Chapter 77: Inspiration and Stimulation
Chapter 77: Inspiration and Stimulation
One step, then another.
You never know what lies ahead as you move forward.
- New York Stock Exchange: Corporate Earnings Show Clear Improvement
- U.S. Stocks Rise on Hopes of Economic Reopening
- Amazon, Facebook Hit All-Time Highs
- U.S. Begins Phased Reopening of All 50 States
He was investing his $20 billion in assets in the stock market.
“How’s the hiring for Earth Channel coming along?”
“We’ve received 20,000 resumes from experienced professionals alone.”
“Twenty thousand? Are all of them really looking for a job?”
“Quite a few people from broadcasting stations want to switch careers. A lot are also coming from Hollywood production companies that are on hiatus because of COVID-19.”
A content platform.
He was preparing for the launch of Earth Channel.
- Lee Ho-yeon: Moderna has reported a 100% antibody production rate in their phase one clinical trial.
- Paul: Pfizer’s results should be out soon as well.
- Kim Shin: What about Biolife’s vaccine?
- Paul: We’ve just begun the phase two trial.
He was monitoring the clinical trials for the COVID-19 vaccine.
- Nikola Stock Soars 134.7% in Four Days Since IPO
- Elon Musk Announces Plans for Semi-Truck Production
- Nikola Discloses Talks with Automaker on Pickup Truck Production
- Nikola Confident It Will Be the ‘Next Tesla’
He checked on the status of the companies he held shares in.
Lately, there was someone else from Korea he was in frequent contact with.
- Kim Sang-gi: Shin.
- Kim Sang-gi: I’ve already secured housing for the gamers. lol
- Kim Shin: Where?
- Kim Sang-gi: A large building in Yongsan with a view of the Han River. I rented four entire floors.
- Kim Sang-gi: We’re starting the interior work right away. There’s a lot to build—a gym, private bedrooms, gaming rooms, and accommodations for the coach and staff.
- Kim Sang-gi: Hahahahaha. Spending money feels amazing.
As soon as Kim Sang-gi became the general manager, he started spending big and flexing properly.
‘I am pretty busy.’
Although there were many things to attend to, Lee Jong-yeop and three assistants helped him with his work.
While significantly increasing the staff at Earth Resource, he had hired some exceptional people.
Employees with experience from prestigious universities, consulting firms, or as assistants at other large corporations.
“CEO. Here’s your coffee. I’ve also sorted yesterday’s stock market reports, separating the positive and negative news.”
“Thank you, Melissa.”
Whenever he came to the office, the company’s structure became a little more organized.
He was starting to understand why the chairmen of Korean conglomerates had established secretarial offices.
They helped with everything from miscellaneous tasks to essential duties.
He had heard that at major Korean companies, even executives had strikingly beautiful assistants.
Earth Resource also had its fair share of attractive employees.
The reason for that was…
“Why do you want to work at Earth Resource?”
A standard interview question.
In the early days of the company, many answers centered on an interest in Source Coin or an appreciation for Earth Resource’s growth.
“I became a fan after watching your YouTube videos.”
“Excuse me?”
“The corporate videos for Earth Resource. After watching them, it became a company I wanted to work for.”
The YouTube team at Dream Art Rainbow.
They had created a cinematic series documenting the founding and growth of Earth Resource and uploaded it to YouTube.
Just like how idol groups build a fanbase and connect with them.
Many new employees were applying for jobs at Earth Resource after seeing the YouTube videos.
Thanks to this, he had also hired several Korean employees.
* * *
In the Korean pharmaceutical industry, no one believed in Biolife.
“They may be the first to develop a vaccine outside of China, but they’re only one or two weeks ahead of other companies.”
“Hmm. It’s not like Pfizer, Merck, Roche, or Novartis are fools.”
“Anything Biolife can do, other companies can do much better.”
It was rare for Korean pharmaceutical companies to exceed one trillion won in sales.
They were in the business of producing generic drugs—replicating medicines whose patents had expired—rather than developing new ones.
So when they saw the YouTube video about Biolife on the Dream Art Rainbow channel, they were skeptical.
“Medical AI? It helps with analysis and finds suitable materials? Could that really work?”
“Spending millions of dollars a day on AI computations is absurd. It must be an exaggeration.”
“If they received that much support, they’d have to produce some kind of result. But they’ll fail miserably in the phase two trial.”
Treatments were used on people who were already sick, so even if there were some side effects, their use was permitted if the effects were good.
Vaccines, on the other hand, were administered to healthy people, so they were judged much more strictly for side effects.
Even if a vaccine passed the phase one trial, it could still fail at any point in phase two or three.
The belief that developing a COVID-19 vaccine was difficult wasn’t limited to Korean pharmaceutical companies.
- Novartis CEO: Vaccine Development Will Take Two Years.
Even global pharmaceutical giants viewed vaccine development as a difficult and time-consuming process.
Many companies believed that creating a COVID-19 vaccine and passing the phase one trial was little more than a show.
“Minister. What are your thoughts on Biolife’s development of a COVID-19 vaccine?”
“I am very pleased that a Korean pharmaceutical company has developed a vaccine. However, the probability of failure is high, so for now, we are just observing the results.”
“What will you do if the vaccine passes clinical trials in the United States?”
“We will assess the situation and make a decision. However, given the high risk of side effects from the vaccine, I don’t believe it is an urgent matter for Korea, as we are managing COVID-19 stably.”
In an interview with reporters, the Minister of Health and Welfare subtly expressed a negative opinion.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was proceeding with the clinical trial procedures at a tremendous speed.
Since antibodies from the vaccine formed in two weeks, results began to emerge shortly after Biolife’s phase two trial began.
- Paul: We are conducting the trial with 800 participants.
- Paul: The response from the HHS inspectors has been extremely positive. It hasn’t been publicly announced, but they are amazed by Biolife’s technology and the vaccine’s quality.
A message from Professor Paul, who was assisting with the clinical trials in the U.S.
As Biolife’s vaccine performed well in the trials, I realized I might be the one feeling both happy and surprised.
‘That call with the Korean Minister of Health and Welfare. We argued and hung up, but the reason I couldn’t push harder was that it had only been a phase one success.’
He believed in Biolife and Dr. Lee Ho-yeon.
Despite that belief, he had been skeptical that they would actually succeed in creating the world’s first COVID-19 vaccine.
He couldn’t believe in a complete, 100% success.
He thought Dr. Lee Ho-yeon had already done more than enough just by creating the vaccine and passing the phase one trial.
He felt it was already sufficient, but if it passed phase two, it would be just one step away from commercialization.
- Kim Shin: Thank you so much for all your hard work.
- Paul: Not at all. This is currently the most important work I’ve done since I began studying medicine.
If the vaccine came out early, it could save hundreds of thousands of lives, making it a cause more valuable than any other.
It seemed he would have to repay Professor Paul separately later.
Perhaps by making a donation to his university in his name, or by recruiting him to Biolife with an enormous salary.
- Fierce Competition to Develop a COVID-19 Vaccine
- 185 Companies, Labs, and Universities Worldwide Developing Treatments and Vaccines
- 83 U.S. Companies Participating in COVID-19 Vaccine Development
Many attempts were being made to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, but Biolife was the furthest ahead.
It was a vaccine developed not with the faster mRNA method, but with a method that was far more stable.
At the mansion, when he was alone with Lee Jong-yeop, he spoke.
“Jong-yeop. I should probably just let that argument with the Minister of Health and Welfare be buried, right?”
“Of course.”
Lee Jong-yeop nodded as if it were obvious.
“Even if the trials are a success, it would be difficult for you to bring that up, hyung.”
“I suppose so.”
“It would harm your public image. Please leave that problem to me. You get angry, but it never lasts long. And you never finish your opponents off.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have a spirit of tolerance and compromise, I guess. If your opponent bows their head, you’ll forgive them quickly. If the minister called right now and said he went too far, you’d let it go, wouldn’t you?”
What would happen if the Minister of Health and Welfare called right now and apologized for his words?
Of course, he would choose to resolve it peacefully.
“Even if you hold all the cards after the trials succeed, you won’t just swing them around wildly. You’re the type of person who’d spare the weak if they begged for forgiveness.”
“So the Minister of Health and Welfare would become the weak one.”
“That’s what would happen. But politicians are a breed that feels no gratitude or respect when forgiven. On the contrary, they see their opponent as a pushover. When you take someone down, you have to do it so forcefully that they feel fear.”
“Fear?”
“A little fear won’t do. It has to be the kind of fear that could politically bury them or ruin their lives. If you leave it to me, I’ll play the villain properly. These kinds of problems are what the people underneath are supposed to handle anyway.”
Lee Jong-yeop was not joking; he was completely serious.
* * *
He had a tremendous interest in the automotive industry.
Although he mainly invested in IT companies, Nikola was an exception, and Tesla’s stock price was also skyrocketing at the time.
Fremont, California.
The day he was invited as a shareholder to tour the Tesla factory.
Oh Myeong-woo tagged along, dressed in jeans.
“Myeong-woo. You’re coming too?”
“Of course! As a Model 3 owner, I have to see it.”
They traveled to the city of Fremont by car with ten bodyguards.
When they arrived at the factory, a familiar face came out to greet them.
A man in a black cap, a black t-shirt with the Tesla logo, and jeans.
“Elon Musk?”
“Welcome. We’re honored to have a major shareholder visit.”
After shaking hands with the grinning Elon, they began the tour of the factory immediately.
A robotic arm was moving a giant coil of aluminum.
“Vehicle production starts with the stamping press.”
He had occasionally seen trucks carrying those steel coils with holes in the middle on the highways in Korea.
The machines in the Tesla factory unrolled the aluminum coil, cut it, and pressed it into the shape of a hood or a frame.
‘I never knew this kind of material was used to make cars.’
He was marveling at how the body shop created the vehicle’s underbody, its sides, attached the battery, and so on.
As he watched the numerous processes being carried out by robots, Musk spoke.
“It’s too complicated and takes too much time.”
“Excuse me?”
He had been admiring the automation by robots.
“We weld over 70 different parts and build the body one piece at a time. It’s too inefficient. That’s why we’re preparing a new process.”
He explained it was a method where the front and rear of the vehicle were made as single parts, and the middle section was joined together around the battery pack.
‘This isn’t Lego. Can you really build a car like this?’
As he was inwardly surprised, Musk continued.
“Our goal is to finish the entire process in under 90 seconds.”
Wasn’t 90 seconds not even enough time to heat up a bowl of instant rice?
By reducing wasted materials and time, and maximizing factory efficiency.
Vehicle production would take less and less time.
It wasn't just Tesla’s technology or user experience; an innovation in the manufacturing process itself was underway.
“We will continue to develop new models. And we will create technology that will change the auto market and the world.”
“That’s incredible. Thank you for giving me the tour yourself.”
His impression after touring the Tesla factory was this:
The stock he had bought at $50 a share was soaring, but it didn’t seem to be a massive bubble.
Moreover, he felt happy to have made so much money.
He was able to meet geniuses in various fields and receive inspiration and stimulation.