NOVEL NEXT Chapter 156: Greatest Play?
I moved outside the office with Britney, finding a quieter spot in the hallway where we could talk without others overhearing.
She looked at me with a hint of nervousness, her eyes betraying a vulnerability she hadn't shown before. "I wanted to apologize for how I acted the last time you were here," she began. "I wasn't exactly grateful for the opportunity you gave me. I should have thanked you properly."
"Why say that now?" I asked.
She sighed. "I've always been against getting favoritism due to contacts. I wanted to earn everything myself. But I guess I have realised that... it's not really... possible? I mean, just looking at how the academia works makes me want to vomit..." she laughed it off.
I gave her a small smile. "Aren't we supposed to help each other out, though? Look, you're doing great work. Keep it up. We're definitely going to be diversifying our investments. Hopefully, we can make this fund a massive success and the day that it will turn into a shareholding company, you might even get a share in that."
She blinked. "Really?"
"Really," I confirmed. "You're sharp. You've got the skills. Just stay focused. By the way... When was the last time you met with Sydney? You two still keep in contact?"
"Yeah, we do," she said, nodding. "We talk on the phone sometimes."
"Good," I said. "Maybe we should all meet together sometime."
Britney hesitated for a moment, then continued, "Hmm... that would be great... but I heard about that situation... with the spying and the assassination attempts. Sydney told me a bit about it."
I waved my hand dismissively. "It's gotten much better now. The government's helping, and those people stopped trying to pull that shit. You don't need to worry."
'
Well, they did, not because of the government though...
' I thought.
She gave me a small nod. "Alright, Jack. Thanks again."
I turned to leave, giving her one last look. "Anyway. Till next time, Britney."
"Till next time."
I walked out of the building.
The rain was still falling.
Getting back into the limousine I directed the driver to PlayTube's office.
Since Liberation stopped targeting our servers, we've been slowly bringing the service back up and trying to get our reputation back.
There were currently nine programmers and a few other stuff, like HR, for a total of fifteen people working in the company.
Raheem Reddy remained an independent contractor for PlayTube, and from what I could tell from the last time he showed me his app, "Modulus", for algorithmic trading and strategy analysis, it was close to being completed. At least it's first version.
PlayTube attracted over 10 million unique visitors in the last month and with the new AdSense on-website advertisement system, we've made over $500,000 in revenue.
Google has been developing the behavioral targeting of AdSense much quicker than it did in the previous timeline, which meant that the ratio of people being interested in the ads was much higher than it would otherwise be.
Overall, PlayTube still didn't make up for the investment I've made into the office, server infrustructure and the costs of operation, but at the pace it was going, it would only take another 2-3 months.
When I was done with the visit at PlayTube, the rain had finally stopped, leaving a layer of moisture across the pavement.
Once back in the limousine, I directed the driver to Harvard University.
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But I wasn't going alone.
Two of PlayTube's employees were with me. One of them was a software architect; both were programmers and both had sharp minds.
Their names were John and Ivan.
I was going to Harvard because just two weeks ago, I'd received an email from Mark Zuckerberg with the signed SAFE agreement for a $2 million investment in exchange for 41% of the company.
It was time to see what progress they'd made with Facebook.
The campus looked peaceful in the evening, with students moving around in groups. I gave Mark a call, and he answered almost immediately.
"Mr. Somnus?"
"It's me. I'm here at Harvard. Are you around?" I replied.
"Oh, sure! I'll be right out. Give me a few minutes."
Not long after, Mark appeared from the dorms, walking up to us in a hoodie and jeans.
His eyes looked a little tired but eager.
He invited us inside, leading us to the administration at the dorm to get access to the server room where Facebook was set up.
The administrator looked at us with a curious glance.
Mark stepped forward. "They're investors, helping me with the Facebook project," he said confidently. "We need to check the setup."
"Alright, just make sure you don't cause too much disruption."
Mark led us down a narrow corridor until we reached a small room filled with a couple of servers, humming quietly in the corner.
The space was cramped, wires running across the floor.
I gestured for my team to take a look around.
They walked over to the server racks, inspecting the setup while Mark joined them.
Then Mark opened up his notebook and showed the two programmers the abstract infrastructure and the code.
The software architect, John, crouched near one of the servers and then stood up and spoke. "I see you've implemented load balancing already. That's solid and all, but..." he looked over the server configuration. You're going to want to optimize your database sharding. The single database instance you have is going to become a bottleneck as the user base grows."
Mark nodded. "I mean yeah. Right now, it's mostly just handling Harvard traffic, but we've been getting a lot of interest from other schools."
"You'll need to think about partitioning your data," John said. "For example, based on user geography—to manage read and write operations more effectively."
Mark listened carefully. "I've been reading up on sharding, but I haven't gotten into the specifics of implementation."
Ivan nodded, and joined the conversation. "You might want to consider caching solutions for frequently accessed data. Look into something like Memcached. It'll take a huge load off your database and improve response times, especially when hundreds of students are trying to access similar profiles or activity feeds simultaneously."
As they spoke, two more people walked in—Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes.
Mark introduced them, and I greeted them warmly.
"Jack, these are my friends that I mentioned—Dustin and Chris. They've been helping with the coding and some outreach," Mark said.
"Good to meet you both," I said, shaking their hands. "Mark tells me that things have been going quite well."
Chris grinned. "Yeah, it's been crazy. People from other universities have started hearing about Facebook, and they're already asking how they can get it at their schools."
I gave Mark a knowing smile. "What did I tell you?"
"Yeah, you did say that. It's mad how fast it gains traction though."
I looked around at the small group. "You need to start setting up a proper company. You're going to need someone to help manage the operations."
Mark seemed to consider this for a moment. "Yeah. It's already getting a bit overwhelming, and if we're going to expand, I can't handle everything on my own."
"Don't worry about it," I said reassuringly. "I'll send someone from Immortal Investments to help you set up the company, handle the paperwork, and take care of the logistics. You focus on making Facebook even better."
Mark's face relaxed. "Great. I appreciate it."
"You're doing great. Just keep at it."
After Mark, Dustin and Chris talked with my people for a dozen or so minutes, we wrapped up the meeting, and Mark escorted us back out of the dorm.
"Keep pushing, Mark." I said, as I gave him a goodbye handshake. "You're going to make history with Facebook. I assure you."
He smiled, excitement in his eyes. "You got it, Mr. Somnus."
"Next time, just call me Jack, okay?"
"Sure," he said without hesitation.
...
Wednesday, March 3rd: 41.21 RUB for a Dollar.
Friday, March 5th: 43.91 RUB for a Dollar.
Monday, March 8th: 46.82 RUB for a Dollar.
On Tuesday, the price fell quite a bit, and I started slowly selling out of my position.
Wednesday, March 10th
:
43.31 RUB for a Dollar.
------------
[PROFIT/LOSS DETAILS]
Opening Exchange Rate: 28.52 RUB
Current Exchange Rate: 43.31 RUB
Exposure: $1,000,000,000
Profit/Loss Open: +$553,646,563.81
Profit/Loss Closed: +$589,410,939,69
------------
In one day, I have sold out of half of my position.
On Wednesday, I called Derec.
"Hey, Derec. What leverage did J.P. Morgan give us?" I asked.
"Fifteen to one," Derec replied.
"Good. Start loading up on Rubel." I said.
Time to reverse my position.