Meanwhile, Jamie Wang and Lee Hyun-woo didn’t realize something while they were going about their schedule today.
The department heads who were assisting them made sure to subtly approach whenever reporters appeared, whether at Gyeongbokgung Palace or while walking in Insadong.
This was because Steve Wang and the two department heads of Jungle had already communicated various things before today’s meeting.
We need to let people know that the two companies are joining forces.
I completely agree. We need to ensure that a lot of photos are taken today and somehow expose to the public that we are developing a search engine together.
The framework seems to be coming together nicely.
Right, those three, and us two.
Those three referred to Macro Soft, Pineapple, and Give & Take.
On the other hand, us two referred to Jungle and Yaho, so they planned today’s schedule hoping the media would give it the right title.
Perhaps because of this, Kang Dong-ho even leaked information openly whenever reporters were nearby.
“The search engine we are developing jointly with Jamie.”
“Could you lower your voice a bit?”
“Oh, sorry.”
Han Se-jin received it well, and Kang Dong-ho acted perfectly.
The two of them pretended to lower their voices while actually speaking loud enough for the surrounding reporters to hear.
Naturally, it must have looked like they were secretly joining forces to develop a search engine.
“What? Can you give us a proper explanation?”
“Exactly, are you really doing something together?”
Steve Wang didn’t stay silent either.
The media present here today wasn’t just Korean reporters.
The two young entrepreneurs, who wielded significant influence in the information technology industry, had drawn many foreign reporters as well.
“Is it true that you are jointly developing a search engine?”
“No comment. It’s not for me to answer.”
When foreign reporters, who might have gotten information from Korean reporters, asked Steve Wang for a response, he reacted similarly.
“However, it doesn’t make sense for two companies using the same search engine not to join hands, right? Just don’t over-interpret it and write your articles rationally.”
In effect, he was almost acknowledging it.
Naturally, reporters’ eyes and ears perked up.
Later, they even shared their thoughts and speculations amongst themselves.
“Looks like Jungle and Yaho are forming an alliance to fight against another coalition.”
“Did you feel the same way? We think alike.”
“Why does this feel so exciting?”
“Because it looks like the fight will be interesting.”
“Even if it proceeds smoothly, it’s our job to create a warlike atmosphere, right?”
“Of course. Remember when Macro Soft’s chairman came last time? The moment we hyped it up as a web browser war, our sales numbers went up.”
“These days, the number of clicks is important too. Jungle’s news service arranges articles by ‘most read.’”
Indeed, Jungle’s news service has been arranging articles by latest, most read, and most commented for some time now.
Thus, the competition among reporters had to be fierce.
“We go crazy trying to come up with catchy titles. When we do, the comments section gets flooded with angry remarks.”
“Right, right. They say the title and content don’t match.”
“But isn’t that anger also good? If articles are arranged by the number of comments, it means more exposure.”
“True, but reading those comments can be very hurtful.”
“Yeah…”
“But this time, it seems pretty close, doesn’t it?”
“Even if it’s not, we can just roughly match it ourselves.”
“Right. How about this? Alliance vs Coalition.”
“Sounds like World War II. I love it.”
Originally, Jungle didn’t intend to tame the media, but the two department heads managed to handle the reporters well.
As a result, after Lee Hyun-woo and Jamie Wang finished their conversation, the internet articles that came out in the evening were exactly as they intended.
“Lee Hyun-woo, will he flatten Bill Kates’ nose like in the web browser war?”
“Fierce battle for the Blue Ocean!”
“Following the web browser war, a fierce battle for search engines?”
It seems reporters are eager to watch the fight, as the saying goes, there’s nothing more enjoyable than watching a fight.
They seem eager to see the fierce battle between the Jungle alliance and the Macro Soft coalition.
As the saying goes, blood is thicker than water, the majority of Koreans sided with Lee Hyun-woo.
With the most famous IT industry mogul being Bill Kates, it was natural that setting up a confrontation between the two would attract attention.
In fact, the phrase “like in the web browser war” was baseless.
It was hard to define a winner at this point.
However, Korean media emphasized the fact that Macro Soft was forcing installations, while Jungle was compelled to distribute ‘Forest’ CDs to computer manufacturers in response.
Because of this, it was depicted as a David vs. Goliath battle, leading readers to generally side with David.
It seemed this time would be no different.
Lee Hyun-woo bitterly smiled while continuing to read the online articles.
“What kind of articles are these?”
In both his past and present life, the fictional capabilities of reporters always surpassed Lee Hyun-woo’s expectations.
He thought they had the ability to debut as novelists later.
‘But since it’s not entirely baseless, I can’t outright criticize them.’
It was quite strange.
Honestly, after reading the articles, Lee Hyun-woo also felt a surge of competitiveness.
Anyway, after discussing with Kim Ah-young and aiming to become the top in the IT industry in the shortest time, it seemed immersing in this warlike atmosphere might not be a bad method.
Most importantly, it was exciting Lee Hyun-woo.
‘Flatten Bill Gates’ nose like in the web browser war?’
This kind of competition was very appealing to him.
Having returned to the past and regained his youth, he felt his passion and ambition slowly boiling.
‘By the way, the fact that these articles are coming out isn’t just because of the reporters.’
It seemed like the two department heads had scattered a lot of bait, and the reporters had eagerly taken it.
So, the next day, when Han Se-jin came to accompany him from his home to the office, Lee Hyun-woo probed him.
“The reporters seemed to know a lot about what happened yesterday? The titles and contents were well chosen too.”
“Haha… Actually, we did a bit of work in the middle. We didn’t do it openly, but the reporters overheard and packaged the content well. Even I was surprised.”
Han Se-jin spoke cautiously, sensing that Lee Hyun-woo might criticize him.
However, Lee Hyun-woo unexpectedly praised him.
“You did well.”
“Sorry?”
“I said you did well. Since it’s going to the media anyway, it’s good to go out provocatively. It motivates people and has great promotional effects. You did it right.”
The deed was already done.
Moreover, it wasn’t about exaggerating negative things or fabricating events that didn’t happen.
Their growth was Lee Hyun-woo’s joy.
So, when he praised him, Han Se-jin responded with an elated expression.
“We still have a long way to go. But I will work even harder.”
The effect of the praise was immediate.
First of all,
Soon after, in the second half of 1997, a notice for significantly increased recruitment in the design department of Jungle was posted on the portal site.
Whether it was intentional to focus the media on Jungle, or the media was already closely monitoring Jungle’s every move,
Numerous media outlets began to report this information in succession.
The headlines that caught Lee Hyun-woo’s eyes were as follows:
“In a recession, the only trust is in IT? Jungle to recruit the most in history for the second half!”
“Lee Hyun-woo, fostering computer specialists!”
After reading the titles and contents, it seemed that the two department heads or the person in charge of PR had handled the media well.
Otherwise, there was no way the conversation that took place in Lee Hyun-woo’s office would spread externally in such a short time.
‘As they gain experience, they are benchmarking companies like Guseong Group well.’
Seeing how large companies package the image of their chairman or vice chairman appropriately, and packaging Lee Hyun-woo’s image positively.
Sometimes, there were articles that made his face flush, but they were bearable, so there was no need to reprimand the two.
Instead, it was important to make the article’s content a reality.
In other words, although recruiting the most in history for the second half was true, fostering computer specialists was still in an experimental stage.
To make this a fact, Lee Hyun-woo had to deeply involve himself in the process of selecting talents.
So, he called Woo Sang-won,
“I’ll personally look at the talents in this recruitment.”
He declared his intention to develop the eyes of his colleague.
It was because Lee Hyun-woo had left the recruitment process of the first half and the ongoing open recruitment to Woo Sang-won and the key directors.
Instead, he only focused on talent scouting through online headhunters, but now he was saying he would personally interview and select people offline again.
‘This is a good phenomenon.’
Woo Sang-won was pleased inwardly.
It was very good for Jungle’s steady growth that Lee Hyun-woo, who had once talked about early retirement, was actively stepping up across the company.
In fact, just by looking at the talents Lee Hyun-woo had selected, one could feel his outstanding scouting ability.
At the beginning, although Lee Jung-woo and Jang Yoo-chul were inevitable, Han Se-jin and Kang Dong-ho, as well as Yoo Jin-young, who was a high school graduate, were not bad.
‘I didn’t expect Yoo Jin-young’s foreign language skills to improve so much recently.’
Although it could be because they made tremendous efforts to grow, their inherent qualities couldn’t be ignored.
Selecting such people even without considering their academic background was a unique ability of Lee Hyun-woo.
So, Woo Sang-won couldn’t help but have high expectations.
Interestingly, the media continued to design their own scenarios about Jungle like a living organism.
“Will Jungle hire many high school graduates again this time?”
“Flood of unemployed people only have Jungle to rely on.”
“Now is the time to employ numerous talents.”
The media said.
Only this year, many companies collapsed, and thus, there were many talented people with good academic backgrounds, skills, and experiences.
Broadcast news also jumped on the bandwagon.
Although I am a bit older, I want to challenge the IT industry.
These days, I am diligently learning from the education provided by the 21st Century Venture Business Association.
As the breadwinner of my family, I study even harder.
Because of this, Jungle’s second-half recruitment recorded the highest application rate in South Korea’s history.
For 100 positions, a whopping 25,000 people applied.
With the overwhelming number of applications, Woo Sang-won’s face turned pale.
‘How… how do I review all this?’
Reflecting Jungle’s popularity, his workload increased with the number of applications.
