New Employees With an Annual Salary of 1 Trillion Won - Chapter 28

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 28. Ghost Story (3)

 

 

 

My first vacation.

I had never used vacation time since joining the company.

There was no way I would voluntarily disrupt my work routine.

But this vacation was mandatory, so I had no choice but to skip work and head to Korea University instead of the company.

 

“Oh! Lee Jung-hoo, you’re here? Wow, I heard Nexpin became the star of COMDEX this time? The media coverage was incredible. It was really something else.”

“It just happened to turn out that way.”

“Did you really sign contracts with MS and Apple? Does that mean you actually met Bill Gates and Jobs?”

 

The research lab members gathered around one by one, throwing questions at me.

What need was there for a hundred words? I had solid proof in my shopping bag.

 

“First, please accept these gifts.”

“What kind of gifts? No way? Ahhhhh! You actually got autographs?”

“Bill Gates wrote my name for me!”

“There’s a Jobs autograph too! Lee Jung-hoo! No, Mr. Jung-hoo. I pledge my loyalty from now on.”

“How about I give you a shoulder massage? Please, have a seat somewhere comfortable.”

 

The research lab members continued cheering in overwhelming excitement.

If I could keep using them with just a few autographs, it would be a profitable deal.

 

“I really worked hard to get those autographs.”

“Of course! Of course! Thank you so much. I’ll treasure them as family heirlooms for generations and never forget you, Mr. Jung-hoo.”

“By the way, how’s the Rollbook situation?”

 

Was it because they were engineering students?

Their input and output were clear.

When the autograph input went in, the motivation output was definitely coming out.

 

“We expanded the regional-based system nationwide, and traffic is exploding. Also, advertising revenue has increased significantly, so we don’t need to worry about server costs anymore.”

“The revenue structure is finally stabilizing.”

“Users have also surged. And we’re in the final stages of adding internet radio-related features.”

“Internet radio isn’t urgent, so take your time preparing it.”

“We also added a function to block users who post unauthorized advertising or use profanity.”

 

Gears that run smoothly on their own.

How could I not be tempted by this?

I wanted to quickly establish a Rollbook company and bring them over.

To do that, I needed to quickly inform them about the contract with the Branch Manager.

 

“That’s great. Oh! And there’s something I must tell you. I’ve decided to sell part of Rollbook’s equity shares to a private equity fund.”

 

The atmosphere became slightly tense.

Before they could misunderstand that I was selling the entire site, I quickly added:

 

“I only sold 30%, and the contract clearly states they won’t interfere with operations or management at all.”

“Was it necessary to give equity shares to a private equity fund? Operating costs are now sufficient with our own revenue.”

“It was a choice to see the bigger picture. I decided to pursue expansion into the United States by partnering with the private equity fund.”

“Rollbook is expanding into the United States?”

 

Everyone looked stunned.

Though they knew the site’s quality better than anyone, talk of US expansion was completely unexpected.

 

“Expanding into the US requires infrastructure and networks. I determined that the private equity fund’s help was essential in that regard. Many IT companies in Silicon Valley grew this way too.”

“Certainly, external help is needed for site expansion.”

“The private equity fund agreed to cover all costs needed for Rollbook operations going forward. In exchange, they take 30% of revenue, but we can still achieve much more stable operations and higher profits than before.”

 

These were Korea University Computer Science students.

They had scored near-perfect on the college entrance exam math section, and they finished calculating profits before I even finished speaking.

 

“So the private equity fund covers all costs in exchange for 30% of revenue. Definitely, under those conditions, we benefit more.”

“70% of revenue comes to us without worrying about costs. And they agreed to cover all costs for new features including the internet radio business.”

“Thinking about it that way, we have absolutely nothing to lose from these conditions. Why would a private equity fund make such a contract? There must be something in it for them to make such an unreasonable deal.”

 

It was a sharp question.

Private equity funds were more profit-oriented than any other company.

For such a fund to cover all costs even at a loss, there had to be another reason.

 

“They said it doesn’t matter how much it costs right now. If they can just raise Rollbook’s value, they can not only recover the costs but see profits dozens of times over.”

“For that to happen, wouldn’t Rollbook’s value need to grow more than 100 times from now?”

“They say it’s possible if we can successfully expand into the US. It’s a structure where the private equity fund bears all the risk if we fail, but we all benefit together if we succeed.”

“If the private equity fund is going this far, they must see very high chances of success.”

 

The tense atmosphere finally relaxed.

Since the structure was entirely favorable to us, no one raised any objections.

 

“Our site definitely has merit compared to other sites. And for the payment system, we partnered with a US company called PayPal.”

“I haven’t heard of them before. But if we can improve the payment system, it would help. The current payment system is a bit complicated.”

“Let me share information about PayPal. And let’s work together on a simple payment system going forward. Naturally, the private equity fund will cover research costs.”

 

The research lab members still had strong affection for Rollbook.

Plus, since they held Rollbook equity shares, albeit small amounts, they readily nodded in agreement.

 

“After partnering with the private equity fund, you’re moving globally now. Collaborating with US companies too.”

“Next year, Rollbook will officially launch as a corporation. I’ve finished talks with the private equity fund, and I can promise salaries at large corporation levels. So after graduation, you can comfortably join Rollbook.”

“Really… Let me think about it a bit more.”

 

Graduate students about to graduate, clutching magazines with Bill Gates’ autograph.

I could sense their anticipation about working with IT industry legends, and they seemed to be already slightly swayed.

 

“By the way, Rollbook’s office will be located right next to Nexfin. We might collaborate with Nexfin, and that could create opportunities to work with MS or Apple too.”

“Really? If that happens, I’d have no other wishes.”

 

Was it not enough to completely capture their hearts?

But that was fine. There was still plenty of time, and I had many more carrots left to sway the research lab members’ hearts.

 

“Take your time thinking about it. In the meantime, let’s start with creating the US version of Rollbook. We need to make some adjustments to suit American users’ preferences and modify the simple payment system.”

“We just need to make minor modifications to the code that Jung-hoo wrote, so the work won’t be difficult.”

“We also need to open the point shop soon, so please pay attention to that as well.”

“Actually, the art students have been producing an incredible amount of work lately. Since we’re paying both part-time wages and commissions, some students are creating dozens of pieces per day.”

 

To open the point shop, we needed products.

We were commissioning various artworks from Korea University’s Art and Design departments.

 

“We’ll start with Korea University first, and later it might be good to hold contests targeting universities nationwide.”

“Isn’t that the large corporation method? Not paying part-time wages and only giving prizes to a few winners while taking all the artwork copyrights.”

“We won’t do that. We’ll pay participation fees to the top 100 and give the same commissions. We can’t exploit students on a website made by students.”

 

The research lab members nodded vigorously.

This reaction came from having experienced exploitation-like structures multiple times.

 

“And I couldn’t sleep last night, so I created one more function.”

“What kind of function?”

“It’s nothing difficult – I made music play on personal pages. You can think of it as a BGM function.”

“Oh! Music auto plays just by entering someone else’s page.”

 

Besides visual customization like backgrounds and skins.

I was thinking about what could satisfy other senses, and music came to mind.

 

“There’s nothing better than music for sharing emotions, right?”

“You can somewhat see someone’s personality based on what music they like. This seems ready to apply to Rollbook right now, doesn’t it?”

“I thought so too, but there’s a bit of a copyright issue.”

“Audio file copyrights? Everyone downloads and listens for free, but legally it could be problematic.”

 

There were rarely cases of paying for audio files.

At least with CDs or cassette tapes, there were legitimate purchase channels. For MP3 audio files, there was no way to obtain them except through dark channels.

 

“We’ll need to consult with experts about that problem.”

“Couldn’t the fund step in to resolve it?”

“Well, we’ll see. Oh, and lastly… how is Korea University applying Y2K-related patches?”

“You mean the millennium bug? We’re applying both the patch from the government and the patch Korea University developed internally. Our department and the facilities team are leading it. There are occasional errors, but there shouldn’t be any major problems.”

 

As a national university, Korea University had solid government support.

The government invested a large budget to develop Y2K patches, and Korea University was also playing a key role.

 

“Could I take a look at the patch files?”

“Of course. I’ll organize the latest version and send it to you.”

 

Work time began.

The research lab members focused on adding Rollbook functions, while I reviewed the millennium bug patches.

 

I already had four types of patches.

The version from GL Group, government, Korea University, and the open MS version.

All had massive capacity and complex structures, taking several hours just to check.

 

“Just installing takes half a day.”

 

As soon as I opened the patches, I covered my ears first.

Discordant sounds that tortured my eardrums came from all directions, and I even broke out in hives all over my body.

 

All complex and heavy patches.

They weren’t complete from the beginning but were the result of years of accumulated updates.

Updates sounded nice, but in reality they were temporary measures with functions continuously attached.

 

‘I need to optimize the pathways first.’

 

The most terrible discordant sounds were coming from the pathways.

I deleted unnecessary parts and quickly fixed the sections marked in red.

 

I also removed unnecessary resources.

I implemented auto recognition and simplification of pathways to find optimal routes.

I also applied algorithms that could process multiple tasks with a single command.

 

‘I need to do recombination too.’

 

Now that I’d removed the discordant sounds, it was time to create harmony.

For that, a recombination process was necessary.

 

Every patch had its own strengths and weaknesses.

Government, Korea University, MS, and GL Group patches.

All were designed to suit their respective environments.

I wanted to extract only the advantages from various patches to create a perfect new patch, but.

 

‘One won’t be enough.’

 

It was possible to extract advantages and create a patch.

The problem was that this single patch couldn’t satisfy all institutions.

For the research lab, an educational institution patch was needed, for Nexfin an enterprise patch, and for the private equity fund, a financial institution exclusive patch had to be made separately.

 

‘Well, the structures are quite similar anyway. I’ll make them.’

 

The work of extracting and combining only the advantages was quite enjoyable.

The joy of creating something new.

And new materials kept flowing in continuously.

 

“Jung-hoo! The adjacent research lab found a new patch version made by Samjin Electronics.”

“The professor also got a US government patch! I’ll send it to you by email.”

“We also secured a Windows version exclusive patch!”

“Here’s a UNIX-based patch too!”

 

Korea University indeed.

They kept bringing hard-to-find patches, making me restart the work from the beginning.

I had to redo the same work, but far from being annoyed, I was actually enjoying it.

I felt exhilaration from repeating the same patterns.

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