The Competitor's Proposition
Yoo Jae-won first got down to practical work in the study of his newlywed home. Much had changed in the study, but the greatest difference was the view that made him think, I really made it. Spread out before him was the deep blue Pacific Ocean. The endless horizon was visible whenever he lifted his head. If he wished, he could descend to the private dock installed below the house and take the yacht out. A small pier and breakwater had been built, and his father-in-law, Frederick Taylor II, had even gifted them a luxury yacht. The old man hoped his granddaughter’s husband would share his passion for sailing. The yacht’s price tag ran into eight figures in U.S. dollars. That was why Yoo Jae-won had purchased the unique Swiss watch in the first place. Naturally, the interior of the study matched the ocean view. Tiffany’s taste was everywhere, yet the interior designer Frederick had recommended had handled the entire project. The same expert had overseen the whole house, not just the study. Yoo Jae-won had told him not to worry about cost and to make it the best possible. When the bill arrived, he had been genuinely surprised—the interior work had cost several times more than the construction itself. Still, he was satisfied. The designer had also followed his specific instructions to the letter.
Because the house was so large, Yoo Jae-won had worried it might feel cold and empty. The solution was to separate living spaces from hobby spaces. The actual living areas were clustered within roughly thirty pyeong, while hobby rooms were placed at a slight distance. Twenty full-time security personnel and five maids also lived on the property; their quarters were arranged so the house never felt desolate. Objectively, the mansion was far too big for just Yoo Jae-won, Tiffany, and their cat Didi, yet it never felt that way. Whenever he looked up and saw the sea, he felt deeply content.
Ding!
At times the blue ocean would completely captivate him, but the notification chime from ID Talk or his email always pulled him back to reality. This time was no different.
Nextcom had grown alongside the history of the internet. It was already in its tenth year of service. The portal remained its core, but many additional services had launched over the years. The most recent was Next Trend, and before that came Next Answer. Nextcom had become a truly global internet service, present in every major country. The newest features always debuted first in Korea and the United States, while localization efforts continued for other Asian and European markets. Differences in rollout speed were mainly due to varying administrative approval processes. Korea was fastest; Europe was slowest. France’s reputation for delays was notorious even inside Nextcom. If a service requiring approval was prepared in early August, one could expect clearance no earlier than September or October, because most French citizens took their vacations abroad during August. Even outside that month, approvals never arrived in a matter of days the way they did in Korea.
Because Nextcom operated in so many countries, the statistical reports were voluminous. As always, the United States appeared first, followed by Korea—the standard format for all ID Group reports.
“The U.S. is all green!”
America had not disappointed him. Public reaction to the newly released Next Trend had been excellent. Ordinary netizens mostly searched for their favorite singers or personal interests, while corporations used the service to analyze their own products and services. Although the data reflected only online sentiment and carried a margin of error, no other tool offered real-time analysis of public reaction. Next Trend had therefore become a major topic in the corporate world. As internet penetration continued to rise, the gap between online data and real-world behavior would shrink over time.
Next Answer was performing similarly. The service had become so popular that even clever children were using it to finish their homework. The number of contributors answering questions grew rapidly, and some were already receiving substantial payouts through AdSense. The combination of ID Group’s advertising platform and Next Answer created powerful synergy. Questions that captured widespread curiosity generated enormous click counts. When accurate, useful answers were selected as official responses, the AdSense revenue share became correspondingly large.
“Oh, more than ten people have already earned over a hundred thousand dollars.”
A hundred thousand dollars might seem modest by the inflated standards of the mid-twenty-first century, but this was the year 2000. Even in Silicon Valley, fewer than thirty percent of professionals earned that much. And Next Answer was still only beginning. As user numbers grew, both the volume and value of advertising would increase, and contributors would earn even more.
“Once a UCC service launches, the response should be explosive.”
The term “user-created content” had already appeared online. It gained momentum after the release of the T-Touch Phone, which included video recording. People could now shoot footage easily, and rising PC performance made video editing accessible to ordinary users. A few talented individuals had begun uploading amusing clips to their personal homepages or TokTok, generating significant buzz. UCC was the gateway to one-person media. It was only a matter of time before dedicated video UCC sites appeared, and ultimately YouTube itself. Such platforms would pair perfectly with AdSense. Short text or banner ads commanded low rates, but video advertisements carried far higher value.
Thanks to AdSense payouts, Nextcom’s market share in the United States remained solid. Latecomers like Yahoo were trying hard to catch up, but they could not challenge Nextcom’s early dominance of portals, news, and paid content. Weaker players such as Lycos and AltaVista were already rumored to be for sale; their lack of profitability had become fatal. Before the dot-com bubble burst, investors had poured money into any internet venture regardless of revenue. Now capital was selective. Companies without clear monetization models found funding drying up, which prevented them from launching new services and created a vicious cycle of decline.
“Hmm. Korea is the surprise problem.”
Not every market was thriving. The report on Korea immediately highlighted an issue. Next Answer, which was thriving in the United States, was seeing sluggish adoption in Korea. Competitor services were actually more popular. Daum Net’s Knowledge and Naver Dotcom’s Knowledge-iN both outperformed Next Answer in usage.
“Is it because the name Next Answer feels unfamiliar?”
AdSense was active in Korea as well, offering far better monetization than rival platforms. Daum and Naver’s Q&A services provided no cash compensation for contributors at all. Instead they awarded avatar items or experience points that raised in-service ranks. President Henry’s analysis suggested these gamified rewards were proving highly effective.
“Well, Koreans do have an extremely competitive streak.”
When Koreans argued, the phrase “take off your rank insignia and fight” was common. It revealed how deeply hierarchy was ingrained in people’s minds. The competitors were exploiting that psychology to obtain free labor from contributors.
“Should we change the name and introduce an ID rank system after all?”
The word “rank system” left a bitter taste in Yoo Jae-won’s mouth. In his previous life he had suffered enough at the hands of people who believed themselves superior. No matter how he tried to view it positively, the association remained unpleasant. Yet after investing so heavily in advertising, sitting in third place was clearly a problem. Personal feelings had no place in business decisions, so he forced himself to consider the option objectively.
Ding!
“Hm?”
While drafting new instructions for the Korean service, another notification appeared. It was from his chief of staff, Kim Dae-seok.
“Who did you say?”
- Steve Jobs, sir.
His eyes had not deceived him.
“Secretary Kim! Come down here and explain this in detail.”
Kim Dae-seok’s office was located on the floor directly above the study. While the rest of the secretarial team worked at ID Technology headquarters, a private office had been prepared inside the residence so Kim Dae-seok could remain close to Yoo Jae-won at all times. It was connected by both stairs and elevator, allowing immediate access.
“This is the official email sent to the public contact address listed on the ID Group homepage.”
Kim Dae-seok handed over a printed copy. Even though ID Group led the IT industry, paper documents were still in use. Yoo Jae-won had first unveiled the tablet PC at the 1992 Daejeon Expo. Technology had advanced steadily since then, and the High-Tech Research Institute had already produced working prototypes with registered patents. Mass production had not begun because Yoo Jae-won was not yet satisfied with the components or the available applications and services.
Reading the printed email finally clarified the situation. The message had arrived at the public address published on the ID Group website. It was also dated two days earlier. Yoo Jae-won maintained several email accounts with different levels of visibility. Anyone could write to the public address, business partners used a separate address, and internal communications stayed within the intranet. Each type was handled by different teams. Internal emails reached Yoo Jae-won directly after filtering. He usually reviewed most of them personally. Occasionally even junior employees sent messages without realizing they would reach the chairman. Group employees more often reported public-interest issues or internal misconduct than idle chatter.
Had Steve Jobs used the business-partner address, Yoo Jae-won would have seen the message immediately. Because it had gone to the public inbox, confirmation had been delayed.
“Hmm. There’s no indication of what he wants to discuss.”
“Correct, sir. We did verify with Apple that the sender is indeed Steve Jobs.”
“All right. Schedule the meeting for the earliest possible date.”
After a brief moment of thought, Yoo Jae-won agreed. A few years earlier there had been an opportunity to meet Steve Jobs, but the other side had suddenly canceled. At the time, only a short while had passed since his regression, and his admiration for Jobs had still been strong; the disappointment had therefore been equally sharp. Now that admiration and respect had faded considerably. He viewed Jobs primarily as a rival in the smartphone market. At the same time, he was intensely curious why the man wanted to see him.
A few days later, Yoo Jae-won and Steve Jobs met at a quiet restaurant in San Jose. Jobs appeared exactly on time, dressed exactly as he had been at Comdex: blue jeans, black T-shirt, New Balance sneakers, and silver-rimmed glasses. Yoo Jae-won, wearing the suit Tiffany had chosen, presented a clear contrast in style. Jobs’ face looked somewhat leaner than before, perhaps from the grueling work of preparing the iPhone launch. Or perhaps the cancer that would eventually claim his life had already begun.
The atmosphere at the table was awkward. Yoo Jae-won still retained some genuine respect for Jobs and found the meeting genuinely enjoyable, yet he could not show it openly. Jobs, meeting Yoo Jae-won for the first time, also seemed uncomfortable; he had never been particularly sociable. Since Jobs was the elder and the one who had requested the meeting, he spoke first.
“While developing the iPhone, a question occurred to me.”
Jobs’ tone was as serious as if he were addressing a business partner.
“Why has ID Group not released a smartphone? That is the question I hoped to resolve today.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Chairman Yoo, you must know the answer yourself. While building the iPhone, we could not help but be aware of the T-Touch Phone.”
Yoo Jae-won nodded. Adding the missing sensors and 3D acceleration chip to the T-Touch Phone would essentially make it a smartphone. Of course, the smartphone ID Group was preparing was far more than a simple upgrade of the T-Touch Phone.
“ID Group has acquired three Korean electronics companies. It would be strange if you abandoned the smartphone market entirely. So why did you yield the first smartphone to us?”
Steve Jobs’ expression was genuinely curious.
“First-mover advantage is powerful, but what is even more dangerous is failing to match the timing of the era. In short, I judged that the time for smartphones to go mainstream had not yet arrived.”
Until the moment he opened his mouth, many thoughts had crossed Yoo Jae-won’s mind, but he chose to speak the truth. The original iPhone, while built with the best technology available at the time, had launched seven years too early and was therefore significantly inferior to what it would become. It could almost be called the Baby Phone rather than the iPhone. Most critically, its data speed was only 2G—insufficient for proper smartphone use. At minimum, IMT-2000-level infrastructure was required before video calling, the basic capability of a smartphone, became feasible. That was why the T-Touch Phone’s launch had been timed for the end of the following year, when IMT-2000 would be commercialized.
Steve Jobs nodded thoughtfully.
“You’re confident that even as a latecomer you can catch up. Very much like you, Chairman Yoo. Thanks to that, I feel I can make this rather shameless request.”
A shameless request?
“If ID Group has no immediate plans to release a smartphone, how about investing in the iPhone instead?”
Invest in the iPhone. It was a far more radical proposal than Yoo Jae-won had anticipated.