Chapter 256.

Chapter 256.

Chapter 256. Enlisting Angela’s Aid. (5/6)

“Haaaaaaaaah.”

“What are you sighing over?”

“Huh? Sorry, it’s nothing.”

“Nothing? Don’t lie, you’ve been looking at your phone with a pretty solemn expression this entire time.”

“It’s really nothing big.”

“If it’s nothing big, let me see what you’re looking at on your phone.”

“Sure, but it’s really nothing.”

I turned my phone to her and let her see the graphs I’d drawn up.

“What’re these graphs supposed to be for?”

“Read the legend at the top and it should make sense.”

“Let’s see... huh? Wait... what! What the heck is this!”

“It’s exactly what it looks like.”

“Is this a projection of how much the company will be worth in the future?”

“Not a projection. It’s exactly what it will look like in the future. User growth will match this for certain. By May of next year, this app will have over two hundred million users. This app will then be acquired by another company for eight hundred million to a billion dollars in September of the same year.”

“September, this year, a second version of this app will be launched in the country this app was created. Within a single year, the company behind this second app will acquire this one and rebrand it. Five to six years later, the rebranded app will have seven hundred million users and be valued at fifty billion dollars. That country’s version of their app used by their citizens will have a comparable number of users as well though.”

“That’s insane. There’s no way this is possible. Growth like this is way too optimistic, it would surely taper off.”

“It isn’t too optimistic at all when you think a bit deeper into the sort of environment this app is being developed in. Their country has more than enough resources to make it happen. Their population is both large and disciplined. They have an army of people at their beck and call who they can make use of at any time to spread word of this app.”

“I completely agree. It all sounds ludicrous. Weakening a country by turning its own citizens against it with some cheap low-level psychological tricks. As if it would be that easy. Everything I said is all merely speculation on my part. There is no basis for my words, so you should ignore them and act like you heard nothing.”

“It’s a bit hard to ignore something like this.”

“If you foolishly go around spreading the nonsense I just said, you could be targeted and lose everything you’ve built for yourself. If you plan to do anything based on the rubbish you’ve heard here today, the best angle of attack would be to align yourself with that company and get on the inside as soon as possible.”

“Invest everything you can in that company to gain as much control as possible. You have a lot of reach and influence. Luckily, you’re also deeply involved in the music industry and studying computer science. For you to take an interest in that company now wouldn’t raise any eyebrows at all. It’s unlikely you’d ever gain full control over that company, but at the very least, it wouldn’t hurt to try.”

“Right now, you are the ideal candidate to become a spy on the inside.”

“A spy, it sounds pretty exciting when you put it that way.”

“You shouldn’t think of it as some sort of fun game to play. This is something that could get you killed. This country wouldn’t hesitate to turn you into a political hostage or just make you mysteriously disappear.”

They’d done so on more than one occasion in the future and they even got away with it too. Nobody wanted to burn all bridges and make an enemy of that country. They were the manufacturing capital of the world because of the cheap cost of labor there.

It would be greatly detrimental to business and a country’s economy if they made an enemy of them. They’d amassed a great deal of power and cards to play over the years despite their disadvantageous starting position in terms of technology.

They’d rapidly caught up by stealing techniques and knowledge from others. They’d selectively integrated the good, kept out the bad, and made it their own.

If you ask me, it was a smart way to go about things. Let your opponents do all the hard work to create the final product then reverse engineer everything using what you knew about the end result. If you kept making small improvements to it over time, it would eventually catch up to the original. From an efficiency perspective, you’d dump a lot less money into research this way and yield much greater results.

Your starting point would be higher, so if you used your larger population to your advantage, you could close the gap in a shorter timeframe as well. This was another reason behind that country’s spectacular growth over the years. Their values and morals were just different.

Western countries would look down on that sort of approach. They’d take the moral high ground and think the people in that country would never be able to produce innovative technologies because they would grow so accustomed to these unimaginative methods. But I think western countries are naive. Too naive, in fact.

They’re too comfortable because they’ve been at the top for so long. People in western developed countries have grown complacent because of the stable peaceful times they’ve lived in. They don’t even entertain the idea that they could ever be toppled and overthrown one day. That they could become inferior to one of those previously undeveloped eastern countries they secretly held in disdain, they’d rather avert their eyes from such a reality. The humiliation would be unbearable if that day ever came.

Haaaaah. If I was plotting to disrupt the status quo of this world, I’d have done exactly what that country did.

They were smart, sneaky, cunning, and devious. They weren’t afraid of being underhanded if it achieved their end goal. Lying, cheating, and stealing meant nothing to them. It was a means to an end.

That country’s leader held firm in their resolution, their conviction. They were far stronger and much more reliable than some of the future global leaders. Though they ruled their country through fear, I couldn’t help but respect them a bit. They were flexible when they needed to bend, but had a backbone where you couldn’t push them back an inch when they had to stand their ground.

However, that didn’t mean I liked that country’s leader. In fact, I didn’t like them at all. It’s entirely possible the two of us might get along if we met, but I still wouldn’t like them. We definitely wouldn’t be friends either. I don’t want any friends after all.