New Employees With an Annual Salary of 1 Trillion Won - Chapter 175

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 175. Celebration (5)

Carter Till came to Korea.

The Iraq War had finally ended in American victory, and he could finally catch his breath.

“Thank you for coming all this way. You must have been through a lot during this time, yet you came to Korea without rest.”

“Of course I had to come. How could we have achieved such results without the Omnis that Mister Lee created?”

There was much he wanted to say, but he held back his words, wary of potential surveillance.

Only after arriving at the office did the stories he had bottled up finally burst forth.

“This place has anti-surveillance equipment, right?”

“Of course. We introduced military-grade surveillance blocking equipment through Redline. The walls are built with a double shielding structure, so there’s no chance of radio waves leaking out.”

“Then we can talk freely. The Iraq War should be seen as just the beginning of the second phase.”

“I heard that Iraqi army remnants are reorganizing into terrorist organizations.”

The war had ended in American military victory.

But just because the winner was decided didn’t mean the loser would accept it.

Iraqi remnants had transformed into armed resistance forces, carrying out various terrorist attacks.

“It’s awkward to call it thanks, but Palantia has more work to do. The United States is pouring enormous funds into detecting terrorism occurring in various places in advance.”

“If we actively utilize Omnis, we can detect terrorist movements. However, with so many terrorist incidents occurring, we can’t prevent all terrorism.”

“The United States probably doesn’t expect to prevent all terrorism either. They’d be satisfied just preventing major terrorist attacks.”

It was a situation where Palantia’s value was increasing.

The US military had no choice but to partner with Palantia if it could help even a little in preventing terrorism.

“To prevent terrorism, we need more information. There are limits with our current information.”

“Now you don’t need to worry about that anymore.”

Carter Till pulled out several contracts from his jacket.

They were all contracts stamped with the seals of US government agencies.

“Did you sign new contracts?”

“We signed pilot contracts with the FBI, NSA, and Department of Homeland Security. It means they want to use us as an information control tower. Of course, we won’t be able to see the highest classified information.”

“We don’t need to know all the classified information. Just by connecting the puzzle pieces that US agencies give us, we can extract insights more useful than top-secret intelligence.”

The utility of single pieces of information was low.

But if we could properly find the connections between different pieces of information.

Multiple high-grade pieces of information were actually more valuable than one top-secret piece of information.

“For the time being, we can receive data from government agencies. However, the problem is that this contract is a pilot project. We need to consistently produce results to convert it to a formal contract.”

“Finding Saddam Hussein’s hideout alone wasn’t enough, it seems.”

“Exactly. It’s hard to say we’re completely trusted yet. Honestly, we were only able to get the pilot contract thanks to Chairman Robertson.”

Chairman Robertson had been frequently meeting with high-level White House officials lately.

Thanks to that, they were able to sign pilot contracts with US agencies, but they weren’t yet recognized as complete partners.

“I’ll try upgrading the system so we can monitor terrorist organizations around Iraq. But it might take some time.”

“The pilot contract period is one year. Just finish it within that time. And we can achieve considerable results with Omnis’s current functions alone, so we can somehow manage the contract extension.”

“No matter how long it takes, six months will be enough.”

Carter Till smiled and nodded.

Then he covered his mouth with his hand and quietly approached me.

“But like how we tracked Saddam Hussein’s location, would it be possible to track the locations of other terrorist organization leaders too?”

“If we have the relevant information, it’s definitely possible.”

“Then let’s keep tracking terrorist organizations’ locations from now on. Especially, I want to find out Bin Laden of Al-Qaeda’s location.”

Al-Qaeda, known as the mastermind behind 9/11.

And Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda’s leader and America’s top priority elimination target.

“In Saddam Hussein’s case, his movement routes were limited so we could easily find him, but for terrorist organization leaders, it would be difficult to find them since they have so many hideouts.”

“That’s exactly why we need to find them. If we can just find them, forget 10 years—we can sign formal contracts with US agencies for life.”

It would be something the White House wants too.

If they could just capture or eliminate the mastermind of 9/11, they could gain tremendous support.

“I’ll register them as top priority location tracking targets.”

“Shall we stop the work talk here?”

“If you have time, would you like to go out together? I’m supposed to meet with people who were PayPal developers.”

“Of course I should go with you. I came all the way to Korea, so I’m curious about what they’re making.”

I moved to Rollbook with Carter Till.

The sight of three PayPal developers working busily among 300 developers was easily noticeable.

“Hey, how have you been?”

“Carter? What brings you all the way to Korea?”

“I stopped by to see Mister Lee and to see your faces too. But Korean life seems to suit you well. You look great.”

They embraced passionately like family members meeting after a long time.

But Carter Till subtly extended his arm toward me too, and I quickly changed the subject before his hand could reach me.

“Carter Till wants to see the new features you’ve created.”

“Really? We’re in the final stages of work, but if Carter wants to see it, we should show him.”

Chad Hurley proudly demonstrated the new features.

Since it was a feature created by putting heads together with a development team of 300 people, his voice was full of confidence.

“Is it like a video playback program?”

“Similar but different. It’s a short-form streaming service—a service where you can watch videos without downloading them.”

“Why did you make such a service?”

Carter Till asked out of pure curiosity.

But that one comment seemed to hurt the developers’ pride.

“How do you watch videos now? You have to download files, install codecs, and find playback programs just to watch one video.”

“Ah, so you can watch them right away without that hassle.”

“Exactly. It sounds easy when you say it, but to make it that way, we had to dramatically increase conversion speed and completely rebuild the server structure to reduce loading time.”

Chad Hurley poured out his words as if angry.

Carter Till made an expression like he had stepped on a landmine and tried to calm them down somehow.

“I understand, so tell me slowly. So in the end, you can watch short videos freely, right?”

“Don’t put it so simply. We utilized GPUs to increase encoding speed, and we were the first to commercialize a system that transmits data in chunk units. On top of that, we handled everything from user-friendly UI design to mass storage server contracts ourselves. It’s disappointing if you call this ‘just video playback.'”

Playing short videos in real-time.

It sounds easy when said, but to implement that simple function, we had to overcome countless technical barriers.

We came up with all kinds of ideas to realize this, mobilizing even technologies that hadn’t yet appeared in the world to barely make it reality.

“Oh! It was an amazing service. So you guys created such a service?”

“…We did the work, but most of the ideas were suggested by Mister Lee. Especially the crucial idea to utilize GPUs to increase encoding speed was also Mister Lee’s.”

The development team subtly watched my reaction.

I waved my hands dismissively trying to pass the credit to them, but Carter Till tactlessly threw out a question.

“Is GPU such an important idea?”

“If you encode with a regular CPU, it takes at least 40 minutes to convert one 10-minute video. But using GPU, it took less than 10 minutes.”

“Oh! How did Mister Lee come up with such an idea?”

“I saw a recently published paper. It was about utilizing GPUs for general-purpose computing.”

A recently published paper became the decisive hint.

The moment I read that paper, the gears that had been stopped began to turn.

But I felt like this wasn’t the end.

The moment I got the GPU idea, several structures simultaneously flashed through my mind.

I couldn’t yet know what those structures meant, but it was certain they were massive structures too large to recognize their form at a glance.

“Mister Lee reads all the papers too? Do you have time for that?”

“I read papers whenever I have time, partly to study English.”

“I’m really curious—do you sleep?”

“I sleep exactly 7 hours and 30 minutes every day.”

Sleep was also part of my routine.

Going to bed at the designated time even when sleep wouldn’t come.

During the Iraq War period, that routine was briefly disrupted, but now it was finding its place again.

“Sleeping well is also an ability. So when will the short-form service start?”

“We’re now in the completion stage. At the earliest, service will be possible from the end of this month.”

“You’re going to run the service simultaneously in the United States too, right?”

“First, we’ll conduct a pilot service in Korea, then plan to add the feature to Rollbook US afterward.”

“That’s a bit disappointing. I wanted to use the features our P-Project members created in the US right away.”

It didn’t seem like he was just making conversation.

Carter Till was already seemingly addicted, continuously watching short-form videos.

“But there’s no choice. We need to experience trial and error in the relatively smaller Korean market and fix everything before we can add it to Rollbook US.”

“True, the US market is so large that if something goes wrong, it won’t be easy to fix.”

“Still, it won’t take that long. We can start the service in the US within a few months.”

It was a short-form service that would become Rollbook’s new revenue source.

Video ads had higher rates than audio ads, and their exposure was several times higher too.

So if the short-form service established itself properly, Rollbook’s revenue could grow exponentially.

“As expected, our members weren’t just playing around. I thought they were just being a burden to Mister Lee.”

“They never learned how to play, so even when they want to play, they can’t.”

“True, only people who’ve played before know how to play.”

The P-Project members spent time chatting for quite a while.

They only parted when it was time to leave work, and Carter Till also moved on to his next schedule.

“I should get going now too. I have a meeting with CIA Korea Branch executives.”

“Will you be sharing information with CIA Korea Branch now?”

“Not just Korea Branch, but we’ve decided to work together with all CIA branches in Asia, Europe, and even Africa.”

“Then you won’t be able to stay in Korea for long.”

“I have to leave tomorrow. I need to go meet with Japan Branch and China Branch too.”

Information was gradually starting to flow into Phalancia.

And that information would be processed for easy viewing and reported to me.

“The more information we have, the more reliable prediction results we can produce. When that happens, not only US agencies but various corporations will come looking for us.”

“Of course that should happen. If it does, Phalancia will be able to handle all the world’s information.”

“I’ll be waiting for that day.”

If only I could see all the world’s information.

I could calculate all variables and create a perfect blueprint.

That’s why I created Omnis and Phalancia, and that day wasn’t far off now.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————