
Waving to a passing waiter, Simon had two glasses of red wine brought over, one for himself and one for each of the two women beside him, before continuing to Sophia, "So, what do you plan to do?"
Sophia took a sip of red wine, thought for a moment, and said, "If it's just a problem here in France, it's not a big deal".
"You handle the media. As for Fashion Week in September, I just saw Cindy Crawford and Helena Christensen. If those supermodels you mentioned aren't willing to participate in our show, then find others. It's impossible for all models to refuse. Besides, it's nothing more than increasing exposure. We can invite more celebrities then, and the effect will be the same. This is precisely our advantage".
After the fashion show, a charity auction followed.
The auction items were a batch of the latest Gucci shoulder bags carried by the models during the show. The proceeds would be donated to a charity organization dedicated to solving famine in Africa. Simon hadn't heard the name of this organization, but he felt the direction was right, so he bid $200,000 for an elegantly designed white shoulder bag.
After the charity auction, the party for the evening was drawing to a close.
Although some French media temporarily cancelled their cooperation with Gucci, many media outlets across Europe still reported on the Gucci Night event early the next morning.
Simon clearly understood his mascot mission. If he only showed his face at the party without bringing any benefits to the guests who came specifically for him, they wouldn't show up next time. Therefore, some entertainment media also timely published news about Simon Westeros and a certain celebrity having a pleasant conversation at the Gucci Night party, suggesting possible future collaborations.
Releasing such news was not just a gimmick.
Simon had vaguely had similar thoughts while still filming 'Batman' in Melbourne.
Hollywood's expansion into the global market in the coming years would inevitably lead to resistance from overseas film markets.
If Daenerys Entertainment could invest in and produce a batch of overseas films each year, it could not only rapidly enrich its film library resources but also gain the goodwill of European, Australian, and even Asian filmmakers. Moreover, by controlling a large number of film projects and affecting the career prospects of many filmmakers, it could also bring a hidden power to Daenerys Entertainment.
Furthermore, compared to film investors who often lose everything due to a lack of foresight, Simon's prophetic advantage from his two lives could ensure he accurately selected projects that would bring profits.
Daenerys Entertainment was still in the accumulation stage, and Simon was not in a hurry. However, the Australian branch investing in Peter Jackson's new film, and potentially signing a few more directors this time, was essentially laying the groundwork for these ideas in advance.
Having completed his mascot mission, Simon left Cannes and flew to Geneva, located at the border of France and Switzerland.
Geneva is Switzerland's second-largest city, and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), jointly invested in by more than 20 countries, is located here. Tim Berners-Lee was a computer engineer at the institute at this time.
Coincidentally, Simon's idea to find Tim Berners-Lee came at a very precise moment.
According to the information Simon received, Tim Berners-Lee first submitted a project proposal to CERN's senior management in March of this year, suggesting connecting all laboratory computers within the institute through hypertext technology. Once this project was completed, it could even be expanded globally.
Tim Berners-Lee's proposal received support from many, but because CERN is a particle physics institute, the senior management did not approve the project. However, Lee did not give up. After two months of re-preparing the proposal, he was recently ready to resubmit his motion, and that's when Simon approached him.
Simon initially found Tim Berners-Lee through a paper he published on Hypertext Markup Language.
After arriving in Europe, Jennifer scheduled a meeting with Tim Berners-Lee, and the revised proposal in his hands was directly transferred to Simon.
It's heartbreaking to say, but Tim Berners-Lee, revered as the 'Father of the Internet' in the industry, spent several months preparing this proposal, and most of the budget was just for purchasing an NeXT computer. Yes, that's the high-performance personal computer Jobs developed specifically for universities and research institutions after leaving Apple.
The city of Geneva is situated at the southern end of the vast Lake Geneva.
As one of Europe's most liveable cities, Simon naturally didn't miss Geneva when purchasing properties. His residence here is located on the picturesque shores of Lake Geneva in the northern suburbs of the city, covering over 3 acres and boasting a private marina.
Arriving in Geneva on a Saturday morning, Simon spent the next three full days discussing various internet concepts with Tim Berners-Lee.
May 23rd, Tuesday.
After finishing her work in Cannes, Sophia arrived from Cannes in the afternoon. Walking into the villa's living room in this lakeside mansion, she saw Simon and a man in his thirties talking rapidly in front of a whiteboard, which was covered with various terms and symbols she couldn't understand at all.
The living room was cluttered with all sorts of books and material at this time, along with two open computers. Although these items weren't chaotically arranged, they seemed out of place with the surrounding luxurious decor.
Jennifer was by the sofa, overseeing a printer that continuously spat out documents.
Sophia noticed Jennifer and roughly understood why the living room maintained basic order.
She walked over and greeted the Female Assistant. Simon also saw her arrival but only gave a nod before continuing his discussion with the Middle-aged Man.
"Creating such a website can be used to list a directory of websites joining the internet, making it easier for users to intuitively see the content of the internet. In addition, we can also provide forum services through this website for users to communicate directly. Of course, later we can add more services, such as search, communication, and so on".
"According to your idea, Simon, we must continue to promote commercialization, otherwise we will not be able to support the operation of such a website. We have discussed this issue for three days. I am not against commercial operations, but if so, competitors will definitely join in, creating different standards and leading to the fragmentation of the internet, which is inconsistent with our goal of connecting the world".
"Anyone with a bit of foresight can see that the fragmentation of the network is not in anyone's interest. Even if the situation you mentioned occurs, all parties will eventually reach a compromise. Moreover, Tim, I believe we are fully capable of preventing this from happening because we currently have no competitors. It's like building a road; if many people realize a goal and start building roads together, out of their own interests, many different roads will certainly appear. However, right now, only we want to build this road. If we can build the road before others react, and provide a considerable degree of free passage, I believe there won't be many people willing to spend money and effort to build another road".
"..."
"..."
Sophia listened to Simon's conversation, half-understanding, and curiously picked up a document Jennifer had just organized.
Looking down, it was a development plan for an interpreted scripting language. After patiently reading a few pages, she roughly understood that this scripting language was used to add dynamic functions to HTML web pages.
As for what an HTML web page was, Sophia only had a vague understanding.
Simon and Lee continued their discussion for over an hour until the whiteboard was covered with notes. As evening approached, they finally stopped.
After being formally introduced to Sophia, Tim Berners-Lee left the lakeside villa with a thick stack of documents compiled by Jennifer. After three days of discussions, he and Simon had finalized many things and he had agreed to resign from his job to preside over the operations of the new company to be established in North America.
Ygritte.
This is the name of the internet technology company Simon is about to establish.
Ygritte, Ygritte.
Following Daenerys, Melisandre, and Cersei, Ygritte will also become the fourth 'woman' under Westeros Company.
Simon has even thought of a slogan for this company, similar to Google's 'Don't be evil'.
That's right.
'You Know Nothing!'
Such a versatile slogan will definitely not need to be shamelessly removed later if one wants to do evil.
As for the meaning, when Ygritte Company rises, people full of romantic idealism will always be able to come up with various reasonable interpretations. Simon will certainly not explain that it's just a certain red-haired wildling woman accusing her lover of being dull.
In the finalized plan, Simon's Westeros Company will invest $10 million, holding 90% of Ygritte Company's shares. As the head of this company, Simon grants Tim Berners-Lee 10% of the shares. Based on the investment ratio, this 10% stake is worth a million dollars.
In fact, as long as Ygritte Company can achieve Simon's expected goals, even if Tim Berners-Lee's shares are diluted during subsequent financing, it will definitely be a very substantial fortune in the future.
According to the plan discussed over the previous three days, Tim Berners-Lee will resign from CERN and head to San Francisco to oversee the establishment and operation of Ygritte Company.
Simon actually hoped that Ygritte Company could be located in Los Angeles, but this is not feasible. Backed by Silicon Valley, the company can more conveniently obtain the desired technical and talent support.
The first step for Ygritte Company after its establishment will be to complete the creation of various internet standards based on Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), and to apply for a complete set of internet technology patents in advance, much like Qualcomm's strategy in the 3G era.
Simon does not intend to follow Qualcomm's example of building patent barriers to collect money, at least not in the early stages of internet development. Building patent barriers is merely to gain as much initiative as possible after the internet era rises.
While refining technical standards, Ygritte Company will also start developing two software applications: one for web design, targeting developers, and one a graphical interface browser, targeting ordinary users.
In Simon's plan, the graphical interface browser will always be free. The web design software will be free in the early stage, and later, depending on the situation, it may be divided into a standard free version and a professional paid version.
Earning profits through software sales to maintain Ygritte Company's operations was also a business model that Tim Berners-Lee quite approved of during their discussions. Limited by the constraints of his era, Tim Berners-Lee evidently could not foresee that Simon's casual mention of creating a website directory plan was the absolute priority in his overall scheme.
In the original timeline, the most famous 'website directory' in the early days of the internet was called Yahoo, which had a market value of over $100 billion at the peak of the dot-com bubble.
Moreover, compared to Yahoo, which rapidly declined after the Internet 1.0 era, Simon has already set a sustainable development path for the Ygritte portal website. Instant messaging, email, search engines, no one in this world understands the development potential of these businesses better than Simon.
Even if Ygritte Company falls into the trap of 'big company disease' in the future and cannot flexibly transform, Simon, who can clearly judge industry development trends, can still achieve Westeros Company's 'transformation' in the internet industry through other investments, separate from this company.