With Amazon.com headquarters moving to a new office, James—who had nothing to do after school—spent more time in his garage.
As his wealth grew daily from investments in various companies, he decorated the garage with the latest top-tier equipment without budget worries, completing his engineering dreamland.
“Wow! To think there’s even the latest server equipment in a personal garage. This is insane.”
“Won’t this require additional power?”
“That’s why I had separate commercial power construction done. Since I was doing it anyway, I generously increased the allowed power capacity, not knowing what the future holds.”
The people who came to visit James’s garage during summer vacation were Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, who were developing a new search engine at Stanford.
As graduate students, they didn’t really have vacations, but they took some time to visit James’s house, with whom they had been exchanging development opinions.
“You bragged about it, but I never imagined it would be this much.”
As the two were engrossed in looking around the garage, Mom and Jenny opened the garage door from the house and came in.
“These must be James’s friends who were coming today. Welcome.”
“Hello. I’m Larry Page.”
“I’m Sergey Brin.”
Seeing Mom—who was much younger and far prettier than expected—the two froze, and Jenny looked at the two nerds and said to James.
“Oppa, you strangely only hang out with uncles.”
“Come to think of it, you’ve never invited friends your age. The youngest people were college students, no—graduate students.”
He recalled that even when visiting the Walton family, he spent more time with adults than playing with the kids.
“Next time, I’ll invite younger friends. For now, please prepare samgyeopsal for Larry and Sergey to eat.”
Google’s search engine, still in early development, had a long way to go, but they had sufficiently tested it within the school and said they would register the Google domain in the fall semester.
They would continue their studies while building Google at school for a year, but officially found the company next fall in a friend’s garage in Menlo Park, California.
‘The first funding is next summer, so I can start investing in Google then.’
It was still at the graduate thesis project stage, but as Google showed superior search performance and the dot-com bubble inflated, the two would eventually jump into the startup front.
“Is this the ‘Korean barbecue’?”
“There are so many side dishes besides the meat?”
“We call side dishes ‘banchan,’ and this is the famous kimchi. It’s essential food for Koreans.”
With the garage door open for ventilation, he heated the grill pan on the gas burner and placed thick samgyeopsal on it to grill.
“You cut the meat with scissors?”
“In Korea, there are separate scissors for meat. It’s only used for food, so no worries.”
Amazed by the unusual method they were seeing for the first time, the two had no high expectations for pork belly—which Americans only ate when making bacon.
“Huh? Weird. This is the meat used for bacon, right?”
“Why is it so delicious? The ssamjang sauce is insane.”
The grilled samgyeopsal on the pan in the garage was naturally delicious, and the kimchi—which they said was too spicy to eat—turned into heavenly flavor when stir-fried in the pork fat, dancing in their mouths with the samgyeopsal.
“I didn’t know I’d eat this much; my stomach feels like it’s going to burst.”
“Wrapping meat in lettuce—Koreans are geniuses.”
To the two patting their bulging bellies, he said they’d eaten meat and vegetables, so it was time for carbs, and made fried rice on the pan as a finisher.
“My stomach feels like bursting, but it keeps going down?”
Sergey, who said he couldn’t eat more, scraped and ate the last of the fried rice when Jefferson arrived after a long absence.
“Oh no, I’m late. Eating samgyeopsal here is a delicacy.”
“I saved some for Jefferson separately, so eat before you go.”
“Then, shall I enjoy the Yoo family’s samgyeopsal after a long time?”
When Jefferson Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, entered the garage, Larry and Sergey jumped up in surprise.
“Hello. I’m Larry Page, pursuing a PhD at Stanford.”
“Sergey Brin. May I have your autograph?”
He had called Jefferson to introduce him to the two, and curious about the people James was interested in, he left work early and came home.
“Seeing that James invited you to his house, you must be people who will build a successful company.”
“We’re going to create the best search portal site after Yahoo.”
When James praised Larry and Sergey, Jefferson asked if they were okay.
“If it’s the best search site, wouldn’t that make you competitors to Yahoo, where you’re a major shareholder?”
“Yahoo is doing well now, but I think Jeremy got the company direction wrong. In my opinion, Yahoo’s monopoly won’t last forever.”
James’s comment that Yahoo’s future—currently set as the start page for most internet browsers—looked unstable surprised the three.
“By the way, these two are currently using the same lab where Yahoo was born. That place seems like a startup hotspot.”
“In my view, the real hotspot is your garage.”
Jefferson made a blissful face eating samgyeopsal, and as his stomach filled, he began properly conversing with the graduate students from Stanford.
The once kind-hearted engineer Jefferson Bezos was changing into a manager’s appearance as Amazon.com grew explosively.
He still retained his old self, but CEO charisma was gradually emerging, and the still-young Sergey and Larry fell for that Jefferson.
“The conclusion is that getting close to James leads to huge success, so don’t underestimate him because he’s young— just do as he says.”
“We’re also constantly surprised by James’s sharp insights. When we hit a wall making the algorithm, he gives important hints.”
“I taught James programming, but now he’s far better than me. In the time I haven’t seen, even servers appeared in the garage?”
Though James had grown taller and wasn’t treated like a little kid as before, Jefferson Bezos’s card as Amazon.com CEO was still powerful.
Google’s two founders looked at James with eyes full of even more trust than before and decided to discuss search engine development more closely.
“Next semester starts, I’ll go with Dad to his conference, so see you then.”
“Yeah. Thanks to you, we had a long outing and even met Amazon.com’s CEO.”
The two, exhausted from intense Stanford graduate life and search engine development, came to Seattle for fun, said it was great, thanked him, and returned to San Francisco.
Having successfully laid the groundwork with the founders of Google—the biggest fish among companies to invest in soon—James checked his current portfolio.
“Yahoo is at its peak and soaring, and Amazon.com is expanding every quarter.”
Netscape had taken a hit from Microsoft’s browser bundling but was firmly holding the throne, and the internet auction site eBay was achieving explosive growth, preparing for IPO next year.
The low-investment horror movie Scream announced the revival of the genre and, even after time passed since release, earned more during summer season, while Titanic, filming complete, was nearly done with editing and scheduled for a preview in October.
As Yahoo, Netscape, and Amazon.com went public, James’s assets—which were mid-$200 million—had steadily grown with the companies, now exceeding $400 million and approaching $500 million.
“Most assets are tied in equity, so cash looks short, but with this much equity, I can get low-interest loans sufficiently.”
This year, the financial crisis starting in Thailand expanded to East Asia, heavily hitting the Korean economy; as global economic crisis seemed to spread, the U.S. Federal Reserve sharply lowered interest rates to expand liquidity, and the released money sought investment destinations, flowing into dot-com companies.
“If rates drop next year, I can immediately borrow and sweep up dot-com stocks.”
Confirming everything was flowing as planned, James invited new guests to Seattle before summer vacation ended.
“Wow! What is this! The house is normal, but the garage is insane?”
“Our company has worse computers.”
“First time in Seattle?”
This time’s guests were Allen Musk and his younger brother, who had successfully built an internet company in a grimy San Francisco office.
He had hesitated inviting the erratic Allen home, but since he was recently going through hard times, James called him to Seattle.
“You have such a great garage and only invite me now?”
“You were very busy before, Allen.”
“I was short on time.”
Allen Musk, who gave up graduate school to jump straight into internet business, started a new challenge with a pretty good idea.
Internet demand exploded, but most people still didn’t know how to use it, and even companies couldn’t find talent to build websites.
Allen started a business helping internet-ignorant businesses enter online for the first time.
Starting in somewhat internet-familiar Silicon Valley, he obtained licenses for databases containing business names and addresses, plus GPS-based digital map licensing, creating functions to promote search results and location info online mainly for self-employed and used goods businesses.
Allen handled software development, his brother sales; last year, they received $3 million from venture capital, greatly expanding the company.
Initially, they visited city information services one by one to sell, but shifting to B2B providing software packages to online media like the New York Times, sales rose sharply.
“That guy Sochi Rikin coming in made everything so hard.”
“Still, the company grew.”
“Even so, taking the management rights and board chairman seat was too much.”
Receiving $3 million from VC, Allen hired an external manager on their recommendation.
With him came professional developers, and they rebuilt all the code Allen had written.
Soon, the Musk brothers were stripped of management rights and became outcasts in the company despite being founders.
‘He lost in internal politics, but Allen probably ran the company like crap too.’
James felt sorry for Allen Musk losing his position, but also pitied the employees working under his unique mindset.
In the end, the Musk brothers—losing their places in the company—had more time despite business expansion and took this chance to visit James in Seattle.
“Still, you became rich; anything you want to do?”
“The company grew, but I can’t freely use my own company money.”
“Still, there must be something you want.”
“If I get money, I want to buy a sports car and a private jet.”
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