Lee Hyun-woo, CEO of Jungle, saw that the preparations for the search keyword advertisement were progressing steadily and moved to the airport to catch a flight to the United States.
The people moving with him were his younger brother Lee Jung-woo and Oh Min-woo.
And as always,
“Why isn’t she flying first class these days?”
Oh Min-woo asked a random question.
“Who? You mean Ah-young?”
“Yes, her.”
“That’s her choice.”
“It’s a shame.”
“How so?”
“If she flies first class, I can switch seats with her again.”
“Right, right. If that happens, even the secretary has to switch seats, and I could end up in first class too.”
Even his younger brother Lee Jung-woo joined in.
“You guys, I’ve been letting you fly business class these days. How much more do you want?”
“It’s one of those things that once you tasted the higher level, you really feel the downgrade.”
“Right, right. I couldn’t forget it after trying it last time. I’m actually curious to see if Ah-young will fly first class again.”
“Ah-young? Why do you call her that?”
“Then what should I call her? Should I call her ‘miss’?”
“No, sister-in-law.”
“What?”
Lee Jung-woo glanced at his older brother, aware of Oh Min-woo’s bold voice.
He didn’t know the progress between the two of them.
So, he had no choice but to read the atmosphere.
However, Lee Hyun-woo showed no reaction.
‘Did Min-woo give up teasing?’
Sometimes, Oh Min-woo would cross the line.
No, he crossed the line whenever he had the chance.
Each time, Lee Hyun-woo would laugh it off, but issues involving women could be different.
If a scandal were to break out with the eldest daughter of 【Guseong】, things would get complicated.
Anyway, as Lee Hyun-woo remained silent, so Lee Jung-woo subtly changed the subject.
“Oh, what happened to those guys?”
“Those guys?”
“I mean Ray and Mikhail.”
“Oh, them? I gave up.”
“They’re not coming?”
“Yeah, they’re not coming. They said they would start their own independent company.”
“Starting a company with bidirectional file transmission? Can that make money?”
“They say it can, but it seems like it will cause a lot of side effects.”
“Right. It’s bound to cause serious copyright issues.”
This issue had already been discussed several times at 【Jungle】’s team leader meetings, both officially and unofficially.
Lee Hyun-woo had attended those meetings and said that while he recognized the seriousness of the problem, it was something they had to deal with.
He had also thought about it a lot and eventually decided to abandon the plan to hire the founders of 【Single】.
He said there were excellent developers at 【Jungle】, so there was no need to do that, which felt quite peculiar.
“Oh, you know Steven, right?”
“Steven Jobs?”
“Yes, that person.”
“Of course, I know. Isn’t he the founder of 【Pineapple】? He was even kicked out of the company he founded.”
“He’s coming back this time.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, Ray and Mikhail told me.”
This time, Lee Hyun-woo showed interest.
He didn’t seem surprised, but,
“Steven Jobs is really returning to 【Pineapple】?”
He finally joined the conversation by asking a question.
“Yes, he’s preparing to return. I heard this because he approached Ray and Mikhail.”
“He tried to take them with him when he came back.”
“Right. He promised a minimum salary of $100,000 and said he would spare no support for any development project.”
“With those conditions, they must have refused.”
“Of course. It didn’t even match the conditions we offered.”
Lee Hyun-woo chuckled.
‘Am I changing things too much?’
The butterfly effect is quite interesting.
However, since 【Jungle】 had created an excellent search engine and portal site, it seemed that the founders of 【Single】 had no place to stand for the time being.
Of course, P2P programs are significant at this point, but they weren’t enough to achieve the glory of the previous lives.
“But it seems Steven Jobs will work on a portal site when he returns.”
“He said he would?”
“He didn’t say it outright, but he mentioned needing their search engine. That means he’s interested in portal sites.”
“That makes sense.”
Steven Jobs working on a portal site?
That could be an interesting scenario, so he’s looking forward to it.
‘No, if the expectations are high, the disappointment will be high too.’
Lee Hyun-woo’s expectations were already quite high.
So far, Ray Burrin and Mikhail Faze had failed to provide fresh fun.
Steven Jobs might end up the same.
‘Our development team is even better.’
No matter how great they made it, since he had already tasted the superior results shown by 【Jungle】’s development team, they couldn’t meet his expectations.
In any case, one thing is similar to the previous life.
None of them are people who would work under someone else.
Thinking this, Lee Hyun-woo decided not to artificially bring in IT entrepreneurs in the future.
‘The best thing is to nurture them.’
This was what he liked the most.
Lee Hyun-woo, who was known for being good at nurturing people in his previous life.
In this life as well, he wanted to personally nurture developers, managers, and innovators.
As always, he didn’t want this life to be the same as the previous one.
That would be like a rerun.
In this life, he wanted the innovators of this life to tell their own stories.
Thinking up to this point, a smile naturally spread across Lee Hyun-woo’s lips.
‘I really look forward to seeing what kind of world it will be.’
Meanwhile, the news that Lee Hyun-woo was coming to the United States spread widely.
Specifically, it was known to those interested in IT.
One of them was investors.
Mostly, the fund managers on Wall Street.
The hedge fund company 【Natural Standard Fund】 was no exception.
To meet the arrival time, a fund manager began reporting to his team leader, Joe Murphy.
“Well, I’ll be leaving now.”
“Oh, right. Today is the day Lee Hyun-woo is arriving?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“Can you get him to invest?”
“It won’t be easy, but we’ll try to persuade him.”
“Please, do. There aren’t any good places to invest these days.”
“If it doesn’t work out, it might not be a bad idea to look into other IT companies in Korea.”
“I know that too. We’ve already sent people to Korea. But where is as verified as 【Jungle】?”
“Doing the legwork is the most accurate way. If we can’t invest in 【Jungle】 this time, I’ll go to Korea myself to explore.”
“Alright, alright. You’ll be late. Go on now.”
“Yes, I’ll be off then.”
These days, investment funds were gathering on Wall Street with nowhere to go, but it was a situation where it was hard to invest money easily.
The reason was simple.
Due to the strong dollar policy, it was not easy to pull out.
To take on exchange rate risks, both stability and profitability had to be met, but such places were hard to find.
Recently, a new information industry era had opened in Korea based on ADSL.
As a result, companies like 【Jungle】, 【Alpha Cast】, and 【One Computer】 were achieving significant results, and their prospects were also promising.
However, there was no place like 【Jungle】, so Joe Murphy, who had high hopes for the fund manager who had just left, received a call.
“Hello?”
(Hey, it’s me.)
“Oh, David, it’s been a while.”
(Yeah. Are you free these days?)
“Well, yes. What about you?”
(Same here. There’s no good place to invest.)
David, the man on the phone, was a friend working in the same industry.
It was the same situation.
Due to the strong dollar, it was not easy to invest with peace of mind.
He wasn’t calling to complain about that.
(By the way, did you know? The CEO of 【Jungle】 is arriving soon.)
“In San Francisco?”
(You knew. Then you must have sent someone.)
“I did. Did you?”
(Yeah. Damn, it’s going to be a bloodbath. I’ve been making calls, and seven places have sent fund managers to San Francisco.)
“Phew, everyone feels the same way. It’s hard to invest money easily these days.”
(Forget investing. I’m considering pulling out the existing money.)
“Really?”
(Aren’t you?)
“Well, to be honest, yes. We also received reports of over-investment in Asia, including Thailand and Malaysia. And there’s a signal from the top that we need to start withdrawing due to exchange rate risks.)
(Wow, we’re all the same. It’s going to be a mess. So, are you entering Korea?)
“We received a report of over-investment in Korea last year too. Additionally, there are concerns about the insolvency of some companies, so we’re watching closely, but for now, we’re just observing.”
(You’re not pulling out the money.)
“Yes, we won’t. What about you?)
(Same here.)
Basically, the hedge fund cartel often exchanged opinions like this.
It was similar to subtly exchanging information because no one wanted to be the only one to suffer losses or see the other party reap all the benefits.
David was the same.
(So, should we keep an eye on the situation in Korea and look for decent investment opportunities?)
“Pull out what needs to be pulled out and push it into other places. According to our analysis, the IT environment is expected to change rapidly, centered on Korea.”
(I heard that too. Online shopping, portal sites, MP3 files, high-speed internet, modems, and servers, etc. There are some bubbles, but the investment risk isn’t that high.)
“If it’s high, so what? The higher the risk, the greater the reward, right?”
(But we can’t invest in junk.)
“Of course not.”
Joe Murphy felt that at least they wouldn’t pull out money from Korea.
“Anyway, let’s meet later to exchange information.”
(Yes, let’s do that.)
They should meet soon to exchange information properly.
Newly emerging technologies and businesses were changing the landscape of industries and bringing about revolutionary changes in the way of life.
Especially with the advent of portal sites, the speed of information delivery had become incredibly fast.
However, there was now a generation and class that consumed this rapid information.
Click. Click. Click!
As soon as they arrived at San Francisco International Airport, the first consumers, reporters, greeted Lee Hyun-woo.
The problem was that the people receiving the welcome were not mentally prepared.
“Director, this way for a moment.”
Park Min-sook quickly separated Kim Ah-young from Lee Hyun-woo, fearing that she might end up in the headline photos, and the bodyguards, like iron filings following a magnet, left only Lee Hyun-woo, Lee Jung-woo, and some employees of 【Jungle】 under the concentrated fire of the cameras.
Unlike Lee Jung-woo, who looked puzzled, Lee Hyun-woo quickly regained his composure.
‘I heard I was quite well-known in the U.S.’
These days, 【Macro Soft】 and 【Yaho】 were both getting attention.
Naturally, the founders of the two were also drawing media attention.
However, recently, a portal site 【Jungle】, comparable to 【Yaho】, had appeared, and its founder Lee Hyun-woo was frequently featured in the press.
There were even blind fans emerging.
“Could we have a brief interview?”
“Just a little bit of your time, please.”
“It won’t take long.”
“Can we get just 10 minutes?”
Some reporters wanted to make news and interviews for those fans and for people consuming IT industry information.
Lee Hyun-woo smiled and said,
“You’ve made the mistake of not scheduling an appointment in advance.”
