HBM
The auction house I visited for the first time looked, from the outside, like any other high-end building.
But the moment I stepped inside, the air was different.
My ears went to work first.
Accents and voices of every kind.
Short, dry numbers and whispers.
When I shifted my gaze, giant electronic boards hung on every wall.
I ran them through my phone’s translator: current bids, sale results, and the rest.
There were plenty of small rooms; from the entry-status displays, it seemed auction participants were inside those rooms as well.
“Boss. This way, please.”
Following the auctioneer who had come with me from Korea, we headed to the private seller room.
I took a seat with the lawyer, the insurance planner, and the auctioneer who had handled everything for me since Korea.
By now they called me Boss and kept up something like a boss-and-staff relationship.
Through the heavily tinted glass and the large screen, I could watch the auction unfold.
On the screen, the bidding was already in full swing.
Next up: government public-asset technology license auction.
“They auction licenses, too?”
“Of course. Auctions are far more active in the States than in Korea.”
I was learning for the first time that even licenses went under the hammer.
A little later, the auctioneer’s eyes lit up.
“Looks like it’s coming out now.”
The host handling the proceedings described my RAM in a high, ringing voice.
“Today’s star attraction!”
“The one and only 48,000 MT/s RAM in the world.”
“An item that will redraw the lines of the semiconductor industry!”
After a few more flourishes of praise, they played several videos.
Verification footage shot at MIT, Caltech, and Harvard.
“Lot number 1348. We will now begin the auction of one ultra-high-speed memory device submitted by an anonymous consignor.”
The host’s voice dropped low and steady.
But the tension coiled beneath it was sharp enough to explode at any moment.
“Opening bid… ten million dollars.”
Beep.
The board flickered.
Eleven million dollars.
Someone had kicked it off.
Within three seconds, bids stacked one after another.
“Twelve million, thirteen million, fourteen million…”
I stared through the glass wall and did the math in a hurry.
Ten million dollars… roughly fifteen billion won in our money.
My breath came short.
A woman standing in the broad hall tapped the table.
Looking closer, I spotted people in clothes stamped with the Google logo as well.
Beside them, a middle-aged man never moved a muscle except to click a mouse.
“Twenty million.”
“Twenty-one million.”
“Twenty-two million.”
“Twenty-three million.”
The numbers climbed so fast my head went blank.
Almost three hundred billion won.
A brief silence settled over the auction floor.
But it was only a pause to catch breath, not an end.
“Thirty million dollars.”
“Forty million dollars.”
“Wow! Fifty million dollars!”
“At this moment, a new record for a single component in this auction house’s history.”
Fifty million dollars—how much was that in our money?
I crunched the numbers again and clenched my fists.
In that instant, the door across the way opened.
And out stepped a middle-aged man who looked oddly familiar.
Jeans, leather jacket, hair going a little gray at the temples.
He spoke.
“One hundred million dollars.”
The auction hall froze.
Even the eyes of the auctioneer who had been looking after me since Korea went round as saucers.
“W-Wilson Hwang!”
Wilson Hwang of Mvidia had made his appearance.
Even the host startled at the sight of him.
“Incredible! Wilson Hwang of Mvidia has just called one hundred million dollars!”
The host’s voice climbed higher, pure excitement.
“Any advance on one hundred million?”
“If there is none by the count of three, it is sold.”
“One.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
“Sold!”
“Congratulations! The world’s fastest memory semiconductor goes to Wilson Hwang of Mvidia.”
The fevered atmosphere carried right through the glass.
One hundred million dollars.
Exchange rates bobbed up and down, but it was roughly one point five trillion won in our money.
A strange feeling settled over me.
It didn’t feel real.
“Congratulations.”
I turned my head; the lawyer, insurance planner, and auctioneer who had come with me from Korea were offering their congratulations.
“Thank you. It’s thanks to all of you. I never imagined we’d hold an auction in America and land a bid this large.”
“We’re the ones who should be thanking you. Plenty of people do the work we do, but there’s only one fastest semiconductor in the world.”
Once the hammer fell at one hundred million, I found myself wondering how much I would actually receive.
The auction fee was five percent.
Five percent of one hundred million was five million dollars.
Even that alone was about seventy-five billion won.
“How much tax will I have to pay?”
“Will you be bringing the proceeds back to Korea?”
“That’s the plan.”
“No permanent establishment in the U.S., and this is a one-time auction?”
“Yes.”
“Then under the Korea–U.S. tax treaty, the United States has no taxing rights.”
“Exempt?”
“Yes. This sale is a one-off auction of goods with no U.S. permanent establishment. In that case you don’t pay tax in America. You will, of course, in Korea. Truthfully, whether you pay the tax in the U.S. or Korea doesn’t change much. It’s simply a question of where.”
I tilted my head for a moment.
I had heard that U.S. and Korean corporate tax rates were different.
“Ah—but isn’t the U.S. corporate tax rate lower?”
“Of course. But when you bring the money into Korea, Korea collects the difference between the two rates.”
“So it ends up the same either way?”
“Exactly. After the fee is deducted from the hammer price, what’s left after Korean corporate tax is what the JH Research corporation actually takes home.”
“I see.”
Before I knew it, my biggest worry had become taxes.
I had never fretted about taxes before, yet now they had become my single largest expense.
If JH Research were a normal semiconductor lab, the bulk of the money would go into making chips—hiring people, buying equipment, manufacturing product.
But I had papered over every one of those steps with a few bread crumbs.
The money I had actually spent so far was little more than legal and insurance fees, the auction commission, and the cost of staying in America.
Once the lot sold for a hundred million dollars, all of that shrank into pocket change.
The lawyer spoke up casually.
“If you need a good tax accountant, I can introduce someone.”
“Thank you. Looks like I’ll need one.”
“Understood. I’ll tell them to take excellent care of you.”
Worrying about taxes…
Had I already entered the ranks of the rich?
Knock, knock.
A knock sounded from outside.
“Yes.”
The person who opened the door was a staffer from the American auction house.
“CEO Wilson Hwang of Mvidia would like to meet with the people from JH Research.”
“Wilson Hwang himself?”
“Yes. Ordinarily we don’t encourage direct meetings between seller and buyer. But given that the buyer is Wilson Hwang, I felt we had to at least pass the message along. If you’d rather not meet, we’ll decline politely on your behalf.”
What now? If Wilson Hwang started asking this and that, what was I supposed to say?
I hadn’t made the RAM, and I didn’t know how it worked.
Beside me, my “staff” were watching me with shining eyes.
Wilson Hwang’s meeting request.
“Hoo…”
I took a breath first.
One, two, three, four, five.
The usual YouTube psychologists said that when you got excited you should breathe and count to five before deciding and acting, so you didn’t ruin everything.
Counting while I breathed seemed to bring my head back a little.
A hundred-million-dollar auction sale.
I was already riding the tiger.
“I’ll meet him.”
The American auction staffer nodded and stepped out.
A short while later he returned to escort me to the meeting place.
Looking at the lawyer’s back, I said,
“Come with me.”
If I went alone I wouldn’t even communicate well.
“Please interpret, and they might come in a pack. Better to have you standing behind me than me sitting there alone.”
The lawyer took position at my back.
“I’ll serve as interpreter and secretary. I’ll push the wheelchair.”
“Yes. Appreciate it.”
The insurance planner and the auctioneer took up positions at my right and left arms.
“Then I’ll be the right arm.”
“I’ll take the left.”
With that formation locked in, we moved out as if heading into battle.
When we entered the assigned room, I saw a man in leather loafers, jeans, a leather jacket with the zipper half open, a round face behind square glasses, and graying hair.
I offered the first greeting in English.
“Hello. I’m fine! And you?”
The lawyer interpreted my English.
The familiar face from television beamed and welcomed us.
“Glad to meet you as well.”
“My English isn’t great, so I’ll be using an interpreter.”
“That’s fine. You’re not the only one—English isn’t my first language either.”
“Isn’t CEO Wilson Hwang American-born?”
“My first language is engineering. Hahaha.”
Ah. It was a bit.
His first language—meaning his mother tongue—was engineering. That kind of bit.
Even the jokes came out this way. This man was an engineering student down to the bone marrow.
I answered in kind.
“As expected of Wilson Hwang—an engineering student through and through. I bet you’ve got fiber-optic cables installed instead of blood vessels. Hahaha.”
Wilson Hwang’s eyes went wide at my joke.
Had it landed awkwardly?
“Ohh! Fiber-optic cables at this timing! Were you trying to express optical semiconductors?”
But he was still riffing, right?
“That’s right. Optical semiconductors. You’ve got to make the chips sparkle and shine with light.”
“Ho? Make them sparkle and shine with light… so that must be JH’s vision.”
When you don’t know, shut up and smile and you’ve already half won.
I gave a faint smile and a small nod, and Wilson Hwang continued.
“Truth is, until you walked in, I was planning to propose combining your ultra-high-speed system with our Mvidia HBM.”
HBM?
“As you well know, the age of simple memory semiconductors is over. Now we have to stack memory like apartment buildings.”
Ah—this much I actually knew a little about.
I was a smartphone repair guy in my own right.
Not a marrow-deep engineering student like him, but I did work with semiconductors.
“Ten nanometers, five, two—the race to get smaller has hit its limit. The real contest now is stacking semiconductors like apartment towers. I hear Koreans love apartments?”
“That’s right. Koreans adore apartments.”
“Stack semiconductors upward like apartments and the volume of information you can move is on another plane entirely. But stacking HBM brings all sorts of problems.”
I had no idea what those problems were, but I nodded gently.
Wilson Hwang pressed on.
“As you know, when you stack semiconductors like apartments you need elevators to move data up and down. Stack all you want—without high-speed elevators you get bottlenecks.”
“I see.”
“So when a company with data-processing technology this fast entered the auction, I assumed you meant to sell the company. The bid was more of a greeting fee.”
Ah… so one hundred million dollars had been a greeting fee?
Wilson Hwang looked at me and shook his head.
“But optical semiconductors at this timing. You’re a researcher, not a businessman.”
No I’m not? I’m a smartphone repair technician?
“Still, I’ll make the offer. Ten billion dollars.”
“…Excuse me?”
“I’ll buy JH Research for ten billion dollars. And I’ll throw full support behind your optical semiconductor research. I acknowledge JH holds the best technology. But Mvidia is the largest company on the planet. That future semiconductor you’re dreaming of… let’s build it together.”
My heart was acting up without permission.
Ten billion dollars? In our money… fifteen trillion won.
One, two, three, four, five.
I counted to five inside my head.
Fifteen trillion won.
A number that could make a man lose his reason.
The self inside me spoke up.
Say yes! Fifteen trillion! Money you’ve never even imagined in your life! You have to take this!
But another self answered.
Corporate address: Lucky Repair Shop. Employees: zero. One-man corporation. You’re going to sell that? What are you going to do alone? What equipment are you going to claim you used? Are you going to say Nano World?
Who cares? Fifteen trillion! Take the money and quit! How many freeloaders are there in the world? Baseball player Kim Chiseong took fifty billion in free agency and then just lay down. Everyone does it. Are you the only nobleman?
You take fifteen trillion and then go “I don’t know anything~” and they’ll just say “Oh, okay”? Once you take the money, the world expects you to deliver value for it.
Ah, I don’t know! Fifteen trillion is too good to pass up. Think about the rest later.
It was exactly like a conversation between a devil and an angel.
I looked at Wilson Hwang.
Wilson Hwang smiled faintly, waiting for my answer.