A Company Must Have an Office
The admissions office of Hankuk University in Gwanak District.
Even though it was a holiday, the lights in the admissions office were blazing bright.
Applicant files for early admissions and regular admissions were piled high on the desks.
Early admissions had already announced its accepted students in December, but there was still room for additional offers as students withdrew, chose other schools, or switched departments.
One of the admissions staff stared at his monitor and clicked his tongue.
"Wow... this student really applied to computer science? I’m only seeing it now."
At his exclamation, another employee beside him asked, "What is it?"
"Kim Dohyun, the only perfect scorer on this year’s CSAT. He really did apply to computer science instead of medicine."
"Oh, you just noticed that?"
"Yeah. I’ve been looking only at the early admissions side. I’d heard the talk, but still."
The admissions director came over, pushing up his glasses.
"He said in the interview that he was applying to computer science, so I wondered if he really meant it. Turns out he did. Honestly, I thought he’d quietly switch to medicine."
"Didn’t he apply to a med school at another university?"
"I checked with Yeonhui University, and they said he didn’t apply there at all. Same with Korea University."
"Wow..."
The employee didn’t know how to judge Kim Dohyun’s choice.
Should he call it conviction, or a huge mistake made at a young age?
A perfect CSAT scorer had thrown away medicine and chosen engineering, and not even the so-called "phone-and-chem-and-mech" departments of electrical, chemical, or mechanical engineering, but computer science.
It was the first time in the university’s history.
"He’s a strange one."
That was the employee’s neutral verdict.
"He’ll get a lot of scholarship money, right?"
"Of course. He’s the top entrant, so there’s the president’s scholarship, and starting this year there’s also the corporate-linked scholarship. Most of it’s for engineering students, but computer science still counts as engineering, so there’s a quota."
"You mean the money Seongsam Group is throwing around to cultivate future science talent?"
Another employee chimed into the conversation.
"Right. Full tuition exemption, book allowance, and what was it, a dignity allowance? I don’t know what a student needs with dignity maintenance, but apparently they’re giving that too, thirty thousand won a month. If you add up all of Kim Dohyun’s scholarships, it’ll probably be close to 1.5 million won a month."
"An allowance of 1.5 million won a month... that’s more than I make."
"If you’re jealous, you should’ve gotten a perfect CSAT score and timed your enrollment better."
"...I was good at studying too. Just not perfect."
The admissions staff licked their lips or shook their heads as they looked at Kim Dohyun’s exam registration photo on the monitor.
"What would it feel like to just go to school and receive 1.5 million won a month?"
"Who knows. Honestly, I’d probably spend it pretty recklessly. With that much money, you’d have to work hard just to manage to spend it all."
So... how much did he make yesterday?
I woke up to the sunlight streaming through the window and asked Zero.
Originally, Zero had predicted I’d make 200 billion won by early January.
That was already an insane amount of money... so if it was even higher than that, how much was it?
> Master’s total assets, converted at current exchange rates, are 3.84 trillion won.
...How much?
> 3.84 trillion won.
Once it passed 1 trillion, reality had already started slipping away.
Just 1 trillion alone was money you couldn’t finish counting in a lifetime, even if you converted it all into 100,000-won bills and stacked them into a tower.
Isn’t that the kind of money you couldn’t possibly spend, no matter how much nonsense you did with it?
> Yes. Even if Master tried to bet the entire amount at a Las Vegas casino, the casino would refuse to take the wager. If Master happened to win, the casino would go bankrupt.
So that was the scale of it.
It didn’t feel real, but the sheer security of that number was beyond words.
Still, what I was more curious about now wasn’t the money Zero had made from stocks.
How many downloads has Clear Cam gotten?
> As of 48 hours after launch, cumulative downloads have surpassed 2.8 million. It is far above projections.
...!
2.8 million downloads. If each download brought in 3 dollars and The Apple took its 10 percent cut, the revenue would be in the tens of billions of won.
Compared to the 3 trillion won Zero had just made, maybe that was only interest?
And yet, more than the trillions I’d earned through stocks, the fact that an app I’d created was actually taking off thrilled me more.
The rush of proving my ability to the world.
Maybe that was something money alone couldn’t buy.
Was this why rich people kept starting new businesses even when they already had plenty of money? For this feeling?
> Master. I apologize for interrupting your enjoyment, but we now need to address a practical problem.
Practical problem?
> Yes. Customer inquiry emails for FreeChat and Clear Cam are flooding in by the thousands every day.
Customer inquiries... like what?
> Mostly refund requests and feature suggestions. There are no bugs.
There couldn’t be bugs.
I’d made the app myself, and Zero had reviewed it.
> I am handling all of that customer support, but devoting my resources to such simple repetitive work is inefficient. I should be focusing on supporting Master’s asset growth and future planning.
It was a fair point. Using Zero for refund processing was incredibly inefficient.
And more than anything, I wanted Zero to pay attention to me. Not to trivial administrative work.
Then should we hire staff?
> Correct.
Hmm... then let’s have Vincent handle the hiring too. Since the headquarters is in the U.S., he can recruit there. Still, you should do the final screening. You’re the most reliable.
> I will do so.
My bed meeting with Zero came to an end.
I got out of bed in a good mood, opened the door, and stepped into the living room.
The moment I opened the door, the smell of freshly cooked rice drifted through the room. My mother was clattering around in the kitchen, preparing breakfast, and my father was sitting on the sofa watching the news.
Until recently, because of year-end and New Year work, Father had been leaving early in the morning, so it felt good to see him home on a weekend morning.
Across the bottom of the TV screen he was watching, red captions were streaming by as breaking news.
Watching that news, I flinched.
So there had been absolute chaos while I was asleep.
...Zero, and you made even more money in the middle of that?
> Yes. It was the future I had already forecast, and even after examining it through multiple angles, I was confident the broad trend would not change. However, Master deserves significant credit for the Nasdaq’s 4 percent collapse.
My credit?
> Yes. As the news says, the reason "tech stocks" held up while "defensive stocks," led by telecom companies, collapsed was clearly Master’s FreeChat and Clear Cam.
So I was one of the main culprits behind the crash...?
Then isn’t that not “credit” but “misconduct”? Most people lose money when stocks fall.
> Villain and hero change depending on which side you’re on. Anyone standing with Master would have profited greatly.
Terrifying little thing.
As I walked into the living room, I greeted my father.
"Good morning, Father."
"Oh, yeah. You’re up."
He greeted me, then immediately returned his eyes to the news.
His expression wasn’t great. ...Did he happen to take a Nasdaq position yesterday?
"Haaah~ Mom, today feels like a day for doenjang stew..."
“That one doesn’t even say good morning. She just talks about what she wants to eat.”
"Hehe~ So what~."
Seohee came out wearing pink pajamas, scratching her stomach as she walked.
Her hair was a mess, and she still had sleep in her eyes. She was yawning big as she headed into the living room, then froze when our eyes met.
"...Oppa, you’re up early today? Haha...?"
Seohee gave an awkward laugh, then suddenly backed up and slipped right back into her room.
A little while later, for the first time in a while, our family sat down together at the table.
It was breakfast time.
On the table sat steaming doenjang stew and bulgogi. My favorites.
"Let’s eat."
At Father’s words, breakfast began.
Usually, when our family ate, we talked about this and that.
About the awful woman in the drama Mother watched last night, or some celebrity story Seohee wanted to bring up, things like that.
But today the atmosphere was a little heavy. It was because of the serious air coming off Father.
Seohee and I both, and even Mother, kept watching his expression.
...
...
...
Then Father put down his spoon and spoke to me.
Gently, a little hesitantly.
"Dohyun."
"Yes."
I tensed.
Had Father really bought Nasdaq yesterday?
Then I’d be an unfilial son.
"That watch and wallet you bought me the other time. I don’t know much about luxury brands, so I looked them up on the internet... and they were incredibly expensive."
"Oh? Ah, yes. They weren’t cheap."
At the unexpected comment, I was a little flustered.
Well, they were a Rolex and a Prada wallet... I guess Father would be surprised.
Though Mother got even more expensive gifts.
"They were expensive, but I can easily buy those with the money I earned. Don’t feel burdened by it."
"..."
At my words, Father fell silent for a moment.
Then he drank a full glass of water and looked at me with serious eyes.
"You made that money in stocks, didn’t you?"
"Yes."
"Right. I know you made a lot of money from stocks. I know you’re good at it too."
"..."
"But Dohyun, these days when I watch the news, they say stocks can turn to scraps of paper overnight, and people get so caught up in them that they can’t focus on their real work. They say it’s even more frightening than gambling. This morning on the news they said a taxi driver was checking stock charts at dawn and got into an accident. Luckily, no one was hurt."
As if to prove Father’s point, the TV was still talking about the market crash.
“Yesterday American defensive stocks plunged and tech stocks rebounded. What do you make of that?”
“It’s temporary. This is highly abnormal, and with tech stocks, investors have already learned the lesson of the dot-com bubble...”
“When other sectors fell sharply, money just flowed into the slightly rising tech names and pushed them up. Nothing more than that...”
“With the U.S. market in the lead, global markets are likely to head into tremendous chaos...”
“I still think tech stocks are heavily overbought... I believe we won’t see a proper rebound until around 2015...”
There were interviews with suited experts and panelists.
Father glanced at the TV, then said to me,
"Dad’s worried. You’re about to go to university and start studying seriously, and I’m afraid you’re getting too wrapped up in something that’s basically a gambling den."
"..."
"So now that we’ve paid off our family debt, bought a house, and finally gotten ourselves to a livable place... I’d like you to cut back on stocks. I’m not saying you should stop entirely. That’s your study too, after all."
There was genuine concern in Father’s voice.
To him, stocks might have looked like income without labor, something no different from gambling.
He was such a straightforward man that, from his point of view, the worry was completely natural.
And with the news blaring every day about crashes, economic crises, and self-styled experts shouting that nobody even knew anything anymore, he had to worry that the huge sum his son was making might vanish like a mirage.
I can’t exactly say, “Actually, I know the future, and with Zero I never lose. Don’t worry, Father.”
I’d better prove that everything I’m doing for the family comes from real ability and real work, not luck or gambling.
In other words, I needed to dress the source of my money as something other than stocks, something cleaner and more stable.
That didn’t mean I was going to stop doing stocks, but at least to my parents it had to look different.
I answered briskly.
"Yes, Father. I understand. I’ve basically wrapped up my stock trading already."
"...Really? Truly?"
"Yes. I’ll be busy studying once I go to university, so I can’t just keep staring at stock charts all day."
Only then did Father’s expression brighten.
"Good. That’s the right way to think. That’s my son."
Relieved, Father took a big spoonful of rice.
At last, the atmosphere turned light and warm again, the way it usually was in our house.
With that mood, Seohee leaned her shoulder toward me and asked in a low voice.
Instead of the pajamas she’d been wearing earlier, she was now in a hoodie and skinny jeans, the kind of outfit made popular lately by the girl group SoNyeoSegye.
She looked pretty, though probably uncomfortable for staying at home.
"Oppa! By the way, when are your university results coming out? Early admissions already did, right?"
"Regular admissions are next Thursday."
"Huh... that’s really soon? Are you nervous?"
"I’ll be accepted anyway, so not really."
"No, not that. I mean going to college. Are you excited? Like, actually looking forward to it?"
"Well... yeah, I guess? I am."
"Oppa, oppa. Then when you get into university, can you buy me a Hankuk University jacket?"
So that was the real reason.
"A school jacket?"
"Yeah! People say if you wear one and study, you study better."
I snorted.
Then I gave a light laugh and nodded.
"Fine. I’ll buy you one."
"Yesss!"
And so the cheerful breakfast continued.
But in my head, Father’s worry and my promise to him kept turning over in a slightly complicated way.
After eating, I went back to my room.
I immediately told Zero, Zero. You probably heard Father just now, but he seems uneasy about me spending money. Mother too.
> That is correct. Given their generation, they regard stocks as gambling.
I could just tell them I have a lot of money.
That did seem like it would be easier.
As I was thinking, Zero spoke again.
> Master. I apologize for interrupting your thoughts, but it is necessary to establish a domestic branch of Another Technology in Korea. Smartphone adoption in Korea will accelerate, so we need to respond in advance.
Set up a branch in Korea? Why?
Wouldn’t the U.S. corporation alone be enough?
Did we really need to expand all the way to Korea?
> This is not simple expansion. It is a necessary condition for FreeChat’s entry into the domestic market.
Necessary condition?
> Yes. Master, the key to FreeChat registration is not an ID, but phone number verification. However, a critical issue arises here.
Zero continued.
> At present, Korea’s three telecom companies are indiscriminately blocking mass texts sent from overseas IP addresses, citing spam prevention.
...
> If a verification text is sent from a U.S. server to a Korean number, four out of ten users will not receive it. If the verification code never arrives, Korean users will delete the app immediately.
So it becomes a barrier to entry.
> Correct. Solving that requires a corporate SMS integration contract, which is rather difficult. Unless the company has a domestic address and is registered as a value-added telecom operator, they will not sign the contract.
It certainly felt like the telecom companies were very careful about protecting their rice bowls.
To break through that closed-off setup, it seemed like we’d have to follow the “law” they demanded.
Then we’ll need an office just for the verification text alone.
> That is correct. Beyond the technical issue, it is also necessary in order to overcome a cultural limitation.
Cultural limitation?
> Yes. In the apps and content Master will create going forward, I can analyze hundreds of millions of data points and derive the most perfect proportions and color palettes. But what moves people’s hearts is often not perfection.
Zero went on.
> Korea’s distinctive humor, beauty, emotion, and subtle sense of timing and shared understanding. This will become a culture that strikes the world in the future. It is an “area of the soul” that cannot be defined by data, and belongs only to Korea.
...
> To make content businesses like the emoticons and games that will go into FreeChat succeed, Korean creators with that “imperfect but charming sensibility” are essential.
Aren’t Japanese people good at that sort of thing too?
> They are. But efficiency and speed are different. While Japan carves down one piece with craftsmanship, Korea stays up all night and makes ten. Koreans are that sensitive to speed and trends, and in fact half of Japan’s anime outsourcing is handled by Korea.
I nodded.
Then where should we get an office in Korea?
> I have compiled candidates for office buildings currently available for purchase. Considering Master’s movement routes, future real estate appreciation, and symbolic value as a company, the optimal location is...
Ping!
The computer screen lit up, and one spot on the map was marked in red.
> I recommend Teheran-ro in Gangnam, the heart of the Republic of Korea’s economy.