Chapter 58

Ye Tianming had been keeping the office space he had previously found for Li Mu, which was about 70 square meters in size and divided into three rooms of different sizes.

One of the rooms took up half of the space, serving as a relatively spacious office area. Currently, it was loosely arranged with six workstations, but it could accommodate at least ten people. In addition, there was a small meeting room of about 20 square meters and an independent office of about 10 square meters.

At 9 a.m., Li Mu called the owners of several resumes to notify them of the interview. Among the four people, only Kong Lingyu had a mobile phone; the others had left only pager numbers, making it somewhat troublesome to notify them.

The first person Li Mu called was Kong Lingyu, a web developer from Yahoo China. When Kong Lingyu received the call, he was still in bed. Upon hearing about the interview, he initially asked cautiously about the company's background, as he had been invited to several interviews in recent days, only to find out that the companies were not legitimate internet enterprises. Many people hired web developers just to create a company page, which left Kong Lingyu quite frustrated.

He had always thought that, as a second-tier city, Nanjing, although not as large as Beijing, should not be far behind in terms of development speed. However, after returning, he realized that Nanjing was still a barren land for the internet. Apart from some local forums and chat rooms, there were no newer internet products in Nanjing. There were no portal sites, and his own URL directory was a unique thing.

On the phone, Kong Lingyu asked Li Mu in detail, "May I ask what is the core business of your company in the internet field?"

Li Mu replied, "Our company's current core focus is to develop a website for online music listening and downloading."

"An online listening website?" Kong Lingyu repeated, already somewhat interested, as it at least fell within the realm of genuine internet business.

Li Mu explained, "You can think of it as a portal site centered around music."

Kong Lingyu was familiar with online listening websites. There were quite a few of them now, and he often listened to music on similar sites when he was online.

"Alright," Kong Lingyu agreed without much hesitation, saying, "Please tell me the time and location."

"I'll send you the address by text message later. The time is today, the sooner the better."

Subsequently, Li Mu received calls from the others and arranged the interview times one by one.

To avoid making Li Mu look too shabby during the interview, Ye Tianming immediately found the employee in charge of the building's management. Within less than an hour, he had gathered all the necessary office furniture, including desks, reception sofas, and a conference table for the office and meeting room.

It looked like a proper setup, but Li Mu hadn't even registered the company yet. He had originally planned to register it first, but then decided against it, as most websites at the time were personal sites, and there was no need to register a company specifically for a website.

Kong Lingyu arrived at 11 a.m. When he found the office building, he was quite surprised. This was one of the top office buildings in Nanjing, and any company that could lease space here must have some financial strength.

However, after meeting Li Mu, his surprise increased several times over!

"Are you not even twenty years old yet?" This was the first question Kong Lingyu asked when he saw Li Mu.

"That's right," Li Mu didn't hide it, nodding, "I haven't started university yet, this September."

Kong Lingyu was a person with a strong internet mindset. He knew a few rules in the internet field: one, ability doesn't depend on age; two, talent doesn't depend on background.

So, Kong Lingyu asked curiously, "Since you're about to start university, why do you want to start a business in the internet field?"

Li Mu replied calmly, "I will attend university offline and start a business online; these two things don't conflict."

"Online and offline" was still a fresh term. Kong Lingyu's eyes sparkled, "You're right, and there will indeed be a lot of free time after starting university."

Li Mu nodded and got straight to the point, "Let's talk about the serious stuff. I've reviewed your resume, and you seem to fit my current needs. I hope to have a technical director to help me with the development of Yiting, as well as the maintenance after it goes live. Additionally, the server and testing parts also need to be managed by the technical director."

Kong Lingyu asked, "What do you mean by 'part of the development'?"

"I've already started developing it myself and have completed about 20% so far. However, I really don't have the time, so I hope to have a technical director to take responsibility for me, lead other technical personnel, and complete the development of the website according to my requirements."

Kong Lingyu was even more surprised. An 18-year-old starting a business wasn't unusual, but from the fact that Li Mu had already leased such a place before the project went live, he was likely a second-generation rich kid.

However, an 18-year-old who could develop web pages was extremely rare in China, as high schools had not yet fully popularized computer classes, and high school students who wanted to learn programming probably didn't have the right opportunities.

Seeing the doubt in his expression, Li Mu took out his laptop and showed him the unfinished project, saying, "You can take a look. This is just a preliminary backend logic."

Kong Lingyu took the laptop in surprise and flipped through a few pages of code. His opinion of Li Mu immediately changed.

Code is a tedious thing, but it is also an art, an art similar to mathematics. For example, a certain function in a program is like a math problem, and different technical personnel have different ways of solving it. Not everyone can solve the problem, and even fewer have the most efficient solution. Therefore, when a programmer sees better code, it's like a mathematician seeing a better solution to a problem, and they can immediately gauge the other person's level.

After just a few pages of code, Kong Lingyu felt that Li Mu's web programming skills were even higher than his own. If he were to write the code according to the same requirements, it would probably be twice as long!

The length of the code not only represents the programmer's mastery of the technology but also their logical ability. For developers, logic is the most important aspect. The more concise, direct, and clear the code, the more it represents the programmer's strength, and even their talent and expertise.

"May I ask where you learned programming? Your level is far above mine. To me, it's like the difference between a level-four English test and the English level of an American, the gap is too large."

"Not that extreme," Li Mu waved his hand, "The most important part of coding isn't writing it, but the thinking before writing it. It's like translation. If I asked you to translate 'How are you?' in writing, how would you do it?"

"How-are-you," Kong Lingyu blurted out.

Li Mu opened a document on the computer and said, "Type it out."

Kong Lingyu immediately typed out the nine letters: How-are-you.

Li Mu smiled and pulled the computer closer, typing as he spoke, "If it were me, I would write it like this. Take a look."

After saying that, Li Mu handed what he had written to Kong Lingyu.

Kong Lingyu was stunned when he saw it. Li Mu had written: "How-r-u"

Only five letters.

"This..." Kong Lingyu was confused.

Li Mu smiled, "The pronunciation of 'r' is the same as 'are,' and the pronunciation of 'u' is the same as 'you.' So this is enough for the other person to understand."

Kong Lingyu finally understood. Computer language shares many similarities with human language. Programmers are translators, translating human language into computer language and making it understandable to the computer. Those who are proficient in language and can think will use the simplest and most direct way to make the other party understand, which is the essence of programming.

Kong Lingyu looked at Li Mu with even more respect. He vaguely felt that Li Mu must have had overseas study experience or learned from overseas programming experts, otherwise, he wouldn't have such a deep understanding of programming.

Li Mu's analogy also sidestepped Kong Lingyu's previous question. He told Kong Lingyu about his general plan for Yiting and said confidently, "The era of online listening hasn't truly arrived yet, and the era of MP3s hasn't even begun. If we do this business well now, we have the chance to become the Baidu or Yahoo of the online music field in the future."

Although Kong Lingyu didn't know when MP3s would become widespread, he agreed with Li Mu's view. Online music is a convenient service provided by the internet to netizens, and in the future, more and more people will have this need. Starting early in this field will allow us to be well-prepared for the surge in demand.