Chapter 155: Making the List (2/4)

The Seoul Olympic Games had just drawn to a close.

The American media felt quite smug, noting that although South Korea had learned lessons from hosting the Los Angeles Olympics, it still fell into a massive financial deficit. With investments exceeding three billion dollars, the returns had completely vanished into thin air.

Given the cultural differences, they could hardly fathom the concept of "maintaining face at all costs." To Americans, profitability was paramount, and the sincerity demonstrated by South Korea's astronomical spending failed to impress the global media.

Last year, in 1987, the United States was struck by yet another stock market crash.

In the span of just a few hours, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted by twenty-two point six percent, wiping out five hundred billion dollars in wealth.

The crisis came and went with astonishing speed; in less than a year, the economy staged a miraculous, gradual recovery.

Japan had been brimming with confidence over the past two years, even boasting that it would buy out the entire United States. Real estate developers claimed that for every three houses built, one was sold to a Japanese buyer.

"Buying America" was far from an empty threat. They were sweeping across the United States in a frenzy, snapping up houses, companies, and stocks, armed with hundreds of billions of dollars. Even Su Mu’s company counted Japanese investors among its backers.

Japan’s arrogant demeanor provoked considerable resentment among many Americans. Yet, annoyance aside, whenever Americans heard someone was of Japanese origin, the first thought that flashed through their minds was almost invariably "rich."

In stark contrast to Japan, the Soviet Union—which had engaged in a Cold War with the United States for decades—seemed to have entered a sudden decline ever since it collided with an American warship in February of this year.

The media reacted as if high on adrenaline, running daily segments claiming that the Soviet Union's total economic output paled in comparison to the United States. They argued that the Soviets had merely funneled their limited wealth into military and diplomatic endeavors to create the illusion of parity with America, only for their true colors to finally show.

One had to admit, there was a certain logic to it...

***

In September of this year, Yale University welcomed a Chinese-American student as the vice president of its student union.

The student union president had asked him repeatedly before he finally agreed to take on the role. Had it been anyone else, the notoriously haughty students of Yale would likely have scoffed. This time, however, they were thoroughly convinced, subdued by an array of dazzling credentials.

He had completed both economics and psychology coursework in a year and a half, earning dual bachelor's degrees, followed by another year spent pursuing dual master's degrees, and was now on the verge of graduating from Yale.

Yale University was hardly short of geniuses, and plenty of students could accomplish such feats. However, that particular fellow was a multi-millionaire, having started his business at sixteen, become a multi-millionaire by seventeen, and seen his net worth surpass one hundred million dollars by eighteen.

Earlier this year, his supermarket chain, "BuyFun," secured forty-eight million dollars in financing from a Japanese corporation at a valuation of three hundred million dollars!

Moreover, every single computer on Yale's campus had been personally donated by this student union vice president. Upon booting them up, users were greeted by the emblem of a chubby penguin...

That was right. In 1985, Su Mu had passed on Stanford and ultimately chosen Yale University, located in New Haven, Connecticut. As one of the Ivy League institutions, the academic atmosphere was naturally exceptional.

He spent the vast majority of his time away from campus—sometimes in Menlo Park, sometimes in Los Angeles, and occasionally vacationing in New York. The joys of being a multi-millionaire were beyond ordinary imagination; university was merely a pastime to dispel boredom, and Su Mu rarely lingered at school.

Initially, he could easily tally his personal wealth, but three years later, he had long lost count of how much money he actually possessed.

Recently, BuyFun Supermarkets, which boasted seventy-six stores, successfully secured forty-eight million dollars in financing based on a valuation of three hundred million dollars. Following several rounds of financing, Su Mu currently held a fifty-nine percent stake in BuyFun, meaning his net worth unquestionably exceeded five hundred million dollars.

This figure encompassed his shares in BuyFun, Penguin, and Spider Software, along with the two point one million shares of Microsoft stock he personally held—the grand total of his entire fortune.

In June 1985, he had traveled to Seattle.

Su Mu never actually met Bill Gates, who had politely declined his offer over the phone, expressing a lack of interest in the proposed program. Consequently, Spider Software Technology developed independently, launching just months later to coincide with the release of the Windows operating system and becoming the very first email client adapted to the new platform.

By now, registered users had surpassed three hundred million—correction, thirty thousand. Even if Microsoft were to develop its own email client, it could no longer rival Spider Software Technology. Roughly one out of every four internet users relied on Spider Mail.

To this day, Spider Software Technology remained in the red, relying on a modest amount of advertising revenue to stay afloat. Yet, its valuation had soared to eighty million dollars. With ample funds in hand, Su Mu had no immediate plans for further financing or an IPO, so even he was unsure of its exact worth.

Valuations were, after all, just valuations. With internet concept stocks heating up recently, his holding of Microsoft shares alone was worth around seventy million dollars.

Knowing that investing in Microsoft would be lucrative, he had begun using his own capital to buy Microsoft stock from the day the company went public in 1986. Through a subsequent stock split, his cost basis remained at around twenty million dollars. He had reaped substantial gains, now owning five point four percent of the total equity, with no intention of selling anytime soon.

Penguin had begun manufacturing computers the year before last. Thanks to an extensive network of familiar distributors and an investment of tens of millions of dollars in advertising, it currently commanded about three percent of the market share, with monthly sales hovering around sixteen thousand units and a valuation exceeding one hundred and fifty million dollars.

Su Mu held eighty percent of the total equity, Li Pingan retained ten percent, Blake had secured a five percent stock option through a borrowed loan, and the remaining shares had been distributed as performance incentives to the company’s management.

A mere four hundred thousand email users had pushed Spider Software’s valuation to eighty million dollars. Faced with the explosive growth in the number of netizens, investors firmly believed that internet enterprises would yield lucrative returns in the future.

Silicon Valley was home to over six thousand startups, and Su Mu had also deployed capital to invest in several burgeoning internet enterprises, including publicly traded Oracle and Sun Microsystems.

For over three years, Su Mu had focused on expanding his existing ventures without blindly overextending himself. At that moment, absent-mindedly, he dropped his ballot into the ballot box—a ballot with a checkmark placed neatly beside the name of Yale alumnus "George Bush."

Holding a sleek new Motorola mobile phone, he spoke into the receiver to James on the other end: "No, no, no! I want users to be able to communicate with each other in real time on their computers—where I send you a message, you receive it instantly, and can reply right back! I don't mean email!"

"...This is a headache. Wait for me, I'm booking a flight back to Silicon Valley right now, and we'll discuss this when I get there."

Su Mu was so engrossed that he completely missed a young woman casting flirtatious glances his way. Even had he noticed, he likely would not have cared.

The impoverished kid who used to live in Chinatown, lugging a tattered school bag to and from classes day in and day out, could now proudly write his name on the Forbes billionaire list...