Silicon Synapse
Technopia 1993. Yesterday, KBS PD Kim Sung-gon arrived in the land of opportunity, America, carrying a weighty mission. The task was to produce a special program timed for the opening of the Daejeon Expo, designed to heighten the festive atmosphere. Kim Sung-gon felt the pressure intensely. Such projects were usually handled by entertainment PDs, but because he spoke English well, he had been pulled from the culture desk. He had already resigned himself to sacrificing entertainment value and focusing on delivering information, yet once he reached the United States, he found little worth filming. In Los Angeles, where he arrived first, almost no one knew that an expo was being held in Korea. Most people could not even distinguish between South Korea and North Korea. This was the complete opposite of what Koreans had expected after successfully hosting the 1988 Olympics and achieving significant economic growth. Even that morning, when he arrived in San Francisco, he had felt nothing but despair about what he could possibly shoot.
Everything changed the moment he met Yoo Jae-won and arrived at the event site in Coyote City. From the instant he interviewed Chairman Yoo Jae-won at ID Technology headquarters, he had felt it: This is it. He had heard many stories, but this was his first time seeing Yoo Jae-won in person. Visually, the man exceeded expectations. He radiated the refined aura of a nobleman straight out of a film. Kim Sung-gon had worked at the broadcasting station for over ten years and had seen countless celebrities. Yet no matter how hard he searched his memory, he could not recall anyone more handsome than the chairman standing before him. And it was not merely his appearance. His words and actions overflowed with consideration, setting him worlds apart from entertainers who strutted around with their necks in casts after a single hit. Furthermore, ID Group’s preparations for the expo far surpassed expectations, melting away the anxiety that had gripped him in Los Angeles. Yoo Jae-won was like a single ray of salvation descending upon Kim Sung-gon in the darkness.
Until then, he had resented the Daejeon Expo organizing committee chairman for sending him and his crew on what seemed like a pointless assignment to America. That resentment vanished the moment he met Yoo Jae-won. Kim Sung-gon’s excitement reached its peak upon arriving in Coyote City. A groundbreaking ceremony for the transcontinental information superhighway. The fact that a Korean company was laying the cornerstone of an information superhighway that would span the entire United States carried special meaning for someone like him. His patriotism swelled to the point of bursting. The ceremony itself offered plenty to film. ID Technology had provided the original video materials, and the information superhighway demonstration program that allowed direct computer interaction was excellent. Though Kim Sung-gon was unfamiliar with computers and had frozen when invited to try it, the writer accompanying him handled the machine with ease. Watching from the side, Kim Sung-gon’s mouth fell open. It was called Nextcom 2.0. Originally created as a demo for the expo, only a portion was being revealed here. Yoo Jae-won explained that a complete Korean version would be shown at the expo, so language barriers would not be an issue.
The highlight of the Coyote City event was the VIP guests. While the presence of famous Silicon Valley company presidents was expected, no one had anticipated that the Vice President of the United States would attend in person. Yet that was not all. Vice President Al Gore openly boasted of his close friendship with Yoo Jae-won, and Yoo Jae-won had even invited Al Gore to the Daejeon Expo. Kim Sung-gon’s jaw dropped. No matter how one looked at it, the American Vice President was a figure who received state-guest treatment abroad. Yoo Jae-won’s casual invitation, as if summoning someone to a family gathering, was astonishing. Even more shocking was Al Gore’s response. Not only did he speak positively, but he even mentioned President Clinton. This footage was not for the expo special program; it belonged on the news. The problem was that there was no easy way to transmit it to Korea immediately. He would need to go to the KBS correspondent’s office in Los Angeles and use satellite communication, but as the PD responsible for producing the special program, Kim Sung-gon had no time for that. Still, the burden of having to create a good special program had completely vanished, leaving him simply pleased.
Observing Kim Sung-gon’s reaction, Yoo Jae-won smiled faintly. His conversation with Al Gore had been half joke and half scripted. Common sense dictated that the schedules of the American President and Vice President could not be decided by a few words of dialogue. Moreover, it was fundamentally impossible for both the President and Vice President to attend a foreign event together. The Vice President’s primary reason for existence was to assume presidential authority in emergencies. Therefore, when the President traveled abroad, the Vice President was expected to remain quietly at the White House. When he had invited Al Gore to the event site a few days earlier, he had also extended an invitation to the Daejeon Expo. Fortunately, Al Gore had responded positively. However, visiting on the official opening day, the 7th, was impossible, so they had settled on a date a few days before the opening. No matter how light the Vice President’s schedule might be, security was of the highest level. A place like an amusement park that drew hundreds of thousands of people was considered the highest risk category. If he mingled with ordinary visitors, it would cause chaos and inconvenience, so visiting a few days before the opening, when the situation could be perfectly controlled, was not a bad idea. Naturally, President Clinton attending the Daejeon Expo was out of the question. The American President’s schedule was filled with matters too important to be rearranged at will. Although the Daejeon Expo was a massive event in Korea, it was not significant enough to alter the President’s schedule. Of course, the invitation extended through Al Gore was genuine, so if by some chance President Clinton decided to attend, it would be an enormous development, but the probability was extremely low. At least Al Gore’s visit was confirmed, unlike in his previous life, so the event would become far more international than before.
“You’ve worked hard.” On the way to the banquet hall, Henry Samuel, president of Nextcomcast, who was riding in Yoo Jae-won’s car, spoke with a hint of apology. “It’s nothing. We’re one group, after all.”
Henry Samuel was originally supposed to prepare and host this event. However, with so much work piled up, Yoo Jae-won had ended up handling the preparations. If they had held a simple American-style groundbreaking ceremony, Henry Samuel’s subordinates would have been perfectly capable of managing it. But as the scale of the event grew, it became too much for Nextcomcast to handle alone.
“This is the commercial that will begin airing today.” Henry Samuel opened his shell book and held it up so Yoo Jae-won could see clearly. A fifteen-second commercial began to play. It showed a boy with a similar vibe to Yoo Jae-won starting a computer, then quickly transitioning to him using the internet and eventually becoming the president of a large company. It was the very commercial Henry Samuel had mentioned before. Watching his own story unfold on screen felt incredibly cringeworthy. At least Yoo Jae-won himself was not appearing; instead, a high-teen actor with a similar feel was acting, which made it much better. Henry Samuel had originally asked Yoo Jae-won to appear directly, and Yoo Jae-won had been considering it positively. Later, however, he realized that appearing in a commercial might leave behind an embarrassing memory, so he declined. Henry Samuel then recommended an actor named Edward Furlong, who had a similar feel to Yoo Jae-won. He was the high-teen actor who had become a Hollywood star overnight with Terminator 2. Yoo Jae-won agreed that Edward Furlong would be acceptable and accepted the recommendation. Thanks to the director’s skillful and stylish direction, the result was excellent. The message the commercial conveyed was also clear. It clearly showed that combining good ideas with Nextcom could lead to success regardless of age or education, just like Yoo Jae-won. At the end, the words “Who’s NEXT?” appeared along with Nextcom’s internet address.
“How many episodes are planned in total?” “Eight. We combined keywords like success, love, friendship, and family with Nextcom.”
When capable people were given ample money and time, the results were outstanding. The commercial Yoo Jae-won had just watched carried the keyword “success.” The plan was to air a series of commercials showing people finding love and building friendships through Nextcom. Currently, the public perception of online services and the internet was that they were used only by schools, students, and computer-obsessed eccentrics. It was an outdated view, and the goal was to transform that perception into the idea that the internet was part of life and made it richer. Of course, a few commercials alone could not achieve such a shift. However, as more people experienced the internet directly, it would naturally become part of their lives. Naturally, the internet service installed in their homes and workplaces would be Nextcomcast’s. There was information that telecommunications companies like AT&T and cable network companies were also preparing internet services. Yet none could surpass Nextcomcast in speed or price. ADSL was a technology possessed only by Nextcomcast. Furthermore, by digitizing the set-top boxes of existing Comcast subscribers, ADSL would naturally spread as well. Once the transcontinental information superhighway was laid, it would push America’s internet penetration rate to its absolute limit. Money aside, Yoo Jae-won, who found it frustrating that internet penetration was so low, hoped that day would come as soon as possible.
That evening. Even after finishing his business trip and the banquet, Yoo Jae-won returned home exhausted. Yet the moment he arrived, he sat down in front of his computer. He had entered the final stages of developing the touch interface for the tablet PC. A little more work and it would be complete, and resting just because he was tired was not Yoo Jae-won’s style.
“As expected, the familiar keyboard layout is best, isn’t it?”
What Yoo Jae-won was working on now was a virtual keyboard. It would allow input by directly pressing keys displayed on the screen without the hassle of connecting a physical keyboard. Since he had already completed a high-level language input system while developing ID Office, this was not a difficult task. The feature that displayed highly accurate suggested words at the top of the virtual keyboard after typing just a few letters was already finished. He had only been debating whether to keep the QWERTY layout or switch to one more suitable for mobile devices, but he ultimately concluded that familiarity was best. Forcing a change for the sake of efficiency would be useless if users rejected it, so he chose the safe option.
Ding!
While he was working, an ID Talk notification sounded as expected. Checking the sender, it was Vincent Greenhill, president of ID Investment. The email subject was “Third Week of June Investment Report.”
“It’s already the end of June.”
Time seemed to fly by amid the hectic schedule. Yoo Jae-won paused his work and opened the report Vincent Greenhill had sent. As expected from an investment firm, it was an ID Spreadsheet file rather than an ID Word file. This product, named the Third Investment, had a total managed amount of six billion dollars—twice the scale of the second round. Of this, Yoo Jae-won’s personal investment was four billion dollars, and the remaining two billion dollars had been raised from Korea. The second investment had generated over twenty billion dollars in profits, but after distributing funds here and there, paying taxes diligently, and subtracting real investments such as the LCD factory and Shin-Nihon Investment Bank, the remaining surplus was four billion dollars. Even that was an enormous sum; there were not many companies in America capable of mobilizing four billion dollars in pure cash at once.
The report that arrived today from Vincent Greenhill detailed the investment of three hundred million dollars—five percent of the total six billion dollars. Unlike the first and second rounds, this investment focused on physical assets rather than futures, specifically in IT, games, film, and music, as publicly stated. ID Investment’s portfolio was aligned accordingly. The first thing that caught his eye was Cisco. The amount invested in Cisco was a full one hundred million dollars—roughly eight hundred billion won at the current exchange rate of 804 won per dollar. The number of shares accumulated at $1.4 per share was seventy million, and since he already held thirty million shares, the total reached one hundred million shares. This amounted to approximately twenty percent of the total equity, instantly making him the second-largest shareholder. ID Technology’s business area and Cisco had a complementary relationship. If ID Technology handled the software of the internet, Cisco handled the hardware. In a situation where the internet era would clearly arrive much earlier due to Yoo Jae-won’s intervention, investing in Cisco in advance had been the right move. However, Cisco was Yoo Jae-won’s personal selection, separate from ID Investment’s analysis.
What followed were the stocks genuinely selected through ID Investment’s own analysis. “Fifty million dollars in IBM. Not a bad choice. Intel? Hmm, not bad either.” Starting with IBM, they had selected solid, high-growth-potential companies in the IT sector as Yoo Jae-won had instructed, including Intel and Verizon. Most were the top companies in their respective fields, which was why AMD had been excluded. Yoo Jae-won nodded. He was satisfied with ID Investment’s report. Although AMD had provided good value in his previous life and he held some fondness for it, from a business perspective, it was still no match for Intel. That was not all. Looking at the purchase list, there were quite a few companies with little relation to IT: 3M, Corning, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, Exxon, Mobil, Berkshire Hathaway, and others. He had instructed them to focus on IT, but he had not demanded strict adherence. If a stock showed sufficient upside potential, they could buy anything. As a result, a diverse portfolio spanning glass, chemicals, finance, and investment companies had been created. Such heavy fragmentation made risk easy to disperse, but it also carried the possibility of lower returns during a stock market upswing. However, looking at the stocks ID Investment had selected, none appeared likely to be neglected for the time being. Having pulled off two major successes together with Yoo Jae-won, talented individuals from Wall Street had joined in large numbers, improving their analytical capabilities.
“Huh? What’s this?”
The scroll on ID Investment’s weekly report was not finished yet. Further down, under the heading “Angel Investment,” several additional items were listed. ID Group’s angel investments in Silicon Valley already enjoyed an excellent reputation. If the item was solid, the support exceeded expectations and interference was minimal. If things went well, there was even the possibility of being incorporated into ID Technology, so many people knocked on ID Group’s door. Importantly, most of these angel investments were made with Yoo Jae-won’s personal funds. Therefore, the selection of companies to support was made after Yoo Jae-won or Kim Dae-seok personally reviewed the items and business plans. With Yoo Jae-won extremely busy in recent weeks, no new angel investments had been made. As a result, applicants had apparently flocked to ID Investment. Angel investments were made with the expectation of failure, so the amounts were incomparable to the items listed on the first page. They were usually in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes exceeding a million, but anything beyond that was impossible under company policy. Among these angel investment listings, only one caught Yoo Jae-won’s attention. Silicon Synapse, five hundred thousand dollars.
“Could it be?”
Yoo Jae-won wondered if the name on the monitor was the company he knew. He immediately moved the mouse and opened the detailed section. Along with the names of the company members, the item currently under development was displayed. At that moment, a shiver ran down his spine.