Goose Factory's public opinion department naturally caught wind of it as well. As Jenny read the email from her subordinate, she thought, Is this your solution?
It wasn't much of a solution, either.
Lei Jun had enormous traffic and a fairly positive public image, but he also had plenty of rivals. Quite a few netizens disliked Xiaomi's attempts to tie Xiaomi to him personally, and plenty were trying to disparage him through disparaging Xiaomi.
Lei Jun couldn't use his own credibility to turn this around.
"What did they offer Lei Jun? Don't tell me Lei Jun took Kuala Lumpur Affairs 2 off their hands?" Jenny couldn't figure it out no matter how hard she tried.
It was actually nothing much. Lei Jun had provided a total of 250 million in the form of guarantees, loans, and investments to Chen Yuanguang and Lin Jia.
Since part of it was investment, the returns were difficult to calculate.
Lei Jun's Weibo was like a signal. That evening, the Gates Foundation released a statement, roughly saying that its Global Health Project had indeed invited Chen Yuanguang to join as Chief Scientist, with an annual salary of five million US dollars.
Then Bill Gates reposted the tweet and commented, "The person you had been discussing was YuanKuang Chen. Yesterday, he called and asked me to help clarify things, and only then did I learn that he had been widely questioned in China's public opinion sphere. I did not know that YuanKuang Chen was Light Chen. Light Chen's position and salary were personally approved by me. His outstanding contributions in chemistry and biology are plain for all to see. The Gates Foundation needs talent like him. I invited him again during our call yesterday, and we are still waiting for his response."
Lei Jun's words couldn't settle the matter once and for all, but Gates could. The Gates Foundation's official response could.
The situation instantly reversed. All the insults and doubts beneath Chen Yuanguang's Weibo were drowned out by spectators looking for entertainment.
"?"
"Say something!"
"Still think it's funny?"
"Just because you can't do it doesn't mean others can't."
Then supportive comments were pushed to the top. The number of comments exceeded two hundred thousand, which was simply outrageous.
"Holy shit, God of Light!"
"Origin God, activate!"
"This is insane. We're all studying bio, chem, environmental science, and materials science, so why are domestic salaries only 3,500?"
"Five million. Dollars. Annual salary. I suddenly don't recognize these words."
"This has to be the highest salary in history, right? And it's cash without stock options."
Lei Jun also posted on Weibo: "Didn't lie to you all, did I? I saw Mr. Gates's invitation letter to my junior brother, signed by hand. I even specifically took a photo of it."
For the image attached to that post, Lei Jun very deliberately used the Xiaomi phone camera logo.
A top-tier marketing master would never miss any detail in life that could be marketed.
Lei Jun properly rode the wave of attention, while Goose Factory Pictures was numb. "Light, YuanKuang—we got screwed over by the netizens' translation!" Guo Wei no longer had the energy to complain.
After the Gates Foundation's and Gates's responses were brought back into China, he immediately slipped away to check the Chinese netizens' replies beneath the earlier tweet. Then he discovered that those netizens had used their phones' built-in screenshot translation function, directly translating Yuanguang into YuanKuang.
Yet Chen Yuanguang used Light Chen on both his Google Scholar profile and his published papers.
Only then did he realize it. Damn it, if they put YuanKuang up there, how the hell would the Gates Foundation know who that was?
They had been thoroughly screwed over this time.
At around nine that evening, everyone in Goose Factory Pictures' conference room was silent. Guo Wei scrolled through his phone, watching silent netizens go after the ones who had insulted and questioned Chen Yuanguang before, watching netizens flood Zhifei Biological's Weibo with clown comments.
He thought, Maybe we're clowns too. Chen Yuanguang had already gotten the offer but never revealed it. In his eyes, we who packaged Kuala Lumpur Affairs 2 and sold it to him must be clowns too.
Jenny said weakly, "It's all my responsibility. I didn't think of this possibility. I'll go explain it to Mark.
David, have Legal inspect the contract we signed with Lin Jia and their film investment company again. Even if there are only tiny points we can exploit, compile them all."
Jenny knew that she had been completely defeated this round—utterly crushed. The complete reversal of public opinion, Chen Yuanguang's soaring reputation, Kuala Lumpur Affairs 2's imminent release—everything indicated that Kuala Lumpur Affairs would only earn more at the box office than the first film.
With Guo Fan directing and Chen Yuanguang's original work as its foundation, quality wasn't a problem. And with this windfall of traffic in marketing, anyone could turn it into a hit.
Not to mention that all the investment now belonged to Chen Yuanguang and Lin Jia. Chen Yuanguang would only promote it even more vigorously.
Jenny was beginning to question her life. She couldn't even beat an undergraduate student. "No, this isn't my problem. Who could have imagined that the Gates Foundation really offered him an annual salary of five million dollars? I'd never even heard of that. This was a completely unconventional event."
"Jenny, transfer departments. I know this isn't your fault, but I'm not the only one making decisions internally. We sold this franchise for 280 million. This was probably the worst deal Goose Factory Pictures has ever made.
I can't protect you." Mark's cold words made Jenny's heart turn icy. A transfer was even worse than being fired; it was dismissal in disguise.
Sometimes, facts were the best weapon. With the facts laid out before them, no matter how much netizens or influencers refused to believe it, they had to admit that Chen Yuanguang's offer of a five-million-dollar annual salary was real.
The sudden reversal of public opinion turned many people into clowns, while also giving the media endless material to talk about.
"An annual salary of five million US dollars isn't the highest salary in China, nor is it the highest salary ever earned by a Chinese person. Many athletes and executives earn more than that, but this is absolutely the highest starting salary ever offered to a Chinese campus recruit."
"I used to envy the salary levels at Cosmic Machine, but I don't anymore. With God of Light's example before us, I believe bio, chem, environmental science, and materials science will find their own way forward."
"Give me a break. There has only been one Origin God in all these years. Computer science hands out offers worth five or six hundred thousand a year in bulk every year."
"Will Origin God join the Gates Foundation? If it were me, I'd definitely be tempted."
"Probably. Bill Gates has been so sincere, and this treatment is top-tier."
Once everything had been settled, Chen Yuanguang prepared to use the contracts in his hands to secure a loan, then start a company and build a laboratory over in Caohejing.
Lin Jia, meanwhile, waited for the film's release. She felt she was still too inexperienced. In negotiations, she had not had the slightest ability to fight back against an old fox like Lei Jun.
When they approached Lei Jun, they had wanted to use a guarantee, asking him to help guarantee a loan of 250 million yuan. The profit from guarantees had a ceiling; at most, it could earn 1.5% a year, or 4.2 million yuan.
Xiaomi Finance, under Lei Jun, had a guarantee license. It was equivalent to Lin Jia and the others borrowing money from a bank, with Xiaomi Finance providing the guarantee. With Xiaomi Finance as guarantor, and the state requiring banks to loosen lending during the epidemic, the bank interest rate could not exceed 4%.
With the guarantee fee and loan interest combined, the total cost of funds could be kept to around 6%.
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