Of course, just because the era of smartphones has begun doesn’t mean the world will change immediately, like the era just before Lee Hyun-woo’s death.
If the smartphone is a platform, there were still many areas within it that needed to be developed.
First, from portal sites to games, everything had to be adapted to the smartphone standard. No matter how much they had prepared for the era, when they finally opened the lid, things that needed to be supplemented and corrected burst out like a flood.
Lee Hyun-woo also checked the inconveniences he felt while running smartphone apps every day, and discussed solutions with the CEOs of each subsidiary during their morning tea time.
However, his perspective was very different from the CEOs’.
“The font isn’t pretty. It needs to be refined to stand out more.”
Everyone gathered here was an engineer.
Therefore, their minds were filled with common errors like ‘Activity Not Found Exception’ or ‘Class Cast Exception’.
Naturally, they didn’t consider the font that Lee Hyun-woo mentioned to be a top priority during tea time, and they had a blank expression.
“Ah, although there are many errors when running the app, isn’t that the job of the technical team anyway? Our company’s engineers are the best in the world at solving problems when they arise. So, I want to focus on other aspects. When you open the portal, isn’t there just one visible font? So, I was thinking of offering multiple options and collecting the choices of smartphone users, then setting the most chosen one as the default font.”
Those who had worked with Lee Hyun-woo for almost 10 years now realized that he was mentioning the next step after technical supplementation.
Sometimes, it gave them goosebumps.
It was a phenomenon that occurred because they knew that when Lee Hyun-woo mentioned something that no one else had noticed, it would eventually become a trend.
If you had to explain it, it was like Pavlov’s conditioned reflex.
Therefore, Woo Sang-won, who was most related to fonts, answered in a way that showed he understood well.
“There were originally several font candidates. We chose the one that stood out the most to us, but thinking about it now, we should have consulted with you first.”
“If an internal conclusion has been reached, that would be the best. I mentioned it because I hope for continuous font additions to create something better than now.”
“I think that will happen.”
Why? Because strangely, organizations tended to be concerned with the directions mentioned at the top.
Even a creative-focused company like Jungle couldn’t escape this rule.
More accurately, it might be thanks to Lee Hyun-woo’s presence, which dominated above that rule.
So, the conversation during the next tea time started to cause slight facial twitches again.
“And don’t restrict the developers’ apps. Please lower the barriers as much as possible so they can upload everything to the Jungle Store. If the response is good, users will naturally use it a lot, and if not, it will disappear on its own. Isn’t that the charm of the Jungle Store? What do you all think?”
This was what they had been doing on the PC platform.
Then, in the early days of the e-book reader, they raised the barriers.
This was because there were frequent errors and storage issues due to various uploads by developers.
So, they only uploaded thoroughly verified content, but the problem arose afterward.
Even though the performance of the e-book reader was upgraded and there was more storage space, the barriers were not lowered due to collective forgetfulness.
Now, in the era of smartphones, there was no need for it.
There could be issues with errors and storage capacity, but now was the time to increase the number of app developers active in the Jungle ecosystem.
Moreover, Jungle’s smartphone, Blossom, ran on an open operating system, Root 1.0. If the Jungle Store didn’t increase its openness, it would conflict with the values Jungle pursued.
Lee Hyun-woo’s gentle rebuke implied all this, and everyone couldn’t help but look at him with admiration.
And when curiosity flickered in their eyes, it was near the end of the tea time.
“Wait, CEO Lee Jung-woo, please stay behind.”
Was it because he had spent quite a bit of time with Lee Hyun-woo?
Their senses were telling them.
The reason Lee Hyun-woo called his younger brother, Lee Jung-woo, was to make a significant decision.
At the same time, a foreboding feeling brushed their hearts, and a silent conversation took place.
‘No way… it’s not a declaration of stepping down, is it?’
‘No, that can’t be, right?’
‘You never know. Recently, the smartphone sales have exceeded expectations, and the stock price is skyrocketing.’
‘Then, what should I do?’
The last look was from Lee Jung-woo.
He knew well why his brother was leaving him behind while making an important decision.
If I step down, you know one of you should take over Jungle, right?
Hey, why are you scaring me again?
It’s a conversation we have to have someday, so I thought it would be good to have it now. Anyway, the reason I’m telling you this is because I have confidence that CEO Woo will manage the company stably recently.
It was a way of expressing the regret that it would be difficult to hand over the position to his younger brother.
Lee Jung-woo didn’t mind.
As long as whoever took over maintained Jungle’s corporate philosophy well, he had no complaints.
But he thought the timing wasn’t right.
“It seems like it’s time to start considering retirement.”
The foreboding feeling was remarkably accurate.
“Hyung, it’s not time yet.”
“Yeah, it’s not time yet. That’s why I said it seems like it’s time to start considering retirement.”
“Ah, really… what’s the standard for considering retirement?”
“I’ve mentioned it a few times, haha…”
“Right. Not just a few times. Whenever we almost forgot, you’ve brought up retirement, and you’ve practically lived with it on your lips.”
In fact, after Jungle went public, he seemed to talk about retirement once or twice a month.
It was because he could see his wealth.
Whenever he compared his stock valuation to Billy Gates, he would subtly mention that retirement was approaching.
However, he didn’t expect Lee Jung-woo to sharply point out the blind spot he hadn’t noticed.
“But to reach the standard you mentioned, you shouldn’t even mention the ‘R’ of retirement yet, right?”
“What are you talking about? There’s only about 10 trillion won left…”
It meant the total assets were 10 trillion won short of Billy Gates.
If someone heard this right now, they might curse Lee Hyun-woo.
‘Only 10 trillion won’? Talking as if he could catch up in no time, it would be enough to earn him some curses.
“Hyung, think about it. You said before that you’d retire if Jungle surpassed Macro Soft. Remember?”
“…….”
Lee Hyun-woo, who was slowly becoming a mute with honey in his mouth.
With his good memory, there was no way he couldn’t recall what he had said.
‘At that time, I set the goal with retirement at forty in mind…’
He was currently thirty-five, so forty wasn’t far off.
But Lee Hyun-woo thought it would be faster to surpass the 10 trillion won gap.
Currently, smartphones were booming, and since Jungle was involved in all the core content for them, there was almost a 100% chance he would surpass Billy Gates within 1 or 2 years.
“Original goals are meant to be revised.”
“Not like this. Then, how about deciding after Jungle surpasses Macro Soft’s market capitalization?”
Lee Hyun-woo didn’t think announcing his retirement would be easy, but he didn’t expect to get hit this hard.
He had no choice but to take a step back.
“The economic and investment environments of Korea and the U.S. are different, so deciding based solely on market capitalization is unreasonable. Let’s compromise.”
“How?”
“Let’s say I can retire when the combined market capitalization of Jungle in Korea, the U.S., and Japan surpasses Macro Soft.”
“That won’t do. Although Jungle USA and Jungle Japan are closely related to us, they’re independent companies, not foreign subsidiaries. How about this instead?”
“How?”
“First condition, Jungle’s market capitalization should reach half of Macro Soft’s.”
The first condition was already tough.
Currently, Jungle’s market capitalization was 75 trillion won, but Macro Soft’s was slightly over 300 trillion won.
Reaching half meant surpassing 150 trillion won, which was only possible if Macro Soft’s market capitalization didn’t increase at all.
Still, Lee Hyun-woo quickly nodded.
“What’s next?”
“I believe you’ll choose the next chairman wisely, regardless of who it is. But since retirement means you’ll be stepping down, you need to groom someone like you before you leave.”
“What do you mean by someone like me?”
Specifically, someone like Lee Hyun-woo would be a person skilled in predicting the future.
He was essentially asking Lee Hyun-woo to install such a person before leaving, which was almost an impossible task.
It was a trick to prevent him from retiring.
“It’s too vague. Give me specific conditions for someone like me.”
“It is a bit vague. Fine. Since I’m being considerate of you, I’ll be even more considerate. Did you imagine what would happen if you stepped down just now during the tea time?”
“No…”
“I could imagine it right away. What can I say? Since everyone is an engineering major, it seems like conversations would be driven solely by logic rather than emotion.”
“Yoo Cheol is a bit different.”
“That guy is still basically from a science and engineering background, so he feels different from you.”
“If you mean to install a humanities major before leaving, fine. I have someone in mind.”
“Hey, don’t oversimplify it.”
Honestly, many people came to mind right away.
Both chiefs of staff were humanities majors, and Goo Man-hoe also graduated from the philosophy department.
So he was considering two people, but mentioning humanities majors was an overly simplistic idea.
However, Lee Hyun-woo was stubborn.
“If there are no specific criteria, won’t you say it’s ambiguous later? My original goal was not to surpass Macro Soft but Billy Gates.”
“Alright, alright. Then, as a humanities major… accept a reliable person as a tea time member.”
“I’ll include three people starting from the next tea time.”
“Wow, hyung, that’s a bit…”
“Han Se-jin, Kang Dong-ho, Goo Man-hoe. Negotiation over.”
Tea time was held once a week.
Although the three weren’t unqualified, pushing them in so quickly left Lee Jung-woo with a puzzled expression.
But from Lee Hyun-woo’s perspective, it was frustrating.
‘Damn, my retirement plan will be delayed by 1 or 2 years.’
Lee Hyun-woo originally planned a world tour next year.
Since it was postponed, it made his heart ache.
‘I can’t. To expedite it, I’ll have to go into workaholic mode for a while.’
Market capitalization of 150 trillion won, he could achieve it soon.
Lee Hyun-woo concluded the negotiation with his brother, engraving this goal in his eyes.
