The Washing Machine Scandal
Yoo Jae-won had a favorable image of the Korean military. In his previous life, it was only after enlisting that he had finally come to his senses. Moreover, it was in the military that someone as far from normal as he had been finally managed to pull his own weight fully.
In the early days of his service, he had been the epitome of clumsiness and pathetic incompetence. The ones who had guided him through that were his seniors and comrades. Of course, the seniors hadn't understood him from the beginning. There had been an uproar about a "useless recruit" arriving. Still, as they lived together in the unit, bonds formed and understanding grew. Besides, in the old military, failing to pull one's weight or simply being in a bad mood could have led to beatings, but fortunately, he had never been hit.
When Yoo Jae-won had enlisted before his regression, the military was in the midst of major reforms under the banner of "advanced barracks." The decisive factor was that the seniors in the unit he was assigned to were fundamentally good people.
"I wonder if Sergeant Kim, Sergeant Jung, and Corporal Na are in university now?"
Suddenly, the seniors from his pre-regression days came to mind. They could be considered benefactors who had saved him in their own way. Just as he had prepared to repay Remington for his kindness, he was ready to repay Sergeants Kim and Jung as well. However, since that would be after they had been discharged, he hadn't contacted them yet.
"But these officer bastards..."
Yoo Jae-won was certain that the incident in the screenshot from the used goods marketplace had been committed by an officer. It made sense. Enlisted soldiers couldn't take even a single unauthorized step outside the base without it being considered desertion. Officers, on the other hand, commuted to and from work, and returning to the base after hours was perfectly natural.
Furthermore, the irregularities he had witnessed during his military service before regression weren't limited to those among the enlisted men. The ones committed by officers against the soldiers were far greater and heavier in scale. There was no doubt that the person who had listed the Classe washing machine on the used goods marketplace was an officer who had diverted it for personal sale.
Of course, it was still too early to conclude definitively that it was the work of a military officer. There was also the possibility that an ID Electronics employee had stolen it. Though if one were to calculate the probability, it wouldn't even reach one in a million.
The reason Yoo Jae-won was so certain it was an officer's doing was the address the seller had registered. The washing machine factory was in Jeongeup, North Jeolla Province, yet the seller's registered address was in Cheorwon, Gyeonggi Province. Moreover, at the current point in time, supply hadn't been completed to all military units yet. However, frontline areas like Cheorwon, Inje, and Yanggu had already received priority distribution.
What was frustrating was that when he accessed the Nextcom used goods marketplace cafe using his administrator privileges to view the original post for more details, it had already been deleted. With admin access, he could have restored deleted posts easily, but it required logging in from a registered computer, which wasn't possible here.
"Thinking about it again just makes me angrier."
Seeing the original post deleted made Yoo Jae-won's blood boil once more.
Korea had a conscription system. It was common sense that the state should be responsible for the treatment of all soldiers. The problem was that there wasn't enough budget, so essential appliances like TVs and washing machines hadn't been supplied to every unit. That was why Yoo Jae-won had stepped in.
But was there really no money?
If one calculated the total taxes Yoo Jae-won had paid to Korea since building up the ID Group, it amounted to tens of trillions of won. Including the taxes from the recent ID Technology IPO, it could easily exceed a hundred trillion won.
Compared to the national budget before his regression, the numbers were on an entirely different scale. The fact that Korea was escaping the aftermath of the IMF crisis with minimal damage was thanks to the taxes Yoo Jae-won had poured in. This naturally affected the military as well. Even by the most conservative estimate, the taxes from Yoo Jae-won that flowed into the Ministry of National Defense budget easily surpassed the trillion-won mark.
With all that support, what could possibly be lacking that they would take washing machines meant for the enlisted soldiers and sell them off?
"What's wrong? What happened?"
Tiffany asked in surprise. Since it was the first time she had seen Yoo Jae-won this angry, her eyes widened in shock.
"Ah, it's this."
Still seething with rage, Yoo Jae-won showed her the screenshot and explained what he suspected.
"Oh my god! Really?"
Tiffany was just as shocked as Yoo Jae-won.
"That's insane! How could a military officer do something like that?"
She seemed even more surprised than he was. It made sense. In America, respect for soldiers ran deep. This was precisely why Tiffany had held Yoo Jae-won in such high regard for donating tens of thousands of home appliances to improve enlisted soldiers' living conditions rather than criticizing him. That was why she felt even greater disappointment when soldiers committed crimes.
The idea of an officer stealing washing machines donated for the enlisted men and selling them on a used goods site was beyond anything Tiffany could have imagined.
Yoo Jae-won checked the time in Korea.
"I need to have Vice Chairman Choi Kang-wook look into this immediately."
Fortunately, it was the middle of the night in San Francisco, which meant it was peak business hours in Korea. His call connected before it could even ring once.
"Yes, Vice Chairman. I received a direct message on my TokTok account, and it's quite interesting. Take a look for yourself."
Yoo Jae-won immediately sent the screenshot from the used goods marketplace via ID Talk.
"It's one of the largest cafes on Nextcom, with a massive membership base that ranks near the top. As the name suggests, it's a cafe that facilitates used item transactions between members."
Choi Kang-wook immediately grasped the problem.
"Please look into exactly what happened, Vice Chairman. I'd like to fly to Korea myself and dig into this, but with IDDC underway, that's not possible right now."
Yoo Jae-won spoke while barely containing his fury, and Choi Kang-wook's voice clearly conveyed his own towering rage. From the sound of it, there was no need to give specific instructions. The furious Choi Kang-wook would overturn everything on his own.
"Is that all?"
Tiffany, who had been listening to the call beside him, asked as if that wasn't nearly enough.
"This is just preliminary investigation. I'm furious too, my blood is boiling, but I can't just charge in blindly. Once we have concrete results from the investigation, I won't stay quiet!"
"Yeah! I thought you were just going to hand it off to Vice Chairman Choi and be done with it."
Oh no. Tiffany's words made Yoo Jae-won reflect on how he must have appeared. He had always thought of himself as a real man who repaid both grudges and favors several times over. But from what Tiffany said, it seemed he might have come across as too soft.
"What would you do if it were you, Tiffany?"
"If it were me, I'd leak it to the press first! There are so many people who try to quietly sweep things under the rug when the organization's honor is at stake, saying it's better to keep things amicable!"
The sight of Tiffany gripping her fork and getting worked up was adorable, but since she was right, Yoo Jae-won nodded.
"From what you've said, it doesn't sound like this is the only incident. So the best way to prevent the same thing from happening again is to blow this up big and launch a full-scale investigation."
Tiffany was absolutely right. Yoo Jae-won held complete control over the media he could mobilize. The internet was a given, and he also had Time Warner Nextcom and NBC. The only regret was that he didn't directly own any media outlets in Korea besides Nextcom. However, Korea was a country particularly sensitive to foreign press. It might actually be far more effective to stir things up from outside rather than within Korea.
"You're busy with IDDC. Should I handle this matter instead?"
The fact that Tiffany, who had just suggested blowing things up, now offered to take it on herself was even more welcome.
"I'd be grateful. But is it okay with your work at the company?"
Yoo Jae-won didn't refuse. IDDC was an event the entire ID Group family had prepared for over a year. It had only just begun, and he didn't want to ruin it over some infuriating incident in Korea.
Still, Tiffany was an executive at Chevron. He wondered if she would have time for something else.
"It's fine! These days my aunts are pressuring me so much that there's not much for me to do even when I go to the office. Leave it to me!"
The story was that after Tiffany had accomplished something enormous by acquiring Texaco, her contribution had been so massive that her aunts, feeling threatened in the succession race, had begun watching her closely. At the same time, they were demanding opportunities to achieve similarly significant accomplishments themselves. The problem was that while Frederick appeared strong on the outside, he was far too weak when it came to his own children.
In any case, leaving it to Tiffany, who had plenty of free time, didn't seem like a bad idea.
"Alright. Then as soon as I receive a report from Vice Chairman Choi, I'll forward it to you right away."
"Good! You just focus on IDDC!"
Yoo Jae-won felt reassured by Tiffany's words. Thanks to that, the next day he was able to step back onto the main stage without any issue and proudly unveil the next-generation Android smartphone.
"We present the Android S2!"
The name of the next Android smartphone had been finalized as S2. The brand value of Android had already been solidly established. There was no point in attaching a different name; it would only increase marketing costs. Therefore, it was finalized as simply adding the suffix S2. Naturally, the successor to the S2 would be the S3.
The S2 that Yoo Jae-won held in one hand was greatly magnified on the large screen behind the stage. A CG-created video with not a speck of dust in sight showcased extreme visual beauty through sensual cuts and artistic camera work.
It maintained the rounded rectangular form of its predecessor, but the horizontal bezels had been reduced by 20% and the vertical bezels by 30%, creating a much more refined appearance. The back cover was particularly striking. While the previous model had featured a cool and sophisticated look with reinforced glass, this time the metallic texture was vividly alive. Koreans might associate it with canned sesame leaves, but since such canned goods didn't exist abroad, it would simply appear as a refined design.
"Compared to the previous model, the Android S2 has doubled all performance metrics!"
Yoo Jae-won's presentation continued. The massive screen on the main stage then displayed the Android S2's specifications in detail.
If it had been Apple's Steve Jobs, he would have undoubtedly used highly sensual words to package it magnificently. Things like "Bionic processor" or "Retina display." In contrast, Yoo Jae-won delivered the specifications in an extremely dry tone. There was no need to dress it up because the Android S2's performance was the best in history.
"The most important components in a smartphone are the display module and the processor. In the Android S2, we have significantly upgraded both of these parts."
The existing Android smartphones had used a bizarre resolution of 800x450. It was higher than competitors in the 600 range, but still far from sufficient to be called HD. The Android S2 was equipped with a 4.8-inch mobile IPS LCD module that met official HD standards.
Over two years, ID Display had steadily developed the technology, and they had finally succeeded in integrating HD standard resolution into a palm-sized screen.
"Now you can enjoy the Timeflex app in full HD quality without any loss in image quality. The same applies to Next Music. You can enjoy artists' HD music videos in the HD version of Next Music."
Whoa! Gasps of admiration naturally erupted from the audience.
HD had become all the rage following the 2002 World Cup. When looking at the world as a whole, Korea was the country transitioning to HD the fastest. They had established HD standards early and successfully converted broadcasting to HD with the 2002 World Cup as the target. In Korea, aside from small production companies, most regular broadcasts were now in HD.
The penetration rate of HDTVs was correspondingly high. During the World Cup, millions of HDTVs had been sold. Naturally, among those sold at the time, ID Electronics' Bordeaux TV accounted for over 50% of the market share.
America was following in Korea's footsteps. Cable broadcasters were focusing on profitable dramas for HD filming and editing, and American over-the-air networks were also accelerating their transition to HD. News was already broadcasting in HD, and major events like the 2002 World Cup were transmitted in HD as well.
While broadcasting stations were moving quickly, the ones that had transitioned even faster were ID Group's internet services like Timeflex and Next Music. In fact, Timeflex had been offering not just HD but even FHD for quite some time. This was because Yoo Jae-won had instructed that the digital restoration of Time Warner's film library must be done in the highest possible resolution.
At the time, Time Warner executives hadn't understood the meaning behind it. Now? No one failed to understand Yoo Jae-won's grand vision as they watched the Timeflex app running on the Android S2 and streaming movies in HD quality.
"The ability to play HD quality without loss is also thanks to the next-generation M4 processor."
Yoo Jae-won naturally moved on to explaining the M4 processor, the brain of the Android S2.
ID Group's mobile processors were being distributed under the MAP brand. It was a simple abbreviation taken from the first letters of Mobile Application Processor. However, due to confusion with the word for "map" and the assessment that it lacked impact, it had been unified under the much simpler "M."
The official name of the next-generation mobile processor was Mobile Application Processor 4, but simplifying it to M4 was far more intuitive. Although, like MAP, an assault rifle called the M4 had claimed the name first, their categories were different so there was no issue.
"The biggest feature of the M4 is its quad-core design."
Even Intel had now made dual-core the standard, including in entry-level models. Mobile processors were no exception. There were rumors that Apple was preparing the next iPhone, and its mobile processor would also be dual-core. The M4 went one step further.
It featured two next-generation cores that offered a 33% performance improvement over the MAP 3. Additionally, it incorporated two low-power processors at the level of the previous MAP 3. The large and powerful cores would be used for games requiring massive computational power, photo shooting, and image processing, while the smaller but far more power-efficient cores would handle music playback and internet surfing to maximize battery efficiency.
It was the big.LITTLE processor architecture that would become the standard for mobile processors in the 21st century, but thanks to Yoo Jae-won, it was appearing in the world much earlier.
"Let's hear more detailed information from Dr. Lisa Su, the designer of the M4 processor. Dr. Lisa Su!"
Of course, Yoo Jae-won hadn't created it single-handedly. He had provided key ideas and important architecture, while the actual manufacturing at ID Electronics' semiconductor plant had been Dr. Lisa Su's responsibility.
The effort Dr. Lisa Su had put into mass-producing the M4 was beyond words. No matter how excellent the design, actual mass production was an entirely different dimension.
To honor Dr. Lisa Su's hard work, Yoo Jae-won had personally called her onto the stage and entrusted her with the entire processor segment, the most important part of the Android S2 keynote.
Yoo Jae-won welcomed Lisa Su as she walked confidently onto the main stage, then handed over the pointer and stepped down from the stage for a moment.
"Director, we received a message from Vice Chairman Choi Kang-wook just now."
Kim Dae-seok greeted Yoo Jae-won as he came down from the stage. He also handed over the Android smartphone he had been holding.
As soon as Yoo Jae-won received the smartphone, he unlocked it and checked Choi Kang-wook's message. As expected, the message contained the full details of the Classe washing machine leak incident that he had asked to be investigated yesterday.