Tao Liangchen
Chapter 145 A Tiny Bit of Confidence
Jiang Yu's mother had prepared a dress for her in advance, not letting Su Yehao buy one.
In the end, this girl was too embarrassed to get involved. She already felt a bit guilty toward Nangong Tian, only saying that she would go dancing with her friends.
Returning to the Su family mansion, they finished lunch.
Second Madam Su took Jiang Yu, who hadn't been officially recognized as her goddaughter, out for a stroll, saying that the pastries at a certain dessert shop were delicious. She also planned to buy a few new outfits as gifts.
As for Su Yehao, he instantly forgot about the four-school joint exam.
In Casino, students who took the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination in previous years had about a one-in-seven chance of successfully entering university.
Some for-profit colleges lowered their admission standards to the bare minimum in order to make money.
If all else failed, there were still universities like Qingbei, Zhejiang, Jiaotong, and Fudan to fall back on.
It was very easy for Casino students to study in the mainland these days. They could go through special recruitment channels, and the curriculum would be more familiar to them. Su Yehao really didn't need to worry about getting into college.
At worst, he could take a year off.
He could use that time to prepare, and it wouldn't be too late to try again next year. He was only eighteen years old, after all.
Driving again, he arrived near the Ruins of St. Paul's. A-Qiang and A-Dai had already returned and were waiting for him at the cat café.
Upon learning that they were Su Yehao's employees, Yin Liuli, who didn't like talking to people, still smiled and exchanged a few words with them as a friendly greeting.
Seeing Yin Liuli in her long white dress, her wavy brown hair, and her ethereal beauty, A-Qiang and A-Dai's hearts were melting.
Fortunately, they knew how important this job was, so they didn't dare to look too much. Their serious demeanor was especially reserved.
After Yin Liuli left.
A-Qiang lowered his voice and said to A-Dai, "See, I told you she's more beautiful. She's even prettier than many magazine cover girls!"
A-Dai stuck to his original opinion, siding with Nong Qingying, whom he had just met during the interview.
After comparing back and forth, they finally realized that Su Yehao's choice to "have both" was much wiser than their arguing. They couldn't help but admire him...
Su Yehao wasted more than ten minutes finding a parking space. He was already sweating. After sitting down, he first ordered an iced cola and then asked A-Qiang, "Where are the interview materials? You've looked at the applicants, right? Who do you think is the most capable?"
A-Qiang, the bespectacled guy sitting opposite him, replied without even thinking, "That's definitely John Zhou. He has six years of work experience at Microsoft. It's surprising that he's even applying to our company. He used to earn $140,000 a year."
"Then why is he switching jobs? Was he fired?" Su Yehao asked.
A-Dai shook his head and explained, "He told us himself that it was because his wife didn't like Seattle and wanted to return to Hong Kong to spend more time with her family. Later, we asked a senior who also works at Microsoft, and he said that it was actually because the video codec project department he was in charge of was completely laid off due to their failure to produce a decent product. He received nearly $300,000 in severance pay."
It was common to embellish oneself when looking for a job.
This John Zhou had worked at a large company like Microsoft, was familiar with the corporate culture, and had access to firsthand Silicon Valley news. He had also been a project supervisor.
In Su Yehao's view, these conditions were already quite good enough to manage tAt, which currently only had two small soldiers.
Hearing this, Su Yehao asked curiously, "You have a senior working at Microsoft? If you come across any capable acquaintances, you can also help introduce them to us. You even found out how much severance pay he got. He works at the headquarters, right?"
A-Qiang hesitated for a moment and told the truth:
"The income is higher in the United States. He's probably already settled down there and won't come back easily. That senior is several years older than us. He went to MIT for graduate school. He gave a speech at the school once, and I happened to be in charge of hosting him. He now earns at least $200,000 a year and works in the Word project group."
Mentioning Word, Su Yehao immediately thought of Yin Hai's WPS. He hadn't contacted anyone from Yin Hai Software to discuss financing recently, and he didn't know how things were going or whether they had found funding.
After A-Qiang finished speaking.
Su Yehao smiled and said, "I can afford a $200,000 salary too, but this is just a trial project for now, so there's no need to invest that much. If he were in the iCQ or AOL chatroom department, I would definitely be happy to poach him. I've already wasted some time, so I need to hurry up and get the development department up and running."
Hearing this, A-Qiang felt bitter in his heart.
Thinking that knowledge and technology could indeed be exchanged for real money, while he was still complacent about his annual salary of around $20,000, Su Yehao was already willing to offer others sky-high salaries.
In order to protect his job and avoid being completely marginalized, A-Qiang immediately said:
"Indeed, we don't need that level of top talent yet. Regarding the optimization of our chatroom, I've already had some inspiration and insights, and I can submit the plan to you for your review in a few days, Little Su. Software algorithm experts and hardware debugging of servers are the priorities right now..."
Su Yehao listened perfunctorily.
He pretended to be very serious, but it was purely like playing the lute to a cow.
He didn't even know what a so-called algorithm expert did. Civil engineering was Su Yehao's forte.
Knowing roughly how many cubic meters of sand and cement were needed just by looking at a wall, and knowing whether the supplier had used inferior materials just by tapping on the steel bars, that was also a skill.
Pulling out a few files from the document bag, Su Yehao flipped through the resumes of the five applicants for the position of project director and found that John Zhou's resume was indeed the most eye-catching.
The other party had participated in the development of several projects within Microsoft, studied at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and obtained a master's degree from Stanford.
If there was a shortcoming.
Unfortunately, John Zhou was already forty years old. Su Yehao didn't know if he could coordinate well with him and guide the development of decent products. As a director, understanding user preferences was very important.
Choosing the tallest among the dwarfs, he tentatively set a three-month probationary period.
He also selected two other programmers with Silicon Valley work experience. The salary and benefits would have to be discussed separately, and they probably wouldn't be cheap.
Su Yehao didn't discuss the development direction with A-Qiang and A-Dai, as it was a trade secret.
After chatting briefly, he directly showed them the door.
……
After the two subordinates left, Su Yehao stared out the window in a daze.
He hoped to create a phenomenal product like Tencent's QQ, focusing on the mainland market. As for ideas, he had a few, such as membership levels, QQ Show, growing and stealing vegetables, and so on. That was all.
He guessed that when Pony Ma started out, he definitely didn't have a project director with an annual salary of 500,000, plus a group of developers with Silicon Valley work experience, and he still succeeded in the end, didn't he?
Considering that he had more money, started planning earlier, had a better development team, and didn't have to take too many detours.
This more or less gave Su Yehao a tiny bit of confidence in the future of tAt.
The more important thing was that he didn't need to go all in. He could afford to fail several times.
At this moment, Yin Liuli walked over holding the fat cat Koko and asked him curiously, "I've seen you spacing out for a few minutes. What are you thinking about?"
Su Yehao immediately replied, "Thinking about you..."