No Choice but to Build Good Cars
Park Yugeon was on break, and he had thrown himself entirely into his club. A club, for a senior staring down the college entrance exams?
In those days the very top of the science track still dreamed of physics departments. It was a romantic age. For Park Yugeon, hovering around seventieth in the nation, well—his actual goal, computer science at Seoul National University, already sat comfortably within reach.
Not that the club was an excuse to slack off. It was a gathering for computer programming (...), so if anything counted as study, this did. That his skill dwarfed his peers' was only natural. And yet, surprisingly, the friends who showed up were remarkably talented themselves. Among them his classmate, Tae Gisu, was exceptional.
"You said your little brother was coming today?"
Yugeon nodded.
"What do we do? There's still a bug."
The arrangement was simple. Park Yugeon, the planner, laid down the frame, and Tae Gisu, the developer—aspiring—wrote the code.
"I think it'll take at least a week."
"It's fine. My brother will be here two weeks, minimum."
Tae Gisu was a senior too. Studying hadn't moved his scores, so he had, rather splendidly, let them go (?), though he was still holding, more or less, the marks he needed for SNU computer science.
"You said your brother's that smart?"
"Yeah. There's no comparison with me."
"There you go, being modest again..."
So Park Yugeon proudly recited his little brother's accomplishments.
"Th-that can't be real."
"Turns out it is."
Strange, though. He had told him about founding Ultimate at that age, even about acquiring Guccio—so why on earth was Capsulemon Bread the thing that shocked him most?
"So then... your brother must have collected every sticker."
"I doubt it."
"Why? If he made them himself..."
"Jihoon would probably have more fun collecting companies than stickers."
"R-right. I see."
The conversation ended about there.
"I should get going."
"Already?"
"I have to meet him at the airport."
"Ah."
At that, Tae Gisu nodded at once.
"Jihoon!"
Thankfully, my brother Yugeon had come out to the airport. Grandfather was the sort to pull you into a glad embrace, but between brothers still in high school, that kind of thing was a little embarrassing, wasn't it?
And yet.
He crashed straight into me. My brother hugged me first.
"Rough trip?"
"Rough how?"
"The flight."
"No. I came comfortably."
"Comfortably? I heard even first class is miserable."
Hm. Not first class. A private jet. I gave an awkward smile.
"Your bags?"
"Just a backpack."
"That's so you."
My brother laughed, pleased.
"Mom and Dad have been in an uproar since yesterday about cooking for you."
"Even Dad?"
"Yeah. He was in an apron, stuck in the kitchen the whole time."
Of all the men I knew, the only one who cooked was Mr. Devon. Dad and Mr. Devon. The picture refused to match, and I had to shake my head at once.
"Then we'd better get there and eat."
"But, Jihoon."
A shadow crossed my brother's face, which until then had been nothing but bright.
"There's somewhere we have to go first."
"Grandfather?"
"How did you know?"
"I just heard it secondhand."
"They say he summoned every executive, even from the affiliates."
He looked at me as if he were the one who ought to worry. I felt the opposite. With the eldest son standing right there, Grandfather was putting me in front of the executives... Wouldn't that wound my brother?
Perhaps he read that look.
"Is this the time to worry about me?"
He narrowed his brow and went on.
"Only because I'm being compared to you. I'm pretty talented myself, you know."
"Pretty doesn't cover it."
"Fine. I'm extremely capable. Even if Grandfather doesn't hand it down to me, I can do all sorts of things well."
A shining self-regard. How cool, our brother. And yet... if someone had to take the company, I'd much rather it was him. Ahem.
"Shall we go?"
An S-Class stood waiting not far off. I greeted the chauffeur, then headed for the back seat beside my brother.
"How's life abroad?"
"I spent every class thinking about something else."
"What happened to that awful guy?"
Ah. Carl Bernstein.
"He got kicked out."
"He left school?"
"Yeah."
"Good. People who dig up someone else's painful past ought to be told off."
By senior year most people could manage at least one real curse. For Yugeon, kind to the bone, that seemed to be the limit.
"That friend of yours, Peter—he's a total pro."
"Yeah. He's definitely a genius."
In truth, even genius fell short.
"Next year, when I'm in college, it'd be fun to make something with him."
A collaboration between Yugeon and Peter. If those two joined forces, they'd sell a good ten million copies, wouldn't they? I hadn't even eaten, and already I felt full.
"What about your friend Tennessee?"
"He's the exact opposite of you."
"Really? I took a liking to him anyway."
"He's our shareholder."
"So it's because money connects us?"
He tossed it off as a joke.
"But is it all right to laugh and chatter like this?"
"Why not?"
"We'll be there any minute."
Sure enough, Hyeon-gang headquarters had been in view for a while.
"Last time, when he gathered the executives and introduced you, he declared he'd build Design's Hyeongang."
I nodded.
"And in a single semester you came back with the foundation laid. From Grandfather's point of view, isn't this the perfect moment to put you out front?"
In plain terms, he meant I was about to be cornered with nowhere to move. I didn't answer. I only looked up, in silence, at the tower rising over us.
Hyeon-gang headquarters. The auditorium.
A staffer guided me to the very front row. Blatantly, most of the seats beside me had been filled with people from Hyeon-gang Motors.
They summoned only executives, and still the hall is packed.
Even so, it seemed not yet enough in Grandfather's eyes. He stepped to the podium and began, a little heavily.
"This Republic of Korea of ours. The home market is small, so in the end this is a country that has to live by what it sells abroad."
This was the announcement of Hyeon-gang's new vision. The executives waited for the next line, faces tight with nerves.
"Going out to the world market and fighting the great companies—that is something we absolutely cannot avoid. People ask why I'd be fool enough to take on Japan. If we don't compete with them, when do we ever take their rice bowl? All that's left is to starve."
As if Japan were the only rival. China would call itself the factory of the world and grow at a staggering pace. Japan would be quality; China, price. If a fight on which everything hung could not be avoided, Grandfather would choose, without question, all-out war with Japan.
And in the end, he would win.
His speech went on.
"From here on, semiconductors will be our number-one export, and automobiles number two. The problem is that our Hyeon-gang is trying to fly on a single wing."
Sure enough, he drove home the importance of the auto industry. Then, lightly, he slipped me into it.
"Still, we can be glad of this much. Design, at least, our Hyeon-gang holds tight. Am I wrong?"
Applause burst out as if they had been waiting for it. Nor was that all. Because Grandfather turned openly toward me, the executives began to glance my way.
"Form and performance! Of the two things that make a car, we've settled one. Now we can put everything into the technology, can't we?"
True to a company built for technology, confidence poured from the executives' eyes. Riding that momentum, Grandfather announced the blueprint at once: ally with one of Europe's leading automakers, and haul their technical strength upward in a short time.
If history ran as I remembered it... they would partner with France's national carmaker. And, regrettably, the result would not be good.
But what was this? Instead of France, Grandfather said he was considering a British high-end marque.
What? Had history shifted because of me? Or had he first weighed a storied British car, only to turn toward France when it wouldn't come together?
Either way, he declared an ambition to match it: topple their rival, Daebo Motors, within three years, and catch the Japanese cars within ten.
"Enormous investment will follow. On a scale that might shake the roots of the company. I know one misstep could throw away everything we've built. And yet..."
As if the important part were still ahead, he let a long pause stand, then went on.
"A boy of seventeen is running himself to death to make his grandfather's dream come true. And the man whose dream it is becomes some old man in the back room, counting money? Is that how it ought to be?"
A strange smile crossed his face.
"There is no uglier business than calling people in just to brag about your grandchild, so I'll stop here."
He turned toward me again.
"Even so, Jihoon. You ought to greet your elders, shouldn't you?"
Then he eased back behind the podium. The meaning was plain: come up and take the microphone. Perhaps because I had been through something similar before, I wasn't particularly nervous. I rose and walked toward him. It felt as if he were asking whether, at this point, I might simply accept the throne.
I smiled, thin and small, and took my place before the microphone as calmly as if nothing were amiss.
"I have enough sense of a room to have guessed a gathering like this would be prepared."
Perhaps because I had opened with a joke, the executives broke into pleasant laughter.
"It's a heavy burden. Still, I came up to the dais because I felt the thanks had to be said."
"......?"
"To the executives who have given the best of their youth to make Hyeon-gang shine."
Without the microphone.
"I wanted to tell you that I am truly grateful. Thank you, from the heart."
I spoke each word clearly, then bent into a deep bow. They were the ones who ought to have received the greeting.
The applause came in a rush. The executives rose of their own accord and clapped.
When the unusually long applause finally ended, I spoke again.
"I've given my greeting, so I would like to step down... except I don't think Grandfather will politely get out of the way."
Once more I used a joke to clear the air.
"All of you are working this hard. As a member of Hyeon-gang, it's only right that I add whatever small wisdom I can."
I moved naturally into the automobile business.
"The task before Hyeon-gang Motors is to build a car that can compete with Japan. So what role must you executives play? Is it producing a good car?"
No. Making the car belonged to the employees. An executive, properly speaking, had a different charge.
"Shouldn't you build a system capable of making good cars?"
The corporate system I had in mind was this. The owner presents the vision. The executives build the system. The employees take charge of production. And then the owner bears responsibility for every result.
"I am running a company myself, but it's small, so I've ended up playing the executives' part as well. Thanks to that, I've grown very interested in the work of building systems."
With that, I turned toward Grandfather.
"Chairman. That is why I say this."
"......?"
"Would it be all right if I, presumptuously, offered one idea from the executives' point of view?"
"What was that?"