"What, scared?"
"Of course not."
Zhang Lei was only twenty-eight. Bruce might still look young, but in mindset and experience, he was a veteran operator who had spent more than a decade fighting through the real world. One little push was all it took. Zhang denied it immediately.
"Good," Bruce said. "I've already built the foundation for those three funds. How much outside capital you can raise from the market after this depends entirely on your own ability. And you're a smart man. HanHua Capital is a VC firm. There is no chance we stop at just these three funds."
"I understand."
Zhang nodded seriously.
Bruce had named the funds after terms from the traditional twenty-four solar terms. That alone told Zhang what kind of ambition he had for the firm's future.
Bruce studied him for a moment, then smiled, set down the cue, and motioned with one hand. The two of them walked over to the sofa and sat down. Bruce opened the briefcase he had brought with him, took out a document, and handed it across.
"This is your employment agreement, along with HanHua Capital's Hong Kong registration documents. Read through them carefully. If everything looks fine to you, sign."
Zhang took the documents, went through them page by page, and after a careful review, signed the employment contract with a solemn expression.
As he handed it back, he said, "Looks like from now on, I should be calling you Boss."
Bruce laughed. "Titles don't matter much. Honestly, I'd rather you call me Guo."
Bruce noticed it and let it pass. "When can you get back to China?"
"There are still a few things I need to wrap up at Yale," Zhang said after a brief pause. "Give me a week."
"Once you're back, besides setting up the company, there are a few other things I want you to handle for me."
As he spoke, Bruce pulled out another document and passed it over.
Zhang glanced down at it. "What's this?"
"A few small targets I've already picked out."
Zhang read it, and his eyes sharpened.
"Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu, Ctrip, NetEase, Sohu, and Sina. Twenty percent equity in each. Seven targets in total. For every one you complete, I'll inject another five million dollars into HanHua Capital. And if you can acquire more than twenty percent, every extra one percent gets you another five hundred thousand dollars in capital. Same rule all the way up. No cap. Also, the acquiring entity for each deal will be HanHua Investment Management."
Zhang looked from the paper back to Bruce, who was sitting across from him with a calm smile.
"I didn't realize you were this bullish on the internet, Boss."
Bruce smiled back. "You read the memo I wrote for you on the future of the internet, didn't you?"
Zhang nodded. "I did. And if what you laid out in that memo is right, if the internet really is going to reshape business, the economy, culture, finance, and every other major industry, then this is more than a promising sector. It's a gold mine worth attacking with serious capital."
He paused, then continued, more pointedly.
"But HanHua Capital already has a private equity fund focused specifically on internet investments. So let me ask directly. Can that fund invest in these companies too, or are these names reserved for you personally?"
Bruce met the sharp look in Zhang's eyes. He was caught off guard for half a second, then recovered almost immediately.
"And what if I'm wrong?" he asked, his tone turning slightly more layered.
Zhang answered without hesitation. "I think the odds of a man with three Stanford degrees, and that level of insight into where the internet is headed, being wrong on all of them are very low."
Bruce nodded. "If you want to invest through the fund, I won't stop you. But the shares I want for myself take priority. That has to be guaranteed first."
"That's fair."
"There's one more thing," Bruce said. "Don't put all the capital into the internet names I picked. Two minds beat one. My judgment won't be right every time, and yours won't either. You know the rule: don't put all your eggs in one basket. That's how we protect the downside while still making serious returns."
"Of course," Zhang said with a faint smile. "If every investment I made was just one you already approved in advance, then eventually you wouldn't need me at all."
Bruce smiled, nodded, and patted him on the shoulder.
"Now that sounds like the right answer. Come on. Let's go celebrate properly."
...
After spending three days with Zhang Lei discussing HanHua Capital's future development in detail, Bruce personally saw him off at the airport for his return flight to Yale.
About a week later, Zhang would head back to China carrying Bruce's massive $130 million war chest.
That same day, Bruce made another call.
"Christopher, did you get the manuscript for The Fast and the Furious?"
"I did," Christopher said. "The cover design is in progress right now. We should have it in print in another five days."
"Good."
"Bruce, ABC has a late-night talk show that wants to bring you on as a guest..."
"A talk show?"
Bruce knew the big names in American talk shows, at least vaguely. But outside of a few household names, he had never cared much about the format. Neither had the original Bruce. So his interest was limited at best.
"Yes. It's called Jimmy Talk. It airs every Saturday at 11 p.m. According to Nielsen, it averages 198,000 viewers."
"Eleven at night? And under two hundred thousand viewers?" Bruce said. "Forget it, Christopher. Instead of wasting time on a low-rated show like that, I'd rather write two more books."
"So you want me to pass?"
"Pass."
"Got it. Also, Bruce, Rowling's fifth Harry Potter book is about to come out. When it does, I'd like to organize a global signing tour and promotional event for both of you."
"That's fine. Set it up however you think works best."
Higher visibility would only help the sales of his future books.
Then Bruce remembered something.
"One more thing, Christopher. Get finance moving immediately. I want legally certified sales records for all the books I've already published under my name. Send everything over as formal documentation. Fast."
"No problem. You'll have it in three days at the latest."
Christopher Ritter did not even ask why Bruce wanted the documents. At this point, Bruce was Thornbird Publishing's single biggest cash machine. As far as Christopher was concerned, accommodating him was just part of the job.
"Good. That's it for now. If there's nothing else, I'm hanging up."
"Talk soon."
After ending that call, Bruce found Wendy's number and dialed.
"Boss?"
"At the office?"
"No. I'm in Seattle."
Bruce nodded to himself. "How's the Valve Software acquisition coming?"
"Pretty smoothly, overall."
Bruce's tone shifted. "Overall?"
"Yes," Wendy said. "One of the two founders, Mike Harrington, wants to take his new wife traveling around the world, so he hasn't pushed back on our offer. Gabe Newell is willing to sell, but he doesn't want to move the company down to Silicon Valley."
Bruce frowned slightly and thought it through.
"If he doesn't want to move, then let it stay where it is. Don't drag this out. Close the acquisition as fast as possible."
Counter-Strike, one of the most iconic first-person shooters of the future, was about to hit the market. Bruce had no intention of missing that gold mine.
"Understood," Wendy said. "They want the $15 million acquisition payment wired as soon as possible."
"That's fine. Once the deal closes, leave ten percent of the company with the core team. Also, change the company name to Valve Game Studio. The main focus should be single-player game development."
He paused.
"Did they read the game design proposal I wrote for Left 4 Dead?"
"They did. In fact, that proposal was one of the key reasons Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington agreed to sell. Gabe also wants to start recruiting and build a new development team specifically for Left 4 Dead."
"Approved," Bruce said immediately. "Let him do it."
Then his voice turned more serious.
"One more thing. Set up a meeting for me with Danny Lewis, the head of Merrill Lynch's Los Angeles office. I want to talk to him about a deal."
"Merrill Lynch?"
"Yeah."
Wendy Solo wanted to ask why, but she held it back. That was the line her role required her to respect.
"All right."
"Move fast on it. Once it's scheduled, call me."
"Understood."
They exchanged a few more words, then Bruce ended the call.
He slipped the phone back into his pocket and paced around the hotel living room for a while. Then he returned to his laptop and stared at the half-finished draft of The Hangover.
Nothing.
He forced himself to write a few hundred more words, then shook his head.
This was pointless.
When he was not in the right headspace, sitting there and grinding at the keyboard was a complete waste of time.
"Forget it," he muttered. "I've been in Los Angeles this whole time and all I've done is work. Haven't even had a chance to look around. Tonight counts as time off."
With that, he saved the pages he had written, shut down the computer, changed into casual clothes, and left the hotel.
Even in July, Los Angeles was not oppressively hot at night. The Mediterranean climate helped, and the cool wind coming in from the ocean gradually pulled the tension out of his chest.
The landscaping around the area was excellent. The roads were wide. The air felt clean.
Most important, there were not many people.
Even Los Angeles, the second-largest city in the United States by population, was still only the size of a mid-tier prefecture-level city by Chinese standards. So as Bruce wandered aimlessly through the night, the thing the city gave him most was exactly what he wanted.
Quiet.
He did not need a destination. He just walked wherever his feet took him.
By the time he noticed, he had been walking for quite a while. The foot traffic around him had increased some. If he had to compare it, where he had been earlier felt like an ordinary rural village back in China. Here, it was more like the main road of a small town.
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