Chapter 46

If you could go back twenty or thirty years, how would you make a fortune?

Generally speaking, you could buy lottery tickets for the World Cup or the Olympics, then use the winnings to buy property and gold. After that, you could dive into the internet market, and you would likely become a major player with a net worth of hundreds of millions.

If you have some financial and management skills, you could choose to start a business. In the early days, introducing two refrigerator production lines would allow you to sit back and count your money. However, remember to sell the production lines in 1987 or 1988, then wait until the 1990s to enter the stock market. Buy stocks like Shenzhen Development, Shandong Bohai, and the two bridges and one mouth. At that time, you could buy anything on the stock market, as it was a sure way to make money. Just remember to avoid the 327 government bond crisis in 1995.

By the mid-1990s, you would have dominated the Chinese stock market. It would be time to move on to the next level. Go to the United States and acquire various internet and internet-related stocks. It would still be a surefire way to make money. Just remember to sell before the internet bubble in 2001, then wait for the bottom to buy back in. If you want to focus on industry, you could use your substantial capital to take advantage of the Japanese wool market and the Southeast Asian financial crisis in the 1990s.

By this point, with a net worth of at least several billion, you could start acquiring high-tech industries and strategically relocate them back to China to build a tech empire. By around 2010, you would likely be at the top of the world, unbeatable.

But for Hu Wenhai, these methods were a bit too lacking in challenge. Yes, challenge. The path to development was already set, and as long as you followed the steps to accumulate wealth, you would be worshipped.

What kind of life, with almost no challenge, would be so boring? If this were a web novel, it would probably be a sure flop.

So, what is money to Hu Wenhai? In the end, it's just a piece of paper. Ironically, those who pursue it often don't get it, while those who don't care about it are often favored by it.

As a reborn person, Hu Wenhai's performance in the United States had already proven that money was not an obstacle for him. If he needed it, he could always find a way to make it.

If you don't lack money, your perspective naturally shifts away from it. Hu Wenhai remembered a web novel he had read, where the protagonist was reborn as Empress Elisabeth in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and supported the North during the American Civil War to make money.

However, after the reunification of the United States, the protagonist suddenly realized that he should have supported the South to bleed the United States or even split it, or keep it in a state of slavery.

Yes, this is a different perspective. Hu Wenhai shifted his focus from making money and asked himself if he could trick the Americans before the internet era.

In short, Hu Wenhai felt it was absolutely necessary to try to mislead the Americans. Just thinking about the possibility of the American information industry developing like Japan's, with a skewed tech tree, made him feel that his rebirth was not in vain.

So, how could he mislead the Americans? Hu Wenhai thought about it and decided to try to undermine Intel first.

Cisco was the company he chose to use to stab Intel in the back.

Of course, he hadn't fully formulated a specific plan yet, but he had at least one idea that he thought might work.

Intel was undoubtedly a monopoly, and AMD had never truly threatened its dominance. This monopoly allowed Intel to maintain a closed system, unlike the open system of ARM. In the x86 architecture market, Intel was the de facto king.

Intel's monopoly was due to the lack of a peer competitor and the absence of a monopolistic downstream market. Imagine if there were no assembled computers and brand-name computer sales were concentrated in a few large companies. Even if Intel could dominate the chip market, it would still have to kneel to a monopolistic downstream market, or at least be significantly constrained.

So, how could he eliminate assembled computers and dominate the brand-name computer market?

Hu Wenhai believed the key was to eliminate the concept of "computers." Who buys assembled TVs? Who cares about the amount of memory, the type of system-on-chip, or the brand of adapter when buying a TV?

Consumers don't care about these details. They care about the TV's appearance, whether it has a right angle, and its size—intuitive data.

Why is this? Because in the consumer's mind, a TV is a consumer product, while a computer is a scientific device. Hu Wenhai's goal was to turn computers into consumer products like TVs.

Only then could a downstream force that could rival Intel emerge. Only then could he easily break away from the x86 architecture system one day.

In terms of strategy, Hu Wenhai's first step was to change the foundation of the future Internet—routers. If he wanted to sell computers like TVs, he needed to start by transforming the TV network.

However, these ideas were still far off. For now, Hu Wenhai needed to understand Cisco's development direction.

"Because I believe in your abilities," Hu Wenhai said sincerely, his expression unchanged. "With the new company's promotion, the router will surely succeed in the market, so why would I do anything unnecessary? I hope you can give me a chance, not only to acquire the patent shares from Stanford University but also to invest in the new company for initial operating costs."

"May I ask, Mr. Hu... how much equity do you plan to hold?" Leonard asked cautiously.

"First, I'd like to ask, what is the current transmission rate of your multi-protocol router?" Hu Wenhai didn't answer directly but posed another question.

Leonard and Sandy exchanged glances before hesitantly answering, "Our router can achieve a transmission speed of 64KB/s."

"But your router still uses dedicated lines?"

"Yes, it uses coaxial cable," Leonard nodded.

Hu Wenhai couldn't help but laugh. After all, it was 1984, an era before the internet, a primitive time for networks.

There were three network protocols in use: X.25, TCP/IP, and IPX/SPX. Local area networks (LANs) using these protocols couldn't communicate with each other due to protocol differences. While the internet did exist in the form of the U.S. military's original network, which could communicate via telephone lines, the efficiency was quite low. The modems used for military networks, produced by Hayes, had a transmission rate of only 1.2Kbit/s.

Note that the unit is Kbit/s, so in practical use, it would be divided by 8 to get the actual speed in KB/s...

To transmit data between two computer LANs, a significant bandwidth was needed. Cisco's router, achieving a speed of 64KB/s, was equivalent to the 512K broadband of the future. For a 1984 LAN, this was a very generous speed.

However, achieving such speed came at a cost. Early Cisco routers were large, complex to operate and maintain, and could only use dedicated lines, not telephone lines.

Moreover, they had to use coaxial cable dedicated lines, which were very expensive to build.

"Alright, I have an idea," Hu Wenhai said confidently. "If you agree with my approach, I can invest one million dollars for 49% equity. If you think that's not suitable, I can invest three hundred thousand dollars for 30% equity."

This was clearly an unequal choice. One million dollars for 49% equity valued Cisco at $2.04 million, while three hundred thousand dollars for 30% equity valued it at $1 million.

But Leonard didn't rashly choose the former. Instead, he asked, "Can I hear your idea?"

"Of course, no problem," Hu Wenhai said readily. "I have a plan. What if we connect all the LANs in the United States through routers?"

"That's not possible for now; the cost is too high," Leonard instinctively countered.

"No, the cost is low. We can collaborate with cable TV networks. By modifying the cable TV network and using its transmission lines, this plan is not out of reach."

"This..."

"Think about the size of the market!" Hu Wenhai, seeing Leonard's hesitation, continued, "How long would it take for the market to accept routers if the company promoted them slowly? If we could use the cable TV network to bring routers directly into the homes of many ordinary people, that would be a truly massive market!"

"Ordinary people? What kind of ordinary people, and what would they use routers for in their homes?"

"There are many things they could do. We can develop a new product that can connect to a TV to output images and access other computers through a router. It can be used for gaming, accessing news groups, office work, and even connecting to a company's LAN for collaborative work. Of course, it has many other functions that we can develop over time. I've named it a home information terminal, or a TV box. The key is that its operation will be extremely simple, making it easy for even those who have never used a computer to use it..."