The Conglomerate Family Became A Villain [EN]: Chapter 133

133. To Nasdaq (6)

Between San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

More precisely, Stanford University, one of the most prestigious universities in the United States, is located at the nexus connecting the IT valley and the city.

Jung Hyun-woo whistled, gazing at the Stanford campus.

“It’s amazing.”

Sarah, turning the steering wheel, asked,

“The size of the school?”

She knew Stanford was large, but not to the point of being called amazing.

‘Harvard is also quite large.’

Jung Hyun-woo looked up and answered,

“The sky.”

“The sky?”

“It’s hard to see a blue sky like California’s in Boston.”

“Oh, that’s right. Is it because of the difference in latitude?”

The car Sarah was driving was a 1975 Cadillac.

In 2020, it would be seen as someone’s collector’s item or an event vehicle, but in 1984, it was a prized, actively used model.

Squeak.

As the car stopped, Sarah pulled the handbrake and asked,

“Will your schedule be okay?”

They were scheduled to return to Boston the morning after the contract with Bank of America concluded.

“It’s okay. And Laura said she had something to show me.”

Jung Hyun-woo and Sarah postponed their return by a day to meet Laura Hilton, a genius physicist at Stanford.

“Was it room 2011?”

While Sarah checked the office address, Jung Hyun-woo was already heading towards the building.

“Charlie!”

“Room 2011 must be on the second floor.”

Jung Hyun-woo was unstoppable.

Sarah had to hurry after him.

“Let’s go together!”

She thought, following Jung Hyun-woo.

‘Hmm, has Charlie’s back always been this broad?’

When they first met, Jung Hyun-woo was a small boy whose head barely reached her chin.

Now, a few years later,

He was not only much taller than her but also had much broader shoulders.

‘Charlie should exercise a little.’

Sarah thought that one of the things Jung Hyun-woo lacked was exercise.

If he exercised a bit, he would have a nice, broad back.

She smiled at the thought.

Jung Hyun-woo stood in front of the physics department’s lecture building and stretched his arms.

“It’s wide.”

Sarah caught up and added,

“The scale is definitely big.”

Jung Hyun-woo felt the lecture building was large because MIT wasn’t that big.

“But the school isn’t all about scale.”

Sarah’s Boston University wasn’t a large university in the United States.

‘What’s important is substance, not scale.’

Jung Hyun-woo said with a satisfied smile,

“I like the feeling of being overwhelmed.”

“Not feeling repulsed?”

“I want to conquer overwhelming opponents.”

Sarah thought to herself,

‘Hoo, Charlie is definitely not normal.’

Not normal meant that if things went wrong, he could become an abnormal person.

Knock. Knock.

When he knocked on the door of room 2011, they heard footsteps from inside.

Clack. Clack.

Sarah sighed the moment she heard the sound.

“Ha…….”

She thought, ‘She’s still the same.’

‘High heels in the lab……’

High heels weren’t forbidden at university, but they weren’t exactly suitable for a lab.

Click.

The door opened, and Laura revealed her glamorous appearance.

“Sarah, Charlie! Welcome!”

Jung Hyun-woo couldn’t help but click his tongue at her bright smile and striking figure.

‘Tsk, even if her personality isn’t great, wouldn’t it be worth putting up with if it’s Laura?’

She possessed the most outstanding beauty of all the women Jung Hyun-woo had met in the United States.

She would have been a sensation even if she debuted in Hollywood.

But she had already been divorced twice by her mid-20s.

“Laura, thank you for inviting us.”

Jung Hyun-woo bowed his head, but Sarah remained sharp.

“Sister, what’s with that outfit?”

Laura tilted her head to the left.

“What’s wrong with my outfit?”

“Pink dress and high heels! You knew Charlie was coming, so you wore that, right?”

Laura’s pink dress wasn’t a classic frilly style but a modernly reinterpreted design. Nevertheless, Sarah was angry, saying it was an inappropriate outfit for a professor.

Laura didn’t see any reason to wear a white lab coat in a lab that studied mathematics or programming languages.

“It’s not a lab that uses alcohol lamps or droppers. It’s weird to wear a white gown.”

Sarah’s momentum didn’t subside at all.

“That’s not what I mean.”

Jung Hyun-woo knew why she was angry.

‘It must be because of the deeply cut chest.’

Whether intentional or not, it just happened that way. However, the low neckline made her stand out even more.

‘If my eyes are so focused……’

Not to mention the eyes of other men.

Sarah had a neat beauty like Jodie Foster, but other parts were lacking, so she couldn’t help but get angry at Laura’s highlighted outfit.

“Okay, ladies. What we’re talking about today isn’t about clothes.”

Only when Jung Hyun-woo intervened did Sarah’s voice soften.

“That’s true, but……”

Laura seized the opportunity.

“Sarah, we didn’t call Charlie today to show off our new dress. Come on in. You have to see the real thing.”

She quickly invited them inside.

Sarah clicked her tongue and had no choice but to step inside.

‘Laura is always like this.’

Laura’s lab was quite large.

Jung Hyun-woo was impressed.

‘Hmm, it’s even bigger than Professor Norman’s lab.’

Six desks.

And all the desks had computers on them.

‘There seem to be bookshelves and conference rooms, but I don’t know if a professor’s lab can be this big.’

Her lab was about the size of a startup office.

“Are the researchers not coming in today?”

“It’s morning.”

“Ah……”

It meant the researchers stayed up until dawn and went home.

‘Yeah. Most IT workers are nocturnal.’

If you get a job at a company, it will inevitably change, but in college, most of them are night owls.

“Charlie, coffee?”

Jung Hyun-woo shook his head.

“I drank it at the hotel.”

Two cups of coffee in the morning were too much.

“Sarah?”

“I drank it with Charlie.”

Sarah looked back and forth between them and said,

“Ha……. So, when are you going to get married?”

Jung Hyun-woo paused, and Sarah was very angry.

“What are you talking about!”

Laura received her words with a natural face.

“You’re a good match. Besides, Charlie will be an adult soon.”

She was talking about marriage to a young man who wasn’t yet an adult.

‘Laura always seems to be two steps ahead.’

Jung Hyun-woo thought she failed in marriage because she was too far ahead.

‘It’s a pity she could have had better results if she had gone a little slower.’

Sarah’s voice echoed through the lab.

“Laura!”

Laura waved her hand when Sarah raised her voice.

“I’m kidding. I’m kidding. If you’re so serious, it can only mean that you’re really going to marry Charlie, right?”

Sarah lowered her eyebrows at her words.

“You’re mean.”

Jung Hyun-woo said to her softly,

“Laura is doing that because Sarah gets angry every time.”

Sarah turned to him and raised her voice.

“Are you saying it’s my fault?”

“N, no, that’s not it……”

“Then?”

Sarah raised her voice with her hands on her hips.

Instead of getting angry or sighing, Jung Hyun-woo smiled.

“Sarah looks prettier when she doesn’t raise her eyebrows.”

Sarah’s face turned red at his words and smile.

“Re, really……”

Laura stood next to them and shook her head from side to side.

“I shouldn’t have provoked you. I can’t beat Charlie.”

She thought Jung Hyun-woo knew how to handle Sarah well.

‘I feel like he’s getting more and more skilled.’

Laura was envious of her younger sister in this regard. She had never met a man who knew how to deal with her well.

‘He was either flustered or angry, one of the two.’

When her husband or boyfriend got angry or flustered, Laura would get angry and make things worse.

“Hoo……”

A short sigh.

However, the two seemed to be caught up in their own world and didn’t hear it.

After a while,

Jung Hyun-woo, who had soothed Sarah, turned his gaze to Laura.

“Laura, didn’t you say you had something to show me?”

Laura nodded.

“It’s something our research team is newly creating.”

“Something?”

“It’s a program, to be exact, but I just call it ‘something’.”

Laura had changed her research subject from physics to applied mathematics. And applied mathematics at this time meant computer programming.

‘If she’s a genius like her, it won’t be difficult to change her field of study.’

However, achieving results in the field of applied mathematics was another matter.

‘I’m curious about what kind of program she created.’

Whoo-oong.

The computer monitor lit up with the sound of the fan.

Jung Hyun-woo could tell that Laura’s computer was the latest model just by looking at it.

“You’re using a good computer.”

“There’s a lot of support for this research.”

Stanford was actively supporting IT research. The reason Laura was able to easily change her research subject to applied mathematics was also because of this atmosphere.

“Okay, this is it.”

Laura showed Jung Hyun-woo something, using the keyboard and mouse alternately.

Sarah narrowed her brows and watched from behind.

‘Charlie gets along surprisingly well with my sister.’

If Laura’s ex-boyfriends were like Jung Hyun-woo, she might not have divorced.

“Hmm, this is an operating system.”

Jung Hyun-woo knew what Laura had shown him.

‘It’s an early Windows operating system.’

He had seen a similar operating system in Las Vegas before.

‘What I saw then was Apple’s Macintosh.’

In the mid-1980s, IT companies were trying to move from command-oriented operating systems such as MS-DOS [Disk Operating System, a non-graphical command line interface] to Windows operating systems based on colorful graphics.

“It doesn’t seem like something Stanford developed independently.”

Laura raised her right hand.

“Bingo, how did you know?”

Jung Hyun-woo pointed to the screen and answered,

“If the school developed it, they would have paid less attention to these design aspects and user convenience.”

“Hmm, are you saying that the design is sophisticated for something developed in the lab?”

“That’s right.”

Laura slyly brought up the main point.

“How is it?”

“How is what?”

“Is it something that can be sold?”

Jung Hyun-woo shrugged and answered,

“It depends on which company releases it.”

“What about Microsoft?”

Stanford is collaborating with Microsoft.

This was a plausible story.

“It will be successful.”

Laura sat on the chair and crossed her legs. Sarah narrowed her brows.

‘She’s flirting with a man again.’

Laura didn’t cross her legs to do anything to Jung Hyun-woo in particular.

It was just a habit. But with that action alone, men were captivated by her legs.

“Charlie, aren’t you just giving me lip service to make me feel good?”

Jung Hyun-woo shook his right hand.

“Absolutely not.”

“If it’s absolutely not, do you trust Microsoft?”

“Their influence is absolute.”

In the 1980s, Microsoft was growing exponentially every year.

But it wasn’t yet to the point of being called absolute.

“Absolute?”

“I think their influence is greater than what ordinary people think.”

“Can they have such influence with just MS-DOS?”

Jung Hyun-woo turned his gaze to the screen and answered,

“People have started to trust Microsoft’s operating system while using MS-DOS. They will think they can trust them if they release a new operating system.”

It will be easier to accept than an operating system developed by a new startup.

“Hmm. Charlie is definitely amazing.”

“Isn’t that one word just lip service?”

Laura clicked her tongue.

“Tsk, what lip service am I giving in front of a billionaire.”

She knew that Jung Hyun-woo and Sarah had become billionaires.

‘A daughter who is much richer than her father.’

On the one hand, she was envious of Sarah.

“To be honest, I even want to collaborate.”

“You want to collaborate with Microsoft?”

“JP Services must run even under the new operating system.”

Sarah couldn’t help but pause.

‘Is Charlie thinking about work even at times like this?’

She thought Jung Hyun-woo was a born developer and engineer.

Laura asked him,

“If you really think so, shouldn’t you contact Microsoft?”

“If we suddenly reach out, I’m worried that Microsoft might be suspicious.”

The early model of the Windows operating system was top secret. Microsoft could even file a lawsuit just for Laura showing it to Jung Hyun-woo.

Of course, Laura wasn’t afraid of such lawsuits.

“It’s complicated.”

“That’s how company work is.”

Laura untwisted her legs and moved the mouse.

“Do you want to see more?”

“Can I touch it myself?”

“Hmm?”

“There are parts I want to look at.”

Laura smiled, seeing that Jung Hyun-woo’s gaze was fixed on the screen, not on her legs or chest.

‘I have to admit it, Charlie.’

She thought her sister really chose a man well.

* * *

It was when Jung Hyun-woo and Sarah returned to the Hilton Hotel.

A hotel employee rushed out and handed her a note.

“Miss Hilton, it’s a call from JP Morgan.”

Sarah narrowed her brows.

‘Hmm, is it something bad?’

Breaking news was more often bad than good.

Jung Hyun-woo thought the same way, so he didn’t urge her and remained silent.

‘If something happened, it’s best to stop it with money.’

Even with a lot of money, you can’t do anything about bad news like someone’s death.

Soon, Sarah spoke.

“Charlie.”

“What’s the matter?”

“JP Morgan approved it.”

“Yes?”

Sarah said with strength in her voice,

“They approved Victoria Corporation’s IPO [Initial Public Offering].”

The note didn’t contain any details. Nevertheless, one thing was certain.

Victoria Corporation will be listed on Nasdaq this year.