A man with a face that seemed somehow familiar and eyes full of eccentricity asked Jaesung if this was indeed the lab of Yahoo’s founders.
“Yes. This is the right place.”
“Are you Jeremy Yang’s son or nephew or something?”
“No. I’m involved with Yahoo, but what’s the matter?”
When Jaesung revealed he was involved, the man paused to think, then sighed and spoke.
“It’s strange talking to a kid, but I still want to vent a bit. Well, when I was your age, I made games in BASIC on a Commodore VIC-20 and IBM PC XT and sold them for $500, so if you’re interested in computers, you might understand.”
The man had initially dismissed Jaesung as a kid but quickly changed his attitude and began sharing his story.
While attending Queen’s University in Canada, he transferred to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in the summer of ’93, majoring in economics and physics.
Last year, during summer break, he worked days at the Pfiederer Institute in Silicon Valley researching supercapacitors and nights as an intern at a game company called Rocket Science, explaining he had lived in San Francisco.
“At the end of last year, I wrote my first paper on solar power. Recently, I’ve been researching supercapacitors, databases, and rockets, and writing papers.”
As he got into full self-promotion mode, the man said he had given up a career in video games—which was fun but limited in contributing to humanity’s future—and continued his main major, getting accepted into the materials engineering PhD program at Stanford University in the solid-state physics supercapacitor field.
“I came to Stanford dreaming of becoming a physicist, but looking around Silicon Valley, the future of the internet industry looks bright. Netscape exploded as soon as it launched, and Yahoo, with the most visitors, is truly the legend of portal sites.”
Though he had received acceptance from Stanford, his heart pounded at the potential of the internet industry, and he was torn between starting a business or attending school.
“Can’t you start a business while going to school? Jeremy and Dave made Yahoo while in school.”
“Their major is computers, right? Once I enter a materials engineering lab, there won’t even be enough time for research—there’s no room for coding.”
The content was heavy for a middle school first-year, but he spilled his worries without concern.
“So you want to meet Yahoo’s founders to gain conviction?”
“I’m practically a Stanford student too, so as an alum, it should be okay to ask this much, right? Could you go in and get permission?”
Through the conversation, Jaesung realized the identity of the man whose face seemed familiar and fell into brief contemplation.
I’m meeting this guy here? He got into grad school but didn’t enroll and started a business around now? He looks grubby—is he in the middle of some desire experiment?
The man Jaesung knew had conducted a kind of self-experiment before starting his business to figure out how little money he needed.
It was living on $1 a day—to check if he could handle poverty in case the startup failed.
He bought $30 worth of frozen hot dogs and oranges at a big mart and lived eating only that for a month, concluding it was surprisingly doable.
Thinking he could earn at least $30 a month even if he failed, he gave up grad school and jumped into entrepreneurship. Seeing his disheveled appearance, it seemed he had recently done the $1 challenge.
“I’ll ask. As someone who holds quite a bit of Yahoo equity, let me tell you—if you meet those two, you’ll probably want to start a business. Right now is an era where you can make a fortune in internet business.”
Opening the lab door and entering, Jeremy Yang and Dave Filo were staring intently at their monitors.
“You look busy.”
“It’s James. We’re doing final site stability checks because we have to register the business next week.”
He handed them a box of Korean coffee mix each and exchanged brief greetings.
Since Jaesung invested and helped appropriately, Yahoo’s visitor numbers had exploded, growing into the most watched portal site not just in America but worldwide.
Receiving attention from many companies and the public, they were preparing to formally register the business, planning to hire staff and expand once the company formed.
“Oh! Someone’s waiting outside.”
When he mentioned the forgotten visitor, the two said if it was a fellow graduate student, they could offer advice and told him to come in.
“Oh! This is the place where Yahoo was born. The energy feels different.”
“Haha. What energy is there in an engineering graduate lab besides cold, damp concrete smell?”
The man who entered exaggerated that Jeremy and Dave had halos behind them, and after just a few words, he got excited declaring he absolutely had to start a business.
“James, this guy doesn’t seem normal?”
“He looks like a typical engineering student weak at social skills?”
“Yeah, but there’s a bit of madness that’s scary.”
Dave whispered gossip about the man, and when they subtly signaled they were busy, the man belatedly introduced himself.
“Come to think of it, I haven’t told you my name. I’m Elon Musk, the man who will ride a rocket for humanity’s future and go to Mars.”
The man who visited Stanford University’s Yahoo lab was the future multi-child father and businessman Elon Musk, who would become a U.S. special advisor and clash with the president.
In Jaesung’s memory, he was an eccentric figure causing issues with odd behavior, but Elon Musk, yet to taste the harsh waters of society, was seriously living in his own world.
“I hope your business goes well. If you seize the opportunity even through hardship, you’ll definitely make big money.”
“Thank you. Seeing you all gave me the courage to start an internet business right away rather than research materials engineering.”
“Good luck. We’re busy, so we’ll stop here.”
Jeremy and Dave turned back to their monitors, focusing on the screens, but the oblivious Elon Musk still lingered in the lab.
“I’ll see this person out.”
Jaesung dragged Elon Musk out of the lab and asked for his contact information.
“Those two will register the company next week and be insanely busy for a while. If you have questions about starting a business, I can tell you—call or email here.”
When Jaesung gave his contact and asked for Elon’s phone number, he showed a disappointed face.
Used to such situations, Jaesung showed photos with William Gates and Steve Jobs instead of persuading hard.
“This is a photo from Microsoft headquarters after selling a program I made, and one with Steve Jobs when investing in his company.”
“Wow! I felt from the first moment you weren’t an ordinary kid—indeed, an amazing boy.”
Elon’s expression changed instantly, and he readily wrote down his contact for Jaesung.
He wouldn’t need the contact for a while, but since his influence would explode after 2020, building a connection early couldn’t hurt.
His name and face became frequent after success, but Elon Musk suffered a lot after entering society and faced multiple crises.
Even with Zip3 he’s starting now, as a founder he gets stripped of management rights and kicked from the board chairman seat.
In the next business, while on vacation in Australia, colleagues put up a dismissal proposal to the board, seizing real power, and he lost a board vote battle and the CEO position—beyond naivety in internal politics, it clearly showed issues with his personality.
Originally interested in energy, Elon Musk, who changed grad school plans, called his younger brother studying business at Queen’s University to Silicon Valley, rented a small grubby office in Palo Alto, and started a business called Zip3.
Internet demand was surging, but most people still didn’t understand how to use it.
Starting with the idea of supporting offline businesses entering online, Zip3 added map-based yellow pages, initially for the public but switching to B2B to help easy online entry.
“If you have worries too, contact me. I’ve been self-taught coding since young, so there’s stuff I can teach.”
“Okay. I live in Seattle, so I don’t come to San Francisco often, but I come occasionally with Dad, so I’ll contact you.”
He would contact, but he had no plans to invest in the company Elon would make.
Elon developed software, his brother Campbell handled sales, and next year they received $3 million investment from a venture capital firm called Davidow Moore.
At the investor’s urging, they hired professional management and increased staff.
Elon made monolithic code called Hairballia, making expansion difficult.
The code was entirely rewritten by new employees, and soon the Musk brothers lost management rights, then board chairman seats, becoming outsiders.
Fortunately, bullied in the company, it was acquired by Compaq in February 1999 for $307 million; Elon, having lost shares everywhere, held 7% and exited with $22 million. Still young at 28, he became a millionaire and immediately started the next business, learning from this experience to avoid external investment, using his own money to become the largest shareholder.
Even holding the most shares, he gets ousted as CEO again.
There were various incidents, but this time he exited with $250 million, withdrew from internet business, and turned to energy, electric cars, and space—fields he was interested in since undergrad.
He tried various ways to acquire rocket technology but failed all, changing plans to build rockets himself.
There are many twists, but his persistence in producing results is admirable. The person is strange, but the achievements can’t be ignored.
Recalling the results he would achieve, Jaesung resolved to build friendship, but seeing him hunched with broad shoulders and chuckling, the resolve evaporated.
“By the way, what program did you sell to Microsoft? I heard a new version of Windows is coming out this year—do you know anything? Do you know that humans polluting nature and wasting resources is shortening Earth’s lifespan? Space pioneering is humanity’s destiny. We must go to Mars!”
Excited from meeting Yahoo founders Jeremy and Dave, Elon rolled his flashing eyes and poured out various stories.
Jaesung, responding appropriately, was starting to feel his limit when his father, finishing the conference early, arrived.
“You’re outside today. Did you finish your business?”
“They were swamped preparing the company. Dad, you can just say goodbye and go.”
When an intelligent-looking Asian adult man appeared, Elon tensed slightly, and Jaesung briefly introduced him as a medical school professor.
Thanks to his father coming early, he could appropriately part from the currently unemployed, delusion-packed Elon Musk and headed to Pixar, where another personality-disordered Steve Jobs awaited for additional investment.
Premium Chapter
Login to buy access to this Chapter.