The Billion-Dollar Question
The American Dream had always been an IT industry that remained deeply conservative at its core, yet it could not withstand the tsunami unleashed by Android 1.0. One after another, companies announced they would port their professional workstation software to the new operating system. Since most workstation operating systems already resembled Unix, the transition proved far simpler than porting to DOS. The developers had evidently calculated that shifting focus from the limited workstation market to Android, with its hundreds of millions of users, would yield far greater returns.
“ID Group has truly reached another level.”
It was an encouraging sign. The more professional applications that appeared, the healthier Android’s ecosystem would become. Moreover, if affordable PCs enabled more people to create original works, that too would be beneficial. Musicians might set up small home studios, indie game developers would emerge, and illustrators and computer graphics artists would flourish. This trend would undoubtedly contribute to the advancement of popular culture.
Beep!
The impersonal buzz of the intercom shattered Yoo Jae-won’s reverie about the new world Android 1.0 would create. As evidenced by his meeting with Al Gore in Remington’s office, Yoo Jae-won did not maintain a personal office in Silicon Valley. He disliked borrowing Remington’s executive suite, and the programmers felt uncomfortable with him working among them, so a makeshift office had been hastily partitioned off. Because the space had been assembled in a rush, the furnishings had been grabbed from a nearby supermarket, yet the intercom’s exterior looked sleek—its buzzer, however, remained decidedly old-fashioned.
Yoo Jae-won did not mind. He would only be using this space for a few more days anyway. His parents had finally purchased a mansion for him in Old Palo Alto, right in front of Stanford University. Although the area was an established affluent neighborhood and property prices were high, they had bought it without hesitation, knowing the value would only rise further. Once the interior was finished, he planned to move there immediately. From then on, he could handle company business from home and commute easily to Stanford.
“Heh, come to think of it, I haven’t even been accepted yet. Maybe I’m counting my chickens before they hatch.”
The only thing left for Yoo Jae-won now was the SAT. Though he had already told his friends and parents that he had been accepted, he had yet to take the exam. Overconfidence often led to failure, and looking back, he realized he had been excessively confident. Still, his self-assurance remained unshaken. After all, in his previous life he had taken the SAT more than ten times and thoroughly prepared by even solving actual test papers from the 1990s. The exam occupied a crucial place in his master plan. Because of that, the thought of failure never crossed his mind, allowing him this relaxed attitude.
Beep!
Distracted by his thoughts, he had forgotten to pick up the receiver. When the buzzer sounded again, Yoo Jae-won snapped back to reality and answered the intercom.
“Ahem, yes? What is it?”
—Chairman, I apologize for contacting you so suddenly. However, there is a matter I must report immediately.
It was Kim Dae-seok’s urgent voice.
“Go ahead. Is someone else asking to see me again?”
Lately, the people bothering Yoo Jae-won were those who showed up without prior appointments. Al Gore had been quite the gentleman by comparison. All sorts of people arrived unannounced, most wanting to show him programs they had written or business proposals. The vast majority held little value. Kim Dae-seok filtered them at his level, and only a handful of items reached Remington or Vincent for review. That did not mean all visitors were turned away. Yoo Jae-won did schedule formal meetings with those he could not easily dismiss, and actual encounters sometimes took place.
—This one is an enormous figure.
An enormous figure? Another politician? Those usually arranged appointments in advance. Image mattered to politicians, after all. Al Gore, who had knocked on the door without an appointment simply because he felt favorably inclined, had been the exception.
—It’s JP Morgan.
“JP Morgan?”
Yoo Jae-won, listening to the intercom, finally understood what it felt like to be caught completely off guard. Why would JP Morgan want to meet? ID Group was overflowing with cash. A large portion of the fortune made from oil futures remained, and software sales generated fresh revenue every day. Major computer manufacturers and corporations had placed substantial advance orders even before launch. Roughly half of the PCs set to release would ship with Android 1.0 pre-installed, and a significant number would include ID Office bundled as well. That proportion would only grow over time, dramatically increasing ID Group’s profits. He suspected the company would follow the same path Microsoft had taken in his previous life. In other words, there was no need to borrow money at high interest rates. That was why he had been ignoring calls from banks offering loans. Perhaps JP Morgan was simply slow to hear that ID Group had been rejecting such offers.
—Yes! We received a call from the secretary of Lewis Preston, JP Morgan’s CEO. He asked if you would have time for a business proposal of great importance. The line is still connected.
From Kim Dae-seok’s tone, the scale of the matter was larger than expected. Yoo Jae-won had assumed it would be a branch manager, like the other banks. But the CEO himself? That changed everything. He could not predict what the man would say, yet meeting him seemed worthwhile. Such encounters would help expand his connections with those who moved America.
His schedule posed no problem. The most urgent item was taking the SAT, but all critical development milestones had already been completed, so nothing pressing remained.
“Very well. Inform him that I have the SAT to take, then arrange a meeting afterward.”
—Understood.
After hearing Kim Dae-seok’s reply, Yoo Jae-won hung up the intercom.
“Wow. Yoo Jae-won, you’ve grown quite a bit. Really grown.”
The admiration came naturally. The global launch event had confirmed that ID Group’s influence could reach the entire world. Yet he had never expected that even Al Gore, a Democratic senator, would visit first, or that the CEO of the world-renowned investment bank JP Morgan would request a meeting. Yoo Jae-won wondered whether he had been underestimating his own influence all along.
The meeting was, of course, arranged. The exact date was set for August 25th—the day after the SAT, which also happened to be a Sunday.
Time passed. As the SAT date drew nearer, Yoo Jae-won’s parents and company executives grew more anxious than he did. It was their first time playing the role of parents of an examinee. Though Yoo Jae-won had grown up remarkably well on his own, the college entrance exam carried a different kind of weight for them. The company staff worried less than his parents, having witnessed his abilities firsthand while working with him. Still, mindful of the possibility of the unexpected, they took care not to disturb him while he studied. When the coup broke out in Russia, there had even been debate over whether to report it to him. Thanks to Yoo Jae-won contacting the executives first and telling them not to concern themselves with the coup, the matter ended as a minor incident.
On the day of the exam, Yoo Jae-won’s expression remained unchanged. Having gathered all his materials, he walked calmly into the high school in Palo Alto where he was registered, took the test with the same calm demeanor, and emerged with the same calm expression. A small commotion did arise among the students, parents, and proctors who recognized him. Having appeared on national television alongside the new product launch, many Americans naturally knew his face. Such was the inconvenience that came with growing fame. Yet because Yoo Jae-won had already decided to enjoy it, he did not avoid the children—or rather, the boys and girls—who rushed up asking for autographs. Besides, signing documents had become second nature since he began company work; he had signed countless approval papers. With practiced ease, he began signing autographs without hesitation. His speed was impressive. Even when scribbling quickly, the signatures looked professional. He did not neglect the most important task either. Though the exam’s difficulty was slightly higher than expected, there was not a single question Yoo Jae-won could not answer.
“Well, this is only a preliminary scoring, but there are no mistakes.”
“Whew. A perfect score, then. As expected, truly remarkable.”
At Yoo Jae-won’s words, the white-haired gentleman seated across from him let out a whistle. This man was none other than Lewis Preston, CEO of JP Morgan, who had requested the meeting several days earlier. Though his actual age was sixty-four—too young to be called “grandfather”—his appearance made him look at least twenty years older, so the title suited him well.
The two had met at a hotel café near Palo Alto. It was not the sort of occasion for sharing a meal upon first meeting. Nor could Yoo Jae-won invite him to an office the way he had with Al Gore. Thus, they had chosen a hotel café where they could maintain proper formality.
“The real issue is the essay.”
He was not referring to the SAT essay section. American universities also required personal statements with applications. For someone like Yoo Jae-won, born for the sciences, this was a daunting task.
“Haha, what is there to worry about? You did well on the SAT, and your letters of recommendation are impressive. With credentials like these, you could choose any Ivy League school you like.”
Yoo Jae-won nodded at Lewis’s confident assertion, the man being a Harvard alumnus. Having prepared meticulously since his previous life, Yoo Jae-won had even consulted a professional college admissions advisor, obtained several sample personal statements, and stored them in his Memory Palace. He intended to write his own first and only resort to the samples if he got stuck. The letters of recommendation, however, were genuinely stellar—written by the CEOs of Intel, AMD, and ATI, among other key partners. Naturally, he had mobilized ID Group’s entire network to obtain them, yet he felt no guilt. He had not coerced anyone, and even among partners, not everyone received such letters.
“By the way, what brings you all the way to the West Coast?”
After they had exchanged sufficient pleasantries, Yoo Jae-won cut straight to the point. At his direct question, Lewis Preston took a sip of coffee without changing his expression. The gesture was exceedingly elegant.
“Because a single, powerful question has been weighing on me. I wished to hear the answer directly from the person involved, so I took the liberty of coming here.”
So what was that question?
“Ahem. I simply cannot understand why ID Group is not pursuing an IPO. Every company in Silicon Valley that has achieved even a fraction of your success has gone public, and most have succeeded. Among the thousands of Silicon Valley firms, ID Group stands at the forefront. An IPO should be a foregone conclusion. Yet there has not been a single rumor about one. You could even have used the acquired Microsoft for a backdoor listing, but instead you delisted Microsoft entirely. It was a decision none of us could comprehend. Even the brilliant minds at JP Morgan were equally baffled.”
Lewis Preston’s lengthy question boiled down to one simple inquiry: why was ID Group not pursuing an IPO like other Silicon Valley companies?
“Someone suggested that a genius of your caliber must be operating under an entirely different set of calculations. I came here genuinely curious to know if that is true.”
After hearing the full question, Yoo Jae-won’s expression shifted into something amused. The additional remark was tolerable, but the fact that this man had flown from the eastern tip of Manhattan all the way to the western tip of Silicon Valley just to ask something so trivial struck him as incomprehensible. Moreover, it was not a question he could not answer. A single phone call would have sufficed. Yet this gentleman had come in his private jet. Truly, the world of the ultra-wealthy operated on an entirely different plane. With that thought, Yoo Jae-won opened his mouth to reply.