When I look at the people who came today…
It seems that Kim Yoon-soo from 【One Computer】 and Jung Sung-woo from 【Alpha Cast】 are the relatively successful ones.
Of course, they were invited by Lee Hyun-woo. Especially in Kim Yoon-soo’s case, since he revealed the name 【One Computer】, most people seem to recognize him as the ‘celebrity’ next to Lee Hyun-woo.
As a result, Kim Yoon-soo’s voice gets quite loud.
“If we gather around CEO Lee Hyun-woo, who knows what will happen to Korea? In 10 years, who knows if the names of the companies represented by the people here will be alongside 【Guseong】, 【Daeun】, and 【GB】?”
“That’s right!”
“Indeed!”
“We must pull and push each other. Isn’t that right, everyone?”
“That’s right!”
“Indeed!”
“Let’s take this opportunity to name our group! Ah, CEO Lee is really good at that, isn’t he? What do you think, CEO Lee? Can you come up with one?”
Everyone’s attention focuses on Lee Hyun-woo.
Even though it was a sudden request, Lee Hyun-woo wasn’t flustered at all.
Rather, as if he had prepared, he stood up and raised his glass, saying:
“Just a suggestion, how about the 21st Century Venture Business Association?”
It means a gathering of innovative companies aiming for the future, but the term ‘venture’ was unfamiliar to them.
However, since Lee Hyun-woo said it, people raised their glasses and expressed their approval.
Later, Lee Hyun-woo went around the tables in small groups, explaining the meaning of ‘venture.’
“It’s actually a commonly used term in the U.S. It means an innovative company that runs challenging businesses based on creative ideas and advanced technology.”
In fact, it was hard to spread this kind of knowledge just through a Q&A service.
That service was extremely personal in nature, involving individual questions and answers.
While it was useful, the questions and answers lacked objectivity and universality.
‘It’s about time we had something that provides objective and universal explanations.’
For example, if it were like the 【Wiki】 of his previous life, people would be able to find sufficient information.
Fortunately, he found a company at one of the tables that created something similar.
“Ah, CEO Park Ki-ho of 【Nam’s Story】, nice to meet you. Sorry, but what kind of site is 【Nam’s Story】?”
“I’m curious too. Just from the name, it sounds like it’s about talking about other people.”
Since Kim Yoon-soo was also sitting there, he expressed his curiosity again when Lee Hyun-woo asked.
CEO Park Ki-ho had a very young-looking face.
Moreover, his voice was so small that he seemed introverted.
“Actually, it’s a site I created by referencing the knowledge service of 【Jungle】.”
“Knowledge service?”
“Yes, the purpose of a knowledge service is to satisfy curiosity. So, we created a platform where an unspecified large number of people can participate.”
The intent was similar to ‘Wiki,’ so much so that Lee Hyun-woo was reminded of the popular 【Nam’s Wiki】 from his previous life.
“The original name wasn’t 【Nam’s Story】. It was 【Backtalk】. People like to talk about others behind their backs, so we created a platform where they could do it freely. But as high-speed internet started spreading, user numbers increased rapidly, and we thought the site name wasn’t quite appropriate.”
“So, you changed the name to 【Nam’s Story】.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
The reason he initially seemed introverted was probably because of his voice.
In reality, Park Ki-ho spoke very well.
“In the end, it’s a website where everyone has editing rights to the documents. But what about the servers? If more and more people use it, it will soon become overloaded.”
“We can still manage for now. It’s mostly text-based documents. The problem is income. I’d like to do some advertising, but advertisers are interested in design banners, not text.”
“Of course.”
Lee Hyun-woo understood right away.
He also spent a lot of money increasing the servers in the beginning.
However, 【Jungle】’s initial revenue model wasn’t portal site advertising but commissions from online auctions and shopping.
Using that seed money, he expanded the servers to support the portal site up to now,
‘To be more precise, it was the cheat key of experiencing a previous life.’
Luck also helped a bit.
But this wasn’t something that would happen to other small-scale site operators.
“Then why not try using our servers?”
“Excuse me?”
“We are continuously expanding our servers. We plan to build a data center in the future as it seems this won’t be enough, but for now, our server capacity should be enough to handle your site, so you can use it.”
“……”
“It sounds like I’m doing business on a first meeting, and I’m sorry, but of course, it won’t be free. If you insist, it can be considered a rental.”
“Rental?”
“Yes, we charge based on usage.”
Lee Hyun-woo was slowly venturing into the cloud business.
However, if the goal was to make a significant profit from small-scale businesses right from the start, he wouldn’t have suggested this.
“If it’s too burdensome right now, how about advertising our company’s banner on 【Nam’s Story】? It’s a kind of business collaboration.”
“Really? Is that okay?”
“Of course. And start by receiving banner advertisements from our company. It will generate income, and you can add more servers later.”
“If that works out… it would be great.”
Park Ki-ho looked at Lee Hyun-woo with an expression of hitting the jackpot.
The term ‘business collaboration’ wasn’t that common in this era.
However, recently, the business collaboration between 【Jungle】 and 【Alta Vista】 was gradually being revealed.
The gist was to reduce additional costs and create synergy by exchanging what they needed.
“Then let’s discuss the details of the business collaboration later.”
“Later…?”
“I mean, even tomorrow is fine.”
Lee Hyun-woo quickly changed ‘later’ to ‘tomorrow’ so that Park Ki-ho wouldn’t misunderstand it as a polite remark.
Then he stood up.
“Well, then I’ll move to another table.”
Lee Hyun-woo wanted to meet as many people as possible to identify the nature of their companies.
‘These people are doing really interesting things.’
He was often surprised when he sat at each table.
There were even people discussing P2P concepts and cryptocurrency, which Lee Hyun-woo was wary of.
It seemed that the advent of high-speed internet had given people boundless creativity.
It was a day that made him feel even more rewarded for advancing the era.
The next day.
After going to work, Lee Hyun-woo opened 【Nam’s Story】.
Since Park Ki-ho might visit today, he thought he should take a look around.
As soon as he entered, he saw a page that showed a noticeable difference from the 【Nam’s Wiki】 he had seen in his previous life.
It seemed that this was the limit due to the server constraints.
‘If we collaborate, it will gradually improve, right?’
He searched for 【Jungle】.
Then, the table of contents was immediately listed.
Vast forest of tropical rainforest climate
Lawless, survival-of-the-fittest society
Korean Information and Communication Company, 【Jungle】
Naturally, he clicked on ‘3’, and it led to a new page via hyperlink.
- A company started with online auctions in March 1996. The founder is Lee Hyun-woo.
There were various other explanations listed, and out of curiosity, Lee Hyun-woo clicked on his own name.
This also connected to a new page.
- Founder and CEO of Korean Information and Communication Company 【Jungle】. He created Korea’s first e-commerce company and its first portal site, and Korea’s first…(truncated)…
Seeing it like this, there were quite a few ‘Korea’s first’ modifiers.
He didn’t have much emotion about that, but when his life story appeared, he widened his eyes.
It even included his birth year and date, as well as his hometown.
It even had his school background and approximate grades.
The most absurd part was the anecdote from his military days.
- Lee Hyun-woo makes even his younger brother call him CEO within the company. While he seems to have an American mindset on the surface, he strongly believes that smaller companies need to establish a hierarchy. This philosophy was evidently formed due to an incident during his military service. At the unit where he served, a junior officer and a senior in the unit were very close. They actually knew each other from the civilian world, so they disregarded ranks and acted like friends. Later, a terrible incident occurred during shooting practice at this unit, and it’s clear that this incident shaped Lee Hyun-woo’s management philosophy.
Lee Hyun-woo blinked a few times and asked himself.
‘What? What’s this?’
Of course, such an incident never happened.
However, he had mentioned it to his younger brother and Jang Yoo-chul before.
Kim Yoon-soo was also present at that time.
He had made up the story to change the mindset of all three at that time,
‘Since everyone can edit it, could those three be the culprits?’
It was possible.
But since Kim Yoon-soo seemed to be encountering 【Nam’s Story】 for the first time the previous day, it could be narrowed down to two suspects.
Lee Hyun-woo asked the two of them during lunchtime.
“Team Leader Lee and Team Leader Jang, did you record anything on 【Nam’s Story】?”
“No? It’s my first time hearing about it.”
“I know about it. But I haven’t recorded anything there. Ah, did you see the part about the CEO?”
“Yeah, it was so detailed. It even included stuff from my military days.”
“Oh, that? Yes, I saw it too.”
Jang Yoo-chul continued speaking while smiling.
“While reading it, I wondered if it was written by your military buddy, but thinking about it, it doesn’t seem like it. Seeing the part about management philosophy, it seems like it came from one of our employees.”
“Our employee? I haven’t told anyone except you two.”
“I told them.”
“Me too.”
“……?”
“At the beginning of the company, we had a lot of our classmates. And quite a few of Team Leader Woo’s colleagues joined too. We thought the chain of command might get disrupted, and directives might not be followed properly.”
“Yes, especially educating Oh Min-woo was tough.”
“Right. But one thing we had to follow was the CEO’s management policy.”
“And it was actually convenient for us. Since our working hours are already short, it wouldn’t be good if the command structure became ambiguous.”
“Haha…”
Lee Hyun-woo could only laugh awkwardly.
‘Well, I can’t really say anything about this.’
If their subordinates, and those subordinates’ subordinates, or their acquaintances discussed ‘Lee Hyun-woo’s management philosophy’ and passed it on, it would be hard to identify who edited it.
Inevitably, Lee Hyun-woo edited the relevant part himself in the afternoon.
-…(truncated)… It’s evident that this incident shaped Lee Hyun-woo’s management philosophy. However, since there has been no confirmation from him, there is a possibility that this is incorrect.
It was the moment when 【Nam’s Story】 turned into his own story.
