Even as the Boeing 767 glided down onto the runway at Los Angeles International Airport, Simon was still thinking about how to build Ygritte's portal news channel.
In the short term, Ygritte could only choose to partner with traditional news media.
Simon understood all too well how violently internet information would disrupt newspapers and television. If he owned a traditional media platform himself, he would do everything possible to suppress the rise of online media. Sharing content with an internet portal would be out of the question.
But for now, the internet user base was still far too small. Very few people could see the future at a glance.
Among the connections Simon reached out to recently, even Murdoch of News Corporation had said he could provide some content support for Ygritte's portal.
Of course, they would still have to pay for it.
Once the Boeing 767 came to a stop on the runway, the click of high heels from C and D reached Simon's ears. He lifted his head and happened to catch Jennifer's focused gaze across from him. Smiling, he said, "Want to come to Malibu for dinner with me?"
His assistant forced herself not to look away, but she shook her head. "It's already been a week. If I chase after you again, Janet will blow up."
Janet had left Los Angeles with Simon the previous Monday. Simon headed north to San Francisco, while she went east to New York. But based on their schedules, Janet was already back on the West Coast by Thursday. Simon didn't return until Sunday. All told, they hadn't seen each other for a full week.
Simon and Janet had only married at the beginning of March. Less than two months later, they'd already been apart for a week, which drew a bit of media attention.
At breakfast yesterday, Jennifer even brought him a paper with a headline along the lines of "The Westeros Couple Suspected of Living Separately." Simon didn't care. He knew Janet wouldn't care either. With their status and wealth now, they could never live the rigid, unchanging nine-to-five life of an ordinary couple.
Besides, many things could withstand storms but not blandness. Occasionally being apart was actually good for their relationship.
After leaving LAX, Simon arranged for someone to take Jennifer home, then returned to Malibu with his entourage.
By the time he got back to the mansion on the west side of Point Dume, dusk had already fallen.
The moment he stepped into the villa's living room, Janet came up to him in a relaxed home dress, hugged him affectionately, then swayed two round marble samples in her hand. "Turkish Goose Feather Gold, Indian Rainforest Brown. Which one do you think is better?"
Renovations had already begun at the Point Dume estate. In yesterday's call, Janet had discussed with Simon what marble to use for the shell villa's main hall floor.
Simon looked at the two marble pieces in Janet's hand, both filled with irregular natural veining, and immediately understood. She was still in a mood from his week away, using this to express her displeasure.
Never mind the colors. Just those chaotic, naturally formed patterns. If they were laid underfoot, they would absolutely make Simon, with his perfectionist tendencies, feel like he was standing on needles.
Pretending to examine them seriously, Simon slipped an arm around Janet's slim waist again and smiled. "Come take a shower with me first. We can discuss it carefully in the bathtub."
Before Janet could respond, Simon lifted her light body into his arms and carried her upstairs.
Janet tapped him lightly with the two marble pieces, her voice turning soft. "They're making dinner in the kitchen. I need to keep an eye on it."
Simon lowered his head and kissed her. "No need. I've decided I'll eat you first, then eat dinner."
He got home at seven in the evening. The "shower" lasted past nine.
Dinner had long since gone cold and had to be remade.
It wasn't until ten at night that they finally sat down at the table.
Janet, as usual, nestled close to Simon. A tempting flush still lingered on her pale cheeks. As she ate, she chatted about everything that had happened lately. New dresses she'd bought, Patrick nearly getting shipped off to South Africa by the old man, Cersei Capital needing to hire another batch of people, whether Jennifer was too useless in bed and made Simon look like he'd been starving for a week, and all sorts of other little things, rambling and intimate.
The next day was Monday. Janet didn't plan to go back to the East Coast this week. Simon had been busy for a week too, so he planned to take a day off, and also take a careful look at Cersei Capital's operations during this time.
May was right around the corner. Since early March, when Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other Middle Eastern oil producers announced increased production, less than two months had passed. International crude prices had dropped rapidly from the high of nineteen dollars a barrel to sixteen, a decline of 15.7 percent.
Cersei Fund Management under Cersei Capital had begun building short positions a month in advance. After Saudi Arabia and Kuwait announced increased production, it continued to raise the bet. Out of a total hedge fund size of 3.5 billion dollars, more than 2.1 billion had already been deployed.
With high leverage, the short positions, with a total notional value of over twenty billion dollars, benefited from the sharp oil price swings. As of last Friday, the final trading day of the week, the book profit had reached 2.27 billion dollars.
On another front, the crash in oil prices made Iraq's oil-dependent economy even worse. Over the past two months, Saddam had been pressuring Kuwait and others, even releasing statements implying he wouldn't rule out war.
Simon had been paying close attention to all news tied to the Middle East situation.
In his memory, the exact date Iraq invaded Kuwait was August 2. Simon planned to begin building long positions one month early. Building longs while oil prices were still trending downward was, in truth, an extremely risky move. If unexpected changes occurred that didn't match Simon's memory, a large portion of Cersei Capital's earlier profits could be given back.
But just like how Cersei Capital had built its shorts before many hedge funds even reacted, high risk meant high reward.
Compared to other hedge funds, with Simon's advantage of foresight, Cersei Capital's odds were already much higher. The gamble was absolutely worth it.
In the study on the villa's second floor.
Janet sat behind the desk, discussing hedge fund matters with Simon while flipping through a stack of resumes, occasionally calling New York to talk things over.
Simon, on the other hand, sat leisurely with his legs crossed in an armchair by the floor-to-ceiling window. A glass of water rested on the side table. After reviewing last week's trade detail report from Cersei Fund Management, he began reading through a batch of executive resumes for tech companies he had brought back from San Francisco yesterday.
After hanging up another call with New York, Janet checked the time. It was close to noon. She leaned back in her leather chair and stretched with a lazy, graceful charm, then asked Simon, "Honey, did you find someone suitable?"
Simon picked up one resume from the side. "A woman. But I think she's only suited to handle Ygritte's World Wide Web software business. The portal site and other online products still need someone else."
Hearing it was a woman, Janet got up, came over, and sat right in Simon's lap. She snatched the resume and started reading.
Carol Bartz, forty-two years old, currently Global Vice President of Operations at SUN, with twenty years of experience in the computer industry.
Janet skimmed the information, then glanced at the photo to confirm Carol wasn't Simon's type. In a very professional tone, she said, "I think she's great. Her experience and credentials are more than enough. Running Ygritte would be easy for her."
Beyond what was on paper, Simon also knew that over the next few years Carol Bartz would take charge of Autodesk and personally build it into one of the world's leading computer-aided design software groups.
In his memory, because of her strong performance at Autodesk, she would later become Yahoo's CEO from 2009 to 2011. But by then, Yahoo was already fading fast. Even though she pushed through a series of powerful reforms, she still ended up being fired by Yahoo's board.
Thinking about that, Simon said, "Carol Bartz has enough experience and credentials. That's why I want her to handle sales and operations for the Web software line. But the portal and other online services are different. This is a brand-new field no one has ever touched. There are no successful cases to copy. What it needs is innovation and risk-taking. Carol's long industry experience may have formed fixed patterns of thinking. That can become a constraint."
Janet curled up in his arms like a kitten and listened. "If that's true, it'll be hard to find the right person."
"We'll find one if we keep looking," Simon said, a little helpless. "What I need is an efficient executor who hasn't formed rigid habits yet. Someone who understands new tech to a certain extent, but won't try to force traditional IBM or Intel management models onto Ygritte's daily operations."
Janet looked up at him, blinking her pretty eyes a few times. "I think I just saw someone you need."
Simon frowned. "Hm?"
"I think what you need is an outsider."
Smiling, Janet slipped out of his arms, tiptoed to the desk, rummaged through the pile, pulled out a resume, then floated back. Nestling against him again, she handed it over. "Here."
Simon glanced at it, and a strangely unreal feeling washed over him.
A name he knew all too well was printed there.
Jeff Bezos.
Janet's slight body was tucked in his arms, and she didn't notice his odd expression. She tapped the resume with her finger as she explained, "This one is good. He graduated from Princeton in computer science, same as your major at Stanford back then. After graduation he did short stints at tech companies like Intel and Bell Labs. Now he's working in the fund investment division at Chemical Bank. He's only twenty-six, but last year he became Chemical Bank's youngest vice president in the investment department. He's very capable. I was going to poach him for Fink's team. Now I'm giving him to you."
Janet chattered on and finished by waving her hand grandly, looking very generous.
Simon marveled at how small and strange the world was. He set Bezos's resume aside, cupped Janet's face in his hands, and kissed her a few times. "Baby, what do you want for lunch?"
Janet stopped mid-sentence, blinked, then squirmed in his arms. "How about you eat me?"
A wish like that had to be granted.
Simon scooped her up and carried her out of the study toward the bedroom next door.
Janet looked surprised. When Simon pushed open the bedroom door and tossed her onto the big bed, she finally said, "You're really going to eat me? It's noon."
Simon unbuttoned his shirt and made a ferocious grin, baring his teeth. "Not even the bones will be left."
Since he'd run into Jeff Bezos, Simon naturally wasn't going to let him slip away.
Right now, Ygritte's portal business was a blank sheet. Simon didn't need a brush, because he was the brush. What he needed was another blank sheet, one he could paint on, then press the finished work onto Ygritte's blank page.
Jeff Bezos was, without a doubt, an extremely suitable blank sheet.
Bezos was only twenty-six. That wasn't a problem.
Simon himself had only just turned twenty-two.
More importantly, Simon had always believed that before thirty was the golden age when many people built their careers. By that measure, Bezos's age was perfect.
Meanwhile.
Jeff Bezos felt his recent experiences were strangely unreal too.
After graduating from Princeton, over the past four years, he had rapidly built momentum in his career.
Recently, Bezos had also heard hints that Cersei Capital wanted to recruit him.
Compared to the old, nearly century-old Chemical Bank, Cersei Capital, a fund company that had risen like a miracle, was genuinely attractive.
So when Westeros Company president James Rebould invited him to lunch, Bezos assumed it was an interview for Cersei.
After all, everyone knew Westeros was the parent company of Cersei Capital. Or rather, the parent of four "women": Daenerys, Ygritte, Melisandre, Cersei.
Then Bezos discovered, to his surprise, that they weren't inviting him to join Cersei at all.
They wanted him for Ygritte.
What kind of situation was this?
After lunch with James Rebould, the man left him a thick memo.
Still completely bewildered, Jeff Bezos read through the memo, which detailed Simon Westeros's various concepts and visions for Ygritte and the entire internet industry. He also personally gathered some information on the still-sprouting internet sector. Very quickly, he made the decision to join.
Of course, Simon wasn't going to hand the entire Ygritte company to Jeff Bezos directly. Strictly speaking, Bezos would only be an executor in the short term, while Simon remained the "brush." So at the same time, Simon extended an invitation to Carol Bartz, still intending for her to oversee Ygritte's World Wide Web software operations.
After speaking with Carol Bartz personally, and after receiving SUN's understanding, Carol Bartz quickly chose to join Ygritte.
After adjustments, Simon personally took the chairmanship of Ygritte, controlling the overall direction. Tim Berners-Lee remained Ygritte's CEO, primarily overseeing the company's technical research and development. Carol Bartz and Jeff Bezos both became presidents of Ygritte, responsible for Web software and Ygritte's portal operations respectively.