Chapter 154 Talking with Gates (1/4)

"That’s a brilliant idea, but unfortunately we don’t have enough capital to spare right now. We can try it out in the future."

Su Mu thought that opening large-scale home appliance malls had a lot of potential. Much like supermarkets, they already existed in various parts of the world, but their numbers were still far from sufficient. Ever since the 1970s, many scattered retail goods had been moving toward centralization.

Then, his thoughts drifted to other areas. Standing directly beneath the air conditioner's vent to catch the cool breeze, he continued, "Since we can build home appliance supermarkets, we can also sell cars, clothes, furniture, and so on. Money-making business is everywhere, but it's a pity we don't have enough cash on hand right now. We should focus on managing our current three companies well before considering anything else, otherwise, it could lead to cash flow problems."

In the past, he had no money, so even if he had good entrepreneurial ideas, he couldn't afford to invest. Now that Su Mu had made money, his mindset began to change. As the saying goes, opportunities are reserved for prepared people with money. Once your pockets are full, business opportunities can be found everywhere.

He didn't voice his ultimate ambitions, aiming a little higher instead. Compared to making money by selling products, Su Mu hoped to be like those tech moguls who changed the world through their own efforts.

A short while ago, spending over four million dollars to acquire shares from Mr. Han had significantly reduced Su Mu's cash reserves, thereby causing him to miss the opportunity to invest in Microsoft.

Currently, Microsoft was already planning its IPO. Compared to the uncertain prospects of the home appliance retail market, investing in a company he already knew would succeed—Microsoft—seemed much more secure.

For a company whose brand value alone reached tens of billions of dollars, it was hard for him to imagine how much Microsoft would be worth in the future. Even at a valuation of two hundred billion dollars, a two percent stake would be worth four billion dollars. That was money you could make just by lying at home!

Miss Blake was very sensitive to the heat. Once she felt a bit more comfortable, she finally accompanied Su Mu and Li Ping'an to buy a central air conditioning system. After finding a store and providing the total floor space, they paid forty-three thousand dollars for the unit. The store would handle the installation, with the service fee included in the price.

...

The following days continued to be uneventful.

Aside from taking care of himself, Su Mu also had to raise his cat. Blake grew very fond of the chubby cat Yuanbao, and sometimes she would take it back to her rented apartment to help look after it.

Every day, he would drop by to check on James and the others. After Professor Malzer raised the requirements, the workforce became insufficient, so the development team quickly expanded to twelve people. Another associate professor from Stanford University's Department of Computer Engineering also joined in. According to them, it would take about another half-month to complete the initial version.

Money came in fast, but it went out just as quickly.

On June 9th, Qian Helberg came to Menlo Park in person. After Su Mu discussed the matter with the company’s second-largest shareholder, Richard Li, they selected eight store locations: five in San Francisco, one in San Diego, one in San Jose, and another right in Palo Alto, immediately adjacent to Stanford University.

These locations were personally chosen by Helberg, who also took photographs of them. While the surrounding residential areas might not be overwhelmingly dense, every site was situated in a bustling downtown district with heavy foot traffic.

Richard Li left all the decisions to Su Mu. He had already informed his father about the supermarket investment. That Mr. Li, far away in Hong Kong, reviewed FunBuy Supermarket's performance growth, expressed great satisfaction with the investment, and offered him a rare word of praise.

Because of that single phrase—"Not bad"—this guy was so thrilled he nearly got half-drunk. Being born into a wealthy family actually came with plenty of troubles.

On the 10th, Su Mu went alone to take the SAT exam. The testing schedule was compressed into a brief five-hour window; he left home a little after seven in the morning and was back by two in the afternoon. When Li Ping'an asked him how he did, he simply replied that it was alright.

A few days later, he went to Menlo Park High School for the graduation ceremony, abruptly bringing his brief half-year high school career to an end. Aside from a bunch of sideways glances and indifference, he didn't harvest much from it. Ever since Daniel transferred, Su Mu had felt completely disillusioned with the school.

On the day of graduation, driving his Porsche 911 to school caused quite a stir among his alumni. Having virtually no friends at this school, he naturally hadn't mentioned his newfound wealth to anyone. Within the span of just over half a year, Su Mu's achievements had surpassed those of every single alumnus, including the grandson of Wang An, who drove a Bentley and spent all day chasing girls and partying.

That wealthy third-generation heir, bearing the surname Wang, possessed countless times more entrepreneurial resources than Su Mu, yet he squandered his days purely on hedonism.

Looking back at the school after the graduation ceremony ended, Su Mu realized there wasn't a single pleasant memory. From the day he first stepped onto campus, he had been nothing more than a passing traveler...

**************

The eight new supermarkets were under preparation, and the five already in business saw their sales revenues trend toward stability.

By late June, Helberg found that the funds in the account were sufficient and felt confident enough to solve the logistics and supply chain issues. Without hesitation, he expanded his plans once more, increasing the number of upcoming FunBuy Supermarkets to ten.

This development successfully caught the attention of quite a few people. Several investors began negotiating with Helberg, asking if he was willing to accept financing, with valuations ranging from twenty million to thirty million dollars.

If they accepted financing at a thirty-million-dollar valuation, it meant Su Mu's net worth would successfully break through twenty-five million dollars, coming right up to the threshold of thirty million. Going from one hundred and seventy thousand dollars to ten million had taken over half a year, but surging from ten million to thirty million had taken just over fifty days.

Even Walmart set its sights on FunBuy Supermarket, attempting to directly absorb the stores into its own fold—whether by converting them into Walmarts or keeping the FunBuy brand intact—and offered a total buyout price of thirty-five million dollars.

Not only did Su Mu refuse, but Richard Li and Mr. Cenna also rejected the offer, believing that FunBuy still held even better growth prospects and unwilling to part with such high-quality shares.

Consequently, Qian Helberg didn't even entertain the thought of negotiations and flatly turned down Walmart's acquisition proposal.

The SAT scores were released, and Su Mu scored 2,290 points—a result even he found unbelievable, coming in about a hundred points higher than expected. This meant he could freely choose among the top ten universities in the United States; as long as he passed the interview, his chances of admission were extremely high.

On the very day his scores came out, another piece of good news arrived: the Spider e-mail client had been successfully developed. Su Mu used it to send a test message to Professor Malzer, who was just over a dozen meters away. The professor quickly burst into a happy laugh and gave him a thumbs-up, because the message read: "Thank you, I will pay you all an additional bonus!"

Recently, Silicon Valley newspapers had been buzzing with news about the impending release of Microsoft's "Windows" operating system. Su Mu could no longer sit still. After much deliberation, he finally decided to make a personal trip to Seattle to talk with Mr. Bill Gates about e-mail and Microsoft shares...

*(Looking back yesterday, I found the recent plot a bit uninteresting, as the accumulation of capital is nearing its end. In the early 1980s, the internet was just beginning to develop, and once the backdrop is established, there isn't much narrative depth left. Starting from the next chapter, we enter the next volume, skipping forward a period of time to embark on a new journey.)*