Chapter 87 - Updates
After everything that happened in Malibu, I went back to Brentwood that afternoon.
I was in my room checking how the Gauss Fund was doing. It currently held a total value of $1.4 billion, not considering the Apple LEAPS (Long-Term Equity Anticipation Securities).
"Now I hold more real stocks, besides call options, unlike last year," I muttered.
"My stock portfolio is at $30 million in Monster, or 30% of the company, already disclosed via SEC. $375 million in Apple, referring to 4.98% of its total shares.
I bought more LEAPS, corresponding to about 12% of the company. If I exercised them, I'd have close to 17%. Since there is no clear rule about it, I didn't need to disclose it.
I had to make deals with five major banks to structure these additional LEAPS (it would have been impossible to obtain them through the open market)."
And I continued, "4,98% of Intuitive Surgical, currently valued at $29 million, and 4,98% of Nvidia valued at $125 million. Another $246 million in various promising stocks."
"Plus $300 million in call options for December 2004, which should turn into $1.4 billion net after taxes."
The remaining $300 million I left in cash, for out-of-the-ordinary events.
"Jaaake!" The usual shout came, calling me to dinner.
-----------------------------
I went downstairs for dinner and noticed Manny looking down.
"Ay, papi, you still sad about that audition?" Gloria asked him.
Manny, frustrated, replied, "That part was mine. I was born to play Tevye. Instead they gave it to Rod Jackson?"
"What does he know about suffering?" he added, still upset.
"How we doing?" Jay, who had just returned, questioned.
"Nothing like some good ice cream and a few VIP tickets to that opera you wanted - that should make things better, right Manny?" I said, showing the tickets I had bought.
His face lit up. "You got them?" he asked in awe.
"Yep - and I even arranged for you to meet the conductor personally," I added.
"Thank you so much, Jake," Manny made a wide smile.
"Well, looks like that's settled," Jay commented, though he still pulled out a framed picture from the bag he was holding. "But you can take this too, so nothing else keeps you down."
"What doesn't kill us makes us stronger," Manny read beneath the picture of a sequoia.
Jay suggested, "We can hang this in your room. You'll see it every morning, start to internalize it. Pretty soon nothing will keep you down."
"But it's not true," Manny disagreed. "A lot of things that don't kill you make you weaker."
He gave an example, "My friend's grandfather had a heart attack. Now he needs a machine to breathe."
Gloria joined the conversation, "I've seen him at the supermarket. Now he needs to drive one of those little-" she imitated a sputtering engine noise.
Jay grew exasperated. "Jake, can you help here?"
I looked at Manny. "Well, it's one of those aphorisms that survives because it carries a deep emotional truth, even while being imperfect and, in many ways, naïve."
And I explained, "What matters is your ability to internalize it - to believe you can overcome challenges. That belief is important. But not with a childish belief that you're capable of everything"
And I returned to the example he gave earlier. "Take your friend's grandpa - he could either become bitter because of the difficulties after the heart attack, or he could overcome it and learn to value the small things in life."
I chose the second path in my previous life.
He grew thoughtful for a moment, and Jay pulled us along. "Let's eat, I'm hungry."
-----------------------------
The next morning, I was preparing breakfast with Claire. She had just finished putting the batter into the waffle machine while I was melting high-quality Belgian chocolate for the filling.
"Hey, honey, there's a new movie-" Claire began, seeing Phil walk into the kitchen.
"I'm in," he agreed immediately, without even hearing the title.
My aunt suggested, "We could go at 4:00 or 6:20."
"Oh, actually, that's no good," Phil remembered. "I'm meeting my friend Denise for a drink."
"Denise?" Claire frowned. "Do I know Denise?"
"Yeah. You know, my old girlfriend."
"Oh my God. Gross," Haley said in disgust as she did her makeup at the table. "I can't even picture you with a woman."
"Thank you," her mom replied dryly.
Huh, that is ironically, I can't picture mine without one.
Luke looked surprised. "You had a girlfriend before Mom?"
"Try two. Trust me, I had plenty of fun in my time," Phil said, then concluded, "And then I met your mom."
Claire glared at him. "And thank you," she continued sarcastically.
"She said she works for a hot, intelligent boss," Phil commented, "but a bit younger than her."
I frowned as I finished stirring the chocolate. "What a weird conversation to have with your ex..." but well, it is Phil...
We sat down and began to eat, with Haley obviously grabbing a very small portion and trying not to add too much of the filling, always worrying about her weight.
"Mom, I need help with the cello," Alex spoke, since she had a lesson at 11 a.m.
I joined the conversation. "Alex, just being part of my research already impresses colleges. You don't need to force yourself into something you don't enjoy just for that."
I went on, "But if you do like it, Leonard and Leslie are part of the Caltech orchestra, you can talk to them."
"I will think about it," she replied, giving a shy smile.
Then doorbell rang, but Claire dismissed, "Just ignore it, must be that door-to-door salesman trying to sell encyclopedias."
Luke turned at Alex. "If you were doing it, they'd call it a dork-to-dork salesman."
Nothing like roasting your sister for free...
"Oh! My boy strikes like a rattlesnake!" Phil burst out laughing.
Alex pointed at Luke. "Oh yeah? W-Well, you-" but she stalled, unable to form a comeback.
We all became surprised by it.
"All right, well, we can see the movie tomorrow," Claire told Phil, checking the time. "Come on, Alex, it's time for your lesson."
"You mean her second lesson, because she just got schooled." Luke struck again, leaving Alex speechless and sarcasm-less once more.
"What's wrong with me today?" she muttered.
"Shake it off, champ." Her mother kissed the top of her head. "It's not your day."
"We can go in a little while too, Haley," today was one of the very rare days I would actually arrive on time.
She turned to me. "When are you going to let me drive?"
"When I'm sure you're not a danger to us," I replied. "I'm not really joking, little Comet - the Ferrari 612 goes from 0 to 60 in four seconds. Not something to play with."
Chapters 88 - Transistor
After we finished breakfast, I drove Haley to school, but I didn't go inside because I had received a message asking me to head to the Moore-Pritchett Complex.
"Just tell them I might not come today," I said, hugging Haley before she stepped out. "I might stay there all morning instead."
"Okay, but don't forget about today!" she reminded me again.
"I will not, you two would make it impossible for me to forget," I replied. I had promised to model for Haley and Marissa, since the new clothes they had designed were finally ready.
"Love you, cousin," she waved and walked into school. I drove toward my complex.
-----------------------------
"These are the results from the latest experiment," Eric, the lead engineer of the project in partnership with Intel, presented.
"The MoS₂ - based transistor is a success!" he announced professionally - yet excitement was clearly present in his voice.
He continued, "It's a 1 µm channel, and based on our research, there's a possibility of reducing it to a quarter of that, though there are significant challenges."
"It seems you'll have to create a Moore's Law 2.0, Gordon," I joked, glancing at him seated beside me.
"It looks like it," he responded, visibly emotional - it was an achievement that struck directly at the core of his career.
"Currently, using silicon, Intel are at 90 nm commercially and 65 nm in ramp-up," I commented, using information that was publicly known. "I bet you already have 25-45 nm in advanced research."
"I don't think we'll see silicon being replaced anytime soon, but MoS₂ might be the future where silicon simply cannot reach," I concluded, echoing what was likely the consensus in the room.
Craig Barrett, Intel's current CEO, remained thoughtful and silent, still withholding his opinion.
Pat Gelsinger, his CTO, commented, "We need more projections: switching energy, leakage at sub-30nm, and heat density compared to strained silicon."
1 nm is complex. Commercially, the industry will obviously aim for something easier to manufacture first.
We discussed the next steps for quite some time.
Intel will immediately invest another $120 million into the project, with the potential for billions once commercial viability is demonstrated.
After that, I went to check on a side project we started months ago (not really a side project for me, given the potential financial impact) - solar panel improvements (still without using perovskites).
-----------------------------
Gordon and I were watching Leonard adding one more element - the 30th - to the chart: VS₂, Vanadium Disulfide.
"Pritchett-Moore table," Gordon said aloud. "You know you didn't need to put my surname there."
"You're the main investor and the director of our complex, I thought it was fair enough," I replied, unfazed. I'm not someone who cares about taking all the credit, especially when someone I value greatly contributed just as much.
"You'd have enough money to do it alone, even if it took longer," Gordon noted.
"Yeah," I didn't deny it, "but no offense, Gordon - but I expect to live way longer than you."
Before I could continue, he spoke, "I hope so. I really hope so. I'd be really sad otherwise," patting my shoulder soberly.
"As I was saying, there's another reason I don't mind calling it Pritchett-Moore - I'll have several opportunities in the future to put only my name on things," I smirked. "I don't plan on stopping anytime soon."
"What is your goal for the future, Jake?" he wondered. "What's the big dream?"
"Hmm, the answer is still to live a happy life. And for me right now, that means having happy moments with my friends and family," I continued. "Professionally, I want to be the one leading the future of science."
"In the end, I want to be rich enough to have a large-scale impact on home care in the U.S."
I turned to Gordon. "You once said I wasn't driven by money. That's not entirely true. The difference is that the amount required to move me would be in the hundreds of millions or even billions."
I whispered a secret to him. "I'm not as rich as you, but you are not the only billionaire here."
He looked at me wide‑eyed. "You never stop surprising me, Jake," he laughed. "You will become the first billionaire Nobel laureate," he added, amused.
"Maybe you'll break the Nobel record too. With all these 2D materials discovered, and now the MoS₂ transistor, it should be worth at least two prizes - Physics and Chemistry," Gordon remarked.
"I'm not really bothered by that, Gordon" I commented. If the Nobel were my concern, I would already be pursuing other initiatives that would win easily as well.
We talked more about several other subjects.
-----------------------------
I went to the Dunphys' house, since Haley, Marissa, and Summer were there.
When I walked in, Claire and Phil were on the couch talking to a woman - probably Denise, the one Phil had mentioned.
"Oh, this is my nephew - well, actually my cousin," Claire said, pointing at me as she introduced us.
The woman turned to greet me, but froze midway.
I raised an eyebrow. "Denise Melnick? Wait... you're Phil's ex?"
"Dr. Pritchett?!" she shouted, shocked.
"You two know each other?" Phil asked, equally surprised.
Marissa, Haley, and Summer appeared from the kitchen. My girlfriend walked straight into my arms.
"Answering your question, Phil - Denise is one of my assistants, along with Alex Jensen and two others," I replied to him.
"Wait!" Haley looked at Denise. "Does that mean your hot, intelligent boss is Jake?" she asked, suspicious and mildly offended.
I stared deadpan at my cousin. Funny how she remembered things like that so easily.
"I just wanted to provoke Phil," Denise defended herself. "I think I'd better go," She quickly left the house.
"Who wants... ice cream?" Phil tried to break the awkward atmosphere, making everyone stare at him in disbelief.
I ended up amused. "If she tries anything inappropriate with me, I'll just fire her," I said, squeezing Summer's cheeks (the upper ones).
Denise never tried anything with me, and Alex was more like a fangirl. Gabriely, the one who actually tried something, I fired on the spot.
"Now let's see the clothes you two designed."
We headed to Haley's room.
Claire went back to her tasks, not bothered by what had happened. She had full confidence in Phil.