On this particular day, Kim Tae-hyun was visiting Jungle.
He was well aware that many eyes were on him.
However, he subtly sensed that the employees of Jungle were paying attention to something else today.
He went up to the CEO’s office, exchanged a brief greeting with Lee Hyun-woo, and asked.
“Is there something going on?”
“There’s always something new, but what kind of thing are you asking about?”
“It’s just that it’s different from usual. Should I say the employees seem excited?”
“Ah… that…”
Lee Hyun-woo started to explain with a gentle smile.
“We recently set up a medical room and a fitness center, and the employees are very interested.”
“A medical room? And a fitness center?”
As for the medical room, Guseong also has them in each of its office branches.
Furthermore, one of it’s own subsidiary operated a sports center brand nationwide where various exercises from aerobic training to swimming are available, Guseong employee can come to any of them for free.
Lee Hyun-woo, knowing this, continued.
“Of course, it can’t compare to Guseong, but it’s the first time our company has had a medical room and fitness center, so there’s a lot of interest.”
“Ah, really?”
“That, and also the nurse and trainer who joined those two places are quite attractive, so they’re getting more attention.”
Kim Tae-hyun’s face showed a knowing smirk.
“Most of them are single, I suppose?”
“Somehow it’s harder to find someone married.”
“I see.”
Nodding, Kim Tae-hyun began to get to the main point.
“We’re starting the construction of the data center.”
“What? Already? It’s faster than I thought.”
“I don’t know about other places, but I’m prioritizing Jungle’s work.”
“I’m always grateful for that.”
“And while we’re at it, we’ll be building ours too.”
This time, Lee Hyun-woo laughed inwardly.
Saying they prioritized Jungle was just for show.
In reality, it seemed like Guseong was also jumping into the new business with a data center.
“Are you going to do cloud?”
“Yeah, I’m thinking of trying it. Right now, the demand for servers is no joke, but who knows when there’ll be an oversupply like with computers. GB Electronics and Daewoon are also entering the server market, so the competition will be fierce.”
“So, you’re planning to rent out storage space with the surplus servers.”
“That’s right. I hope you don’t mind.”
“I welcome it. Especially if Guseong enters the cloud market, we can compete and cooperate.”
“Thanks for thinking that way.”
Originally, they could have pushed forward without saying anything.
But if the successor came directly to get Lee Hyun-woo’s consent,
‘At least they’re considering me.’
It didn’t seem like Guseong would jump in without any preparation.
It’s absurd for a large company to enter a market without confirming its viability.
‘I thought the cloud business might be a bit early, but it seems like the right time.’
With IT companies and public institutions or large companies building information and communication infrastructure like mushrooms after the rain, the demand for servers was no joke.
Big companies can buy servers, but small ones can’t afford it and have to rent.
With the use of intranets and other services, the demand for service and management could also explode, so the era of the cloud seems to have been brought forward.
After Kim Tae-hyun left, good news came in already.
“The stock exchange wants to meet.”
This was a case brought by Kang Dong-ho.
It seemed like they wanted to discuss the proposal Lee Hyun-woo made.
“Did they accept our proposal?”
“Yes, they said they found the suggestions interesting.”
Lee Hyun-woo nodded as if it was only natural.
‘Originally, cloud services are best utilized in finance and stocks.’
There are countless ways cloud services can be used in the financial sector.
Credit risk analysis, evaluating customer loan credit, stock trading analysis and testing for derivative product development, scenario verification work for financial status evaluation.
Of course, Jungle doesn’t do all of this.
Jungle’s cloud service can provide the infrastructure and even simpify complex algorithm to develop such work. So non-IT companies can focus on building their business.
‘It’s not an exaggeration to say that the birth and growth of Amazoness were together with the American financial sector.’
What would happen if Jungle took that?
Lee Hyun-woo was really curious.
Maybe, just as Single’s founder unexpectedly entered P2P program development, Amazoness could also bring forward something else.
The second life is nice because it’s not a rerun.
Meanwhile, two people immersed in P2P program development, namely Ray Burin and Michael Face, had a visitor.
His name was Steven Job.
He mentioned that he had read their recently published paper and said,
“I’m about to return to Pineapple soon. As you know, it’s a mess there these days. So, how about joining me for a new Pineapple? I’m thinking of offering an annual salary of 100,000 dollars.”
With his characteristic blunt speech, he tried to pull the two in.
But would the two who recently received a much better offer from Jungle even budge?
“Sorry, we have something else going on.”
“Yes, we’re planning to run a company independently.”
“A company? Are you preparing to start one? Perhaps with a search engine?”
“Using a search engine.”
“Are you planning to create a portal site?”
This was the business Steven had in mind.
In other words, the moment he returned to Pineapple, he intended to create a competitor to the rising Yahoo.
However,
“No. We created something new using it.”
They weren’t thinking of a portal site.
Naturally, Steven Job’s eyes sparkled.
He had heard rumors about the two who were making a name for themselves in this field for a while.
A company’s competition is for talent.
At least Steven thought so, and he wanted to bring these two in any way possible,
‘They say they’re developing something new, which makes me even more interested.’
His lips twitched again with the greed of seeing talented people.
“Whatever it is, I’ll support it unconditionally.”
This was also an offer they received from Jungle.
So Ray Burin sighed and spoke.
“Sorry, but Jungle promised an investment of several million dollars on the condition of guaranteeing our maximum freedom.”
“What?”
“Of course, we rejected that too. As I mentioned, we want to run a company independently.”
At this point, persuading them further was almost impossible.
Steven smacked his lips.
It’s a pity. Talent is a unique resource that can’t be imitated.
‘But investing more than a million dollars isn’t easy either.’
It’s hard to measure the value of two people who can’t be found anywhere else.
But the problem is Pineapple’s capabilities.
Despite the high-flying information and communication industry, Pineapple’s stock price has dropped so much that the situation isn’t good.
It’s because the quarterly performance was at rock bottom.
‘Anyway, Jungle is starting to collect talent.’
He thought that companies recognizing the value of talent must develop.
His lifelong rival, Billy Cates of Macro Soft, was similar.
He would run to bring in talent no matter what.
‘I’ll have to keep an eye on Jungle.’
Fortunately, it wasn’t difficult to keep an eye on them.
Just accessing a portal site and typing ‘Jungle’ as a search term would bring up countless related pages.
Even in the U.S., Jungle is a daily topic.
Because they attempted something truly surprising.
A portal site or online shopping was just so-so.
But to think of making and selling MP3 files?
Maybe that’s why?
It seems like a hardcore fan base has been formed among the young generation who are enthusiastic about the internet these days.
Among the articles, it mentioned communities or groups that follow Lee Hyun-woo of Jungle, and even university debate topics.
The new human race that changes people’s habits with new content or something?
Recently, it was announced that they entered the cloud service.
Wondering what it was, it turned out to be a business where they set up the infrastructure, manage it, and let others use the servers.
‘Amazing.’
It seems like dot-com companies that are sprouting up these days wouldn’t be able to resist.
Or it might be more tempting for general companies than dot-com companies.
With the changing times, you can’t continue to manage based solely on on-site operations. Utilizing the internet to increase work efficiency would be very important.
Steven also vaguely dreamed of such a business, but seeing it presented so concretely, he couldn’t help but click his tongue.
‘If I had discovered it earlier, I would have brought them in immediately.’
It’s hard to discover talent with creativity.
Especially the creativity that adjusts people’s habits.
‘But was it always this accurate?’
Steven suddenly felt curious.
The search engine he often used, Alta Vist, was a disaster.
Typing Pineapple would only bring up fruit.
But now, typing Jungle brought up information about the company called Jungle, as well as the ‘forest’ people know.
‘Then our company too?’
He searched for Pineapple, which he would soon join.
‘What the heck is this?’
Again, it was mainly about the fruit.
Suddenly, he realized.
This was manipulated intentionally.
Naturally, Steven’s eyes widened.
‘Can you do this using a search engine?’
Making company names appear first.
Of course, this could be the core of advertising.
‘It’s not just about generating revenue with banner ads.’
Naturally, if they could make money by showing the most relevant search terms first?
He thought it was an advertisement Pineapple should do even if it costs money.
So he couldn’t stop being amazed.
‘These days, portal sites really do mean money.’
He made another plan.
To enter the portal site business after returning to Pineapple.
At that time, Lee Hyun-woo was being briefed on a new business model.
“As you mentioned, the preparations for keyword advertising are complete. Ah, we’ve received several inquiries and complaint calls from various companies.”
Woo Sang-won, who had now become the head of the portal site division, was preparing keyword advertising following Lee Hyun-woo’s instructions as soon as he sat down.
During the testing phase, associating some keywords with the company quickly led to phone complaints from a few companies who noticed.
“What about in Japan and the U.S.?”
“I checked via email, and it’s the same. But it’s not as much as in our country. It seems like there are so many internet-based companies popping up in Korea these days, leading to more contacts.”
Lee Hyun-woo smiled with satisfaction.
A portal site can’t survive on banner ads alone.
They need to create various revenue models, and this recently became possible.
Naturally, each developer did their best to improve the search engine.
“Can other places do this?”
“It’s hard to guarantee, but I don’t think there’s a place that can reach this level. Technologically, there’s no search engine yet that looks into the ‘relationship’ between web pages.”
“Then I can boast a bit when I go to the U.S. and meet Alta Vist.”
The current search engine was already integrated into Alta Vist.
Although it was installed as a test, Lee Hyun-woo was confident.
‘The representative there must be excited thinking about making money with this.’
