The Elders' Wager
Yoo Jae-won continued, “And there are folks in the neighborhood who can’t afford to burn as much briquettes as they’d like even in winter, and plenty of elderly folks walking around in thin clothes. Even with the briquette boilers running, some houses are so old that drafts come in and it stays cold. Would five hundred million won be enough to fix up not just Naeo Village but Deokjin-ri as well?”
Choi Kang-wook would have to run the numbers, but even a rough estimate told him the sum would more than suffice. Construction wages for manual labor had barely risen despite inflation, and while cement and rebar prices had gone up, they hadn’t multiplied several times over.
“It should be more than enough,” Choi Kang-wook replied.
“Ah, and I also plan to run ongoing social contribution projects.”
“Social contribution?”
“Fixing up the village is a one-time thing. I want something we can maintain steadily every year.”
Choi Kang-wook had assumed Yoo Jae-won meant supporting pediatric cancer or leukemia patients—the kind of charity many companies funded with fixed annual donations. Once again, however, Yoo Jae-won’s idea diverged from the usual path.
“Operating a school cafeteria.”
“A cafeteria?”
“Some kids can’t bring lunchboxes, and even in better-off homes, packing one every morning is a hassle. So the school would prepare meals for all the students at once.”
By the twenty-first century, school lunches were already a common system. Paid lunches had ended early in the century, and nearly every school except a few elite private ones had switched to free meals. Quality, however, varied wildly depending on how much attention each school paid to the program and whether anyone was skimming funds in the middle.
“Take Deokjin Elementary, for example. We’d build them a proper dining hall, hire cooks and nutritionists, and cover the cost of ingredients every month. The kids and teachers would just show up and eat.”
“Would that exclude the lower grades that only have morning classes?”
“No! Even the little ones should have lunch before going home. In households where both parents work, they’d otherwise be stuck eating cold leftovers. It’s far better for them to have a hot meal at school, even if they get home a little later.”
It was a groundbreaking idea. From a business standpoint, it even felt like it could generate revenue. Yet something about it still nagged at Choi Kang-wook. For Korea’s lower classes, the problem wasn’t just food. Many people were already burdened with multiple illnesses and on the verge of death. Tuberculosis and hepatitis B were rampant. Helping those people first seemed more urgent than school lunches.
“I may have had some success in America, but I can’t take care of everything. If I have to set priorities, I can only start with what’s right in front of me. National-level projects should be handled by the state, and once we make more money, we can reach the vulnerable groups the government can’t.”
Choi Kang-wook felt a quiet surge of respect. He had thought the cafeteria plan sounded like something a kid would come up with, yet Yoo Jae-won had clearly thought through the practical realities as well.
“So the first order of business is distributing the profits. Next comes founding ID Investment, followed by the village renovation and the new cafeteria.”
“Yes, that’s the sequence!”
Choi Kang-wook glanced at the list he had organized in his notebook and gauged the workload. None of it looked difficult. He could simply hire the right people for each task. The dividend distribution could be handled by the tax accountant who had managed last year’s books, the village project by the village head, and the cafeteria by connecting with a construction firm in Yeoju.
Then he noticed one missing piece.
“But once ID Investment is founded, that’s not the end of it. The company will need employees to operate, won’t it?”
“Oh, right! I almost forgot. There’s someone named Hwang Jae-hong.”
At Choi Kang-wook’s question, Yoo Jae-won mentioned Hwang Jae-hong—the man who had been waiting for Yoo Jae-won’s call ever since the ancestral mountain deal was settled. He would come running the moment he received the call.
“There’s one more thing I’m concerned about. Because the dividend is so large, there could be a lot of talk. Especially since reporters would love the story, I’d prefer we handle it discreetly.”
“Understood. You don’t need to worry about that.”
After leaving that final instruction about avoiding unnecessary noise, Yoo Jae-won rose from his seat. He had finished everything he needed to do in Seoul. All that remained was to pour his passion into coding until the new school term began.
While Yoo Jae-won, on the verge of the new semester, focused on coding office software, the major shareholders of ID Technology and Choi Kang-wook gathered at Ganghuije, a traditional Chinese restaurant in Yeoju. It had been nearly two months since their last meeting in December. Unlike the children, whose appearances changed day by day, the adults showed little outward change. The same held true for the shareholders gathered in the most comfortable private room at Ganghuije. Their clothes and demeanor looked much the same as in December.
At a glance, that was true. On closer inspection, however, several subtle differences stood out. Yoo Jae-won’s parents, Yoo Bong-man and Kim Mal-sook, had changed jobs. Yoo Bong-man had left the rice bran oil factory and was now attending a driving school. Kim Mal-sook had quit her door-to-door sales job and was learning the real estate business. They had finally accepted the request Yoo Jae-won made before leaving for America. With more than three million won flowing into the account he had entrusted to them every month, there was no longer any reason to keep doing grueling work. Instead, they were working to acquire the skills needed to manage real estate investments, since they had no one else they could trust with the task.
The principal and vice-principal’s faces were wreathed in smiles. The money was welcome, of course, but what pleased them most was that Deokjin Elementary’s name had become known nationwide—an honor few could claim. Thanks to that, they wore constant smiles, and even their expressions had softened.
The only person who remained unchanged from last year was Park Sang-kwon, president of the rice bran oil factory. Contrary to appearances, the factory’s annual sales reached hundreds of billions of won. Selling cooking oil extracted from various grains was profitable enough, and processing the leftover byproducts into feed and selling it nationwide brought in solid additional revenue. Running such a large operation, the dividend Yoo Jae-won had given him felt like little more than pocket money. That was why, when he received the dividend in December, Park Sang-kwon had felt more concern than joy. He worried that Yoo Jae-won was paying out dividends instead of reinvesting to strengthen the company’s foundation.
“How much did you say?”
But the single sentence Choi Kang-wook dropped erased that worry completely.
“Ten billion won.”
It had taken only two months. Everyone in Deokjin-ri knew Yoo Jae-won had gone to America. He had asked the police station to increase patrols because he was worried about his house, and the officers who received generous gifts of meat had patrolled Deokjin-ri and Naeo Village every single day until his return. No one could have missed that. What kind of magic wand had he waved in America to produce ten billion won so easily? To the older generation, whose thinking was still rooted in the modern era and who lacked understanding of the IT industry, it seemed like pure sorcery.
Because of that, Choi Kang-wook had to explain in detail how the ten billion had been made, why the dividend was being paid, and how the money would be used. Though the story was confidential, everyone gathered here were major shareholders and therefore entitled to hear it.
“Good heavens!”
The tale was so fascinating that they became completely absorbed, not even noticing that the hot dishes had gone cold. At the same time, they felt immense pride. It was remarkable enough that Yoo Jae-won had secured profits most small and medium-sized enterprises could never achieve in a single stroke. Above all, his decision to donate part of those profits to the village and the school was an act of generosity that even adults rarely performed. And the primary purpose of the dividend, they learned, was to found a new kind of company.
“So you’re saying you want to start an investment firm, but because the investment methods would look extremely risky to ordinary people, you plan to fund it entirely with your own capital? In that case, you won’t be raising investment money the way typical investment companies do by offering products, correct?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Park Sang-kwon of the rice bran oil factory had hit the core of the matter.
“What kind of investments did you make to reach this point? Did you lose everything?”
“Well… I put the entire three hundred million into Daeshin Securities and Daewoo Securities.”
Everyone let out an involuntary gasp. The saying went that one should never put all one’s eggs in one basket. When investing, one was supposed to build a diversified portfolio. That had been common sense even in 1989. Yoo Jae-won’s decision to ignore that rule and pour everything into a single move certainly looked reckless. It also explained why he was using the dividend he had created to start an investment company with only his own money. But not everyone agreed.
“That’s rather disappointing,” the principal said.
Yoo Jae-won’s parents, who had been nodding along as they listened to Choi Kang-wook’s explanation, were startled. If the principal was calling it disappointing, it must mean Yoo Jae-won had made a serious mistake.
“Does that boy think we’re the kind of people who only care about money? He’s even planning to handle the donations to the village and school all by himself. Does that mean we’re supposed to just take our dividends and sit quietly on the sidelines?”
“That is…”
Choi Kang-wook found himself momentarily at a loss for words. When discussing the profits with Yoo Jae-won and when handling the practical matters of dividends and contractor selection, the principal and other shareholders had been treated as outside the equation.
“We invested because we saw Yoo Jae-won’s talent and hoped he would grow into someone great. Raising Deokjin’s name was secondary. No one put money in with the sole intention of becoming rich themselves. Isn’t that right?”
At the principal’s question, the vice-principal and Park Sang-kwon of the rice bran oil factory nodded in agreement.
“But listening to this now, it sounds like we’re holding the boy back. He’s even trying to do good deeds alone!”
“Exactly. Do we lack money? Do we lack pride? We should support him wholeheartedly so he can keep moving forward!”
Starting with the principal, the conversation took an unexpected turn. Even Choi Kang-wook, watching, wondered how such people could exist. It felt as though characters straight out of a book had gathered here. Having handled countless civil lawsuits during his time as a lawyer, Choi Kang-wook knew that many disputes ended up in court because people wanted every last penny of their share. Yet these individuals were different. Maintaining detachment in the face of money was no easy feat, but all three major shareholders displayed it. And while Choi Kang-wook was briefly distracted, the discussion moved forward in an instant.
“There’s a way. Instead of dividends, we request that the company buy back our shares. That way, we won’t have to go through this cumbersome dividend process again.”
In other words, Park Sang-kwon of the rice bran oil factory suggested treating the payout as a share buyback rather than a dividend, which would be cleaner. At the same time, they agreed that once they sold their shares to the company, they would use the proceeds to invest in the local community alongside Yoo Jae-won—creating scholarship funds for underprivileged students, installing streetlights in the village, and laying water pipes.
Before Choi Kang-wook could even interject, everything was decided. In the end, he had to return to the office without finalizing the dividend notice. A few days later, an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting was held once more. This time, Yoo Jae-won attended as well.
Yoo Jae-won felt no burden at all about the fact that benefactors like the principal held shares in ID Technology. The money he would earn in the future would be far greater. That was why he had been reluctant to buy back their shares. But the principal and the other shareholders remained firm. They already had enough money, and anything beyond that, they had concluded together, should go to Yoo Jae-won so he could accomplish greater things.
Although Yoo Jae-won, as the holder of 50.1 percent of the voting rights, had the power to push his own opinion through, he ultimately could not overcome the elders’ wishes. Instead, they agreed that the share buyback amount would match the dividend that had already been decided. He tried several times to decline, but when they insisted that refusing the money would only send it all to taxes, he finally accepted. In addition, as a token of gratitude to the elders who had shown such magnanimity, Yoo Jae-won issued preferred shares for them. Preferred shares carried no voting rights but granted priority in receiving dividends or remaining assets in the event of liquidation.
The elders initially tried to refuse even the preferred shares, asking if he was trying to sever ties with them. When he explained that the shares were proof of his intention to build a solid company that would pass on value to future generations, they finally accepted.
For Yoo Jae-won, who held a twenty-first-century mindset, their actions were incomprehensible. If this story had become known around 2020, the elders would likely have been criticized not for their goodwill but for acting foolishly. Wanting to hear their true feelings, Yoo Jae-won sought out Park Sang-kwon of the rice bran oil factory, the one he thought would be easiest to talk to.
“We’re making a huge bet on your success. And since we call ourselves gamblers, it’s a big bet indeed. Our only wish is to see you grow into a world-class entrepreneur. Once you achieve that tremendous success, we’ll grab you by the pant leg and ask for help, so you’d better succeed no matter what.”
Yoo Jae-won wanted nothing more than to maintain his connection with these elders he respected so deeply.