《The Illuminating Heroes》Chapter Four - An Interview
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“I am here with the reclusive billionaire, Mr. Kevin Sterling, for our exclusive interview!”
Why am I smiling in a chair across from a young reporter? Well, part of it was my weakness to a nice pair of legs, but the main reason was to increase my influence. Young people often gravitate to people that they view as good and powerful, so if you put that image forward- you can profit greatly from it. It will also help with some of my more humanitarian efforts, but then I had long ago tied the two of those together.
“I am glad to be here Kate,” I flash a smile and make certain to keep my eyes on hers. Another group of people I wouldn’t sleep with was the press, you never knew what they would dig up and worse, I talked in my sleep. “It is certainly nice to have time to sit down for a time!”
That was true. The world keeps spinning and as technology advances it only moves faster.
“Well I am quite happy you were able to make time,” her smile was more blinding than mine was… Who the hell did the dentistry for news agencies? “But since that time is limited, how about I dive into my first question?”
“I am all ears.”
“I wanted to ask about your recent acquisition of multiple video streaming and art websites,” Kate glanced down at her note and shifted. Damn, her legs were as nice as my secretaries, and I swear she is doing this to distract me. “Some people have concerns that you are attempting to create a monopoly of online services, the E.U. in particular is said to be investigating, how would you respond to that?”
Well, I can’t comment on the legal side of things, but of course the E.U. is investigating. They won’t pull their nose out of my business for anything, and damn it is annoying. On the other hand…
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“Not so much a monopoly as a one stop web service,” I laugh, and I am even telling the truth. “Formerly, video hosting and streaming sites were separate, drawn art and written art sites were different things- and then the way these people were supported changed hands multiple times and involved multiple companies!”
“Say you have a video maker on a certain site who is supported by donations on another site,” I’ll explain this in detail, since it is the key to my next move. Or at least people thinking well of it is. “To support that person, money must move from the bank to the donation site and then to the maker. And now imagine that this video maker also streams on a different website and has to work to make that content become available on the primary site. You can see how things get complicated and split up really quickly right?”
“So my idea was, what if all the sites involved in that chain belonged to one company?” I lean forward and smile, this is one of my favorite ideas after all. “I bought popular web novel, art, video, video streaming, donation sites, and now I am having all these services integrated into my search and social networking sites, and even to the bank I own!”
“So in the future, these will all be in one place and easy to support?” Kate was trying to keep her face straight, but her eyes had widened slightly. I suppose it is hard to not be a little shocked when someone casually says they spent a couple billion dollars without even noting the price. “That is quite fascinating- do you think the people using this site will support this?”
“Well, since everything is streamlined they stand to make more money and obtain larger audiences.” True, even if the lion’s share of that new money will end up in my pocket without anybody noticing. “Further, it means that creators who work in several mediums will be able to show off their creations far easier than before. So it is a win for everyone, and a big win for a number of people.”
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“I see, well that is truly interesting. My next question…”
This was going to be a long interview, and at this point I knew she was shifting to try and get my attention. Why did I have to be so weak to a nice pair of legs?
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