America 1982-Chapter 567 - 119: Silicon Valley Gangsters_2

"Yeah, your girlfriend was really worried that after losing the game, you might resign or change jobs because you couldn’t fulfill your ideals, and then she’d lose the luxurious life of a wealthy wife," Tommy chuckled as he poured two glasses of red wine.

Jason glanced at his girlfriend Susy, who playfully stuck out her tongue. Raising his glass, he clinked it against Tommy’s, "She thinks I’m an idealist, which shows she doesn’t know me well enough."

"Of Course you’re a fucking idealist, Jason. Back at Stanford, you were willing to sell yourself for the development of OSS. Could anyone be more idealistic than you?" Tommy swirled his glass, laughing, then after a sip of red wine, turned to look at Jason, who was also grinning:

"You always warned me to just focus on software development. You were worried that I might encourage Mark to steal student data from Davenport Community College and end up in San Quentin Prison, and you even seriously considered which external ointment to buy for my ass when you visited, to help me out. I’ve never forgotten that."

Jason flipped Tommy the bird, "Translating idealism into selling one’s body for a dream, I don’t know whether you’re insulting me or idealism itself."

"Of course, it’s both," replied Tommy with a smile as he looked at Jason.

Tommy actually understood why Jason was willing to spend so much time playing this game, simply because he hoped winning the game would make Tommy heed his suggestions. If it’d just been ordinary advice, Tommy certainly wouldn’t have refused, but when it came to the future layout of the computer industry, Tommy insisted on being a dictator and wouldn’t agree to Jason’s suggestions even if he won the game.

But fortunately, he won. Jason couldn’t possibly create a scene more showy than his own, so his success in getting a congressman to publicly take out a solid sphere and announce the flat earth theory had perfectly maintained his friendship with Jason.

"I know those small companies in Silicon Valley don’t speak very highly of us—bandits, tyrants, dictators, ghouls, executors, rapists... But that’s the price we have to pay for success. Without those stepping stones, without their constant transfusion to us, what would support our projects? Those who curse us are smart people; don’t worry about them. They’re not like rooster’s balls, unable to procreate after being castrated once. They’ll quickly come up with something new, like weeds that grow back after being cut. We’ll just wait for an opportunity to cut them down again," Tommy said, patting Jason’s shoulder seriously.

His old buddy, big-shot Jason White, needed to go to Susy to relieve stress because he had been criticised for too long. Jason might not care about his own reputation, enthusiastically telling others about his experiences making adult films, but he cared about the reputation of the business he’d founded. The duo behind Actor was once endlessly praised within the industry; now, they were the target of universal scorn in Silicon Valley. This was the real reason for Jason’s mental and emotional problems. After all, he was only twenty-six and wasn’t able to remain as unaffected by honor or disgrace as those in their forties and fifties.

Jason looked at his friend, who was earnestly gripping his shoulder, "During Actor’s days, countless programmers called us the Silicon Valley Robin Hoods. We were like western cowboys challenging greedy capitalists, giving away the stolen goods at no cost. But now, do you know what they call us? The Silicon Valley gang. It’s like we’re from the gangs of the Wild West a hundred years ago, committing murder and arson in the computer industry, and preying only on the poor, showing utter disregard for morality and law."

After finishing his speech, Jason took a sip of his drink. EFF and their tech investment company hadn’t contributed anything to the computer industry in years. One computer-related company after another was excavated by them, shined up, hyped to capital, manipulated into going public, and then, after making a fortune, discarded. Those founders might become millionaires or multi-millionaires, but their eyes lost all their light.

Those youngsters didn’t understand finance or economy when they took the investment, but after the public offering and abandonment by the company, they realized that their hard work and dreams of changing the world were just a joke. The process of capitulating with the capital was like if Jason White was a strong gigolo and the other party was a young, beautiful woman. He fucked her hard, then, against her will, forcefully took most of the money from her wallet as remuneration for the night, leaving her only a few pitiful coins to take the subway back home.

This had been Tommy and his investment method in the computer industry over the years, and so many victims even coined a term for this type of investment: "rape investment."

Even their wise and supportive friend, the chairman of Compaq, Benjamin Rosen, sometimes complained about Tommy and his ruthlessness.

Benjamin Rosen was a universally recognized angel investor in Silicon Valley, while he, Jason White, and Tommy Hawk, were notorious as the computer grim reapers of Silicon Valley. The moment the founders of emerging companies, feeling confident about their developmental prospects, signed their names on the investment schemes prepared by Tommy, there was only one question left—that of how long it would take for them to fall headlong into hell.

The main thing was, it was impossible to guard against. You might think constantly reminding yourself to stay away from Tommy and Jason, to avoid EFF, could prevent disaster, but in reality, Tommy never personally negotiated investment partnerships. So many university professors that you trusted, those seemingly boundless developmental plans, so many investment companies, so many investors, from beginning to end you would find that not a single cent of the investment in your company was related to Tommy. But just as soon as you accepted that investment, very well, wait for the next board meeting to take place, and they would be dumbfounded to see themselves—or Tommy appearing in the meeting room, wearing an innocuous smile.

"Harvard should hire you to teach American history, with one sentence you’ve perfectly summarized America’s developmental history," Tommy summed up Jason’s words. Then, after a moment of silence, he slowly began to speak again:

"Even robbers need weapons, Jason, believe me, I’m still that robber, it’s just a period of growing pains for Silicon Valley. Once we’ve amassed enough firepower, we’ll continue to teach those real capitalists a lesson, like Microsoft."

"The Amiga operating system we acquired, it can now handle full-color windows. I don’t think it’s worse than Windows 2.1, ready to be launched at any time," Jason said seriously.

Tommy shook his head: "But that’s the fourth level of the game, for now, let me clear the second level first."

"What’s the second level? All emerging companies in Silicon Valley slaughtered until only a few behemoths remain? We’ve already dealt with all potential allies, Tommy, no one praises you as a hero anymore, they only recognize you as a scoundrel."

"No, the second level, take down Murdoch’s American Company."

"I don’t understand, what do Fox Film Corporation and Fox Television Network have to do with our business development in the computer industry?" Jason felt a headache coming on when he heard that Tommy still wanted to continue meddling with those damn TV or movie arrangements.

Tommy laughed and clinked his glass against the other’s: "This is why Charles can work in a think tank where the struggle is even more fierce than the battlefields of World War II, while you can only bully the nerds of Silicon Valley. In your bones, you’re a good person."

"What if I were a bad person?" Jason asked, taking a sip of his drink.

Tommy shrugged and looked towards Susy in the distance: "If you were a bad person, when Susy was designing that thing, you should have suggested putting a hole on the horse’s backside, making the woman playing the horse’s body comb her hair into an inverted ponytail, so when guests lifted the tail, they’d find her mouth."