The companies under his control were already running smoothly.

For example, TAT Instant Chat Software Company, founded in 1997, was now ten years old.

Although Su Yehao wasn't present, he played a pre-recorded video at the celebration and distributed a total of one billion RMB in anniversary bonuses.

This company wasn't listed, and most of its shares had been donated to his family trust. Its current market valuation was approximately 360 billion Hong Kong dollars.

Due to the decision not to go public, stock options became a pipe dream.

To compensate the veteran employees, salaries and benefits remained above average, as they were at TOT Browser.

Without the pressure of stock price fluctuations, employees could focus on developing good products. They generally worked from nine to five, with an hour for lunch, so the work pressure wasn't too great.

Even Taobao and Yinhai Network, which were already listed, didn't encourage employees to work overtime, and even provided overtime compensation when things got busy.

Su Yehao wasn't short of money himself and didn't want to help some foreign shareholders squeeze profits out of his employees.

Simply by offering high salaries and a relatively relaxed working environment, he attracted a steady stream of top talent to his companies every year. This widened the gap between him and his competitors, maintaining a significant advantage.

The notorious "996" (9 am to 9 pm, six days a week) work schedule was easily solved under Su Yehao's leadership, at least.

He controlled several large companies, and as long as he didn't actively participate in the rat race, others couldn't force them into it, giving him the opportunity to continue the rhythm.

With his investment projects on track and a family office with around six hundred employees helping him manage his business,

Su Yehao's assets were increasing, but his life was more relaxed than it had been in the previous two years, which was a sign of healthy development.

Small troubles were taken care of by others.

He could focus his energy on considering big, abstract problems that others might overlook.

Such as how to take advantage of the crisis that might occur next year to reap a wave of profits from the international market, and continue to strengthen competitiveness in areas such as semiconductors and consumer electronics.

Or how to operate in order to reduce the influence of the US dollar on the international market, and solve a series of problems from the root, such as tidal harvesting, unnecessary wars, and the displacement of countless people.

In addition, ecological protection and the use of technology to promote social progress were all difficult problems that would take time to solve slowly.

Taking on all the responsibility wasn't Su Yehao's style. He just tried his best, and while success was good, failure wasn't a problem.

Many things were beyond his ability to fix, requiring the joint efforts of most people around the world, as well as a little luck.

On July 7, 2007,

luck was on Su Yehao's side. Zhuang Wei called to report:

"Boss, Feng Tiancai told me that someone at the Qianxin City R&D Center has solved a problem called multi-standard integration of wireless access networks. This is a project in cooperation with Huawei Network Company."

When he received the call, Su Yehao was planting potatoes in his own vegetable garden. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and frowned, asking, "This wireless what... what does it do?"

"...I'm not sure, but Feng Tiancai said it's very, very important and could bring huge profits to the company. It seems to be related to communication technology, used to integrate mobile networks?"

Assistant Zhuang Wei was mainly responsible for management and didn't understand the specific technology. She hesitated and added, "Otherwise, why don't you talk to Feng Tiancai yourself? He knows more about this than I do. Since he says it's a very profitable technology, it shouldn't be bad."

Su Yehao was also a layman. He smiled and said:

"Just have him write a brief introduction and send it to my email. Talking to me would be like talking to a brick wall, lest Feng Tiancai discovers that I'm not as smart as he thinks."

"Okay, it will probably take some time. I'll call him back."

After reporting, Assistant Zhuang Wei took the opportunity to say that news had come from the north, trying to shift from relying on foreign trade to stimulate the economy to expanding domestic demand, while restricting foreign investment in real estate, metal resources, and service industries.

Su Yehao immediately guessed something and laughed:

"Foreign capital is foreign capital, we are different. It's probably preparing for industrial transformation, intending to use foreign capital to enhance competitiveness, rather than simply being used for labor and cheap resources. This will help optimize and upgrade the industrial structure."

"Yes, boss. The advisor also said that after last year's financial industry reform, they have begun to pay attention to economic security awareness. The United States has a Committee on Foreign Investment, and the north is expected to adopt a similar model to strengthen the supervision of foreign investment."

Assistant Zhuang Wei was only responsible for reporting. The specific considerations were up to Su Yehao himself.

Once bitten, twice shy. In the few years since joining the WTO, many local enterprises had suffered devastating blows. Now, with growing strength, it was finally time to have the confidence to start rectifying foreign investment.

It was foreign capital that was being rectified. Su Yehao didn't consider himself an outsider. Even if the knife fell, the probability of it hitting him was extremely low.

Compared with the negative impact, the benefits were obvious. At least in the future, those multinational giants would be constrained, and the threat to him would be drastically reduced.

…

More than two hours later, Su Yehao received an email from Feng Tiancai.

With smartphones, it was much easier to send messages, and the speed of his own wireless network was particularly fast. It used some new equipment that wasn't yet commercially available on a large scale, and the external wireless network speed was obviously not as good as his.

He clicked to read it.

Only then did he realize that the so-called multi-standard integration of wireless access networks referred to the use of technological innovation to enable a single base station to process 2G and 3G signals simultaneously. A single antenna could handle multiple frequency bands, greatly reducing the investment costs of operators, and future 4G and even 5G technologies could also be used.

Although he didn't understand the technology, Su Yehao smelled a strong business opportunity between the lines. Since it could greatly save communication operators' expenses, it meant that its commercial value was very high.

In this era of information industry explosion, any technology that could promote the communication industry could basically make a lot of money. For example, Cisco in the past, and Qualcomm, had risen because of this.

And Huawei in Pengcheng was previously just a reasonably sized company.

It had been unremarkable in recent years, and almost got acquired by a foreign company a few years ago. The deal failed because the price wasn't agreed upon.

Later, with official matchmaking, Su Yehao was also happy to contribute a little.

So the two parties cooperated to build a Huawei R&D center, located in Qianxin City, agreeing that once the results were researched, the income would be divided according to the contribution. It was equivalent to Su Yehao investing to help it with research and development.

Two or three years later, Su Yehao had almost forgotten about it. He didn't expect that he had really developed a commercially promising technology, which was obviously a pleasant surprise...