"Bruce, I spoke with Netflix," Michael Moritz said. "The most they're willing to give us is twenty-five percent, and they want seventy-five million for it."
Bruce barely hesitated.
"Fine. Twenty-five percent it is." Then he added, more seriously, "Michael, Wendy will wire the money to you tomorrow. But I want one thing to be crystal clear: you do not sell that Netflix position without my approval."
He paused, then softened his tone a little.
"I'm not trying to interfere with how you run Phoenix Capital. But personally, I'm extremely bullish on Netflix. If we sell that stock anytime in the next five to seven years, we'll be leaving money on the table."
Michael nodded at once.
"I understand. Honestly, the fact that you're willing to put up this seventy-five million already says a lot about how much you trust my judgment. And with this deal, Fund One at Phoenix Capital will officially cross the hundred-million-dollar mark. That's a huge advantage when it comes to attracting more venture money."
That part was true.
Investment had risk built into it. Compared with small, unknown VC shops, larger firms with real scale and a credible track record always had a much easier time convincing clients to hand over capital.
Bruce nodded.
"Good. Then let's make sure we use that advantage. And one more thing. Don't put all your attention into internet plays. I don't want the tech and biotech sectors neglected either."
"Understood."
After a few more instructions, Bruce hung up.
He sat back and did the math in his head.
He had just pulled seventy-five million dollars out of HanHua Investment Management. That left only fifty-five million sitting there.
He frowned.
I need to refill that hole somehow.
The U.S. had too many opportunities to ignore. China had just as many. He could not afford to stop moving in either market.
In the end, it still came down to the same problem.
Money.
Bruce let out a breath and rubbed his forehead.
"There are definitely parts of reincarnation they forget to advertise."
Knowing where the opportunities were and still not having enough cash to grab all of them was a special kind of torture. It felt like starving for three days, then being seated in front of a full imperial banquet you weren't allowed to touch.
A knock interrupted the thought.
"Come in."
The door opened, and Wendy walked in wearing a fitted black skirt suit that made her look elegant, polished, and a little too striking for an ordinary workday.
"Mr. Guo, this is the file you asked for on PayPal."
Bruce took it and skimmed the first few pages.
PayPal had been on his acquisition list for a long time, just like Google. It wasn't only the company's future dominance in third-party payments that interested him. He also wanted the talent around it. The future "PayPal Mafia" would become one of the most valuable founder networks in Silicon Valley.
Originally, Bruce had planned to wait. He wanted more of the core talent to gather before making a move.
But Michael Moritz investing in PayPal changed that.
If Michael had seen the value, others would too. Silicon Valley never lacked sharp eyes.
Bruce closed the file and looked up.
"Send Nicholas in."
Wendy nodded, but before she could turn away, Bruce spoke again.
"Wendy, do you have plans tonight?"
She blinked slightly, then shook her head.
"No."
"Good. Tonight's the release date for Paranormal Activity. If you're free, come with me. We'll go see how it's playing in the theaters."
A quiet note of surprise, and something warmer, crossed her face.
"All right."
She left, and a short while later Nicholas Qin stepped into the office.
Bruce got right to it.
"Any word from MegaChip?"
"Not yet. I've made contact, but nothing back so far."
Bruce nodded. The timeline was tight. That was understandable.
He slid the PayPal file across the desk.
"Take a look."
Nicholas read through it carefully, then lifted his eyes.
"You want me to go after them?"
"Yes."
Nicholas thought for a moment.
"That won't be simple. PayPal just took venture money. If we want to buy it now, it's going to be expensive."
Bruce's answer came without hesitation.
"That's fine. I'm not backing off."
Nicholas nodded.
"Understood. I'll start on it immediately."
"Good. And the second MegaChip says anything, you let me know."
"Yes, sir."
Once Nicholas left, Bruce worked through the rest of the day's tasks. By the time the clock was close enough, he grabbed his coat, shut down for the evening, and headed out.
He found Wendy outside.
"Let's go downstairs," he said. "We'll grab dinner first, then head to the theater."
Wendy smiled as they walked.
"The physical edition of Paranormal Activity has already sold close to one and a half million copies. If the book reached that many people, the movie adaptation should have a real audience too."
Bruce smiled back.
"I'd be very happy if you turned out to be right."
When they reached the car, Wendy moved toward the driver's side.
"I'll drive."
Bruce shook his head and reached for the door first.
"No. At work, you're my assistant and I'm your boss. Outside work, you're a woman and I'm a man. A man should know how to act like a gentleman."
He said it lightly, almost joking, and slipped into the driver's seat before she could argue.
Wendy looked at him for a second, then gave up and went around to the passenger side.
Bruce started the car.
"Where do you want to eat? Dinner's on me."
He was clearly in a better mood now.
Wendy thought about it.
"Let's go back to that French place from last time. Their steak was excellent."
Bruce nodded and pulled out of the lot.
Halfway there, he said, "Set up a meeting for me the day after tomorrow with the president of the San Francisco branch."
Wendy turned to look at him.
"You mean the bank?"
"That's right," Bruce said. "I want to talk to them about another loan."
That was the reality of it.
He had already been trying to keep his ambition under control. He had already let plenty of non-core opportunities go. But reality had a way of forcing changes into even the best-laid plans. Netflix was one example. PayPal was another. MegaChip was the biggest one of all.
Wendy looked at him for a long moment before answering.
"Mr. Guo, as your employee, I know it's not my place to question your decisions. But as your friend, I think I need to say something."
Bruce glanced at her, then smiled.
"Go ahead. You know I'm not the kind of person who can't take criticism. If you think I'm getting something wrong, say it."
Wendy nodded.
"I think you're getting too aggressive with leverage."
Bruce looked ahead at the road.
"Too aggressive?"
"Yes." Her voice turned more serious. "Your total debt, between the bond issuance and your bank loans, is already up to four hundred and thirty million dollars. Yes, the three hundred and fifty million in ABS backed by your book income doesn't mature until the end of the ten-year term, so you're not servicing that principal every month. But the other eighty million from Wells Fargo is different. That debt has to be serviced monthly."
She kept going, more firmly now.
"And LinkedIn, Google, and Matrix still aren't generating enough income to carry everything on their own. If you keep increasing risk while depending primarily on your writing income to hold the structure together, the downside could get ugly in ways we can't predict."
Bruce was quiet for a moment.
He could hear the concern in her voice. It was real. And that mattered to him.
Then he said, calmly but with a strange intensity underneath it, "Wendy, my adoptive father used to tell me something all the time. A man only gets so many real chances in life to go all in."
He tightened his hands on the wheel just a little.
"What he meant was simple. You don't get endless chances to build something extraordinary. Right now I'm young, I've got energy, and I know what I want. That means I should be taking every real opening I can find and pushing as hard as I can toward a bigger future."
He glanced at her briefly, then back to the road.
"Because if I settle into comfort too early, if I start telling myself I'm already doing well enough and everything can just develop at a safe, reasonable pace, maybe I become a billionaire by thirty. Maybe that sounds like success to everyone else."
His voice hardened.
"But when I look back later, I'll know I held back. I'll know I could have gone harder. I'll know I might have built something on the scale of Buffett or Bill Gates, maybe even bigger, and I let that chance slip because I wanted to feel safe."
He let out a short breath.
"The idea of that eats at me more than risk does."
Wendy listened in silence.
Bruce continued, and now it sounded like he was speaking to himself as much as to her.
"So yes, maybe I take on more risk than most people would. Maybe I get misunderstood. Maybe people laugh. Fine. I can live with that. What I can't live with is getting older and realizing I chose comfort over possibility, then trying to convince myself I'm fine with it."
The speech came out forceful, almost like a private creed.
Part of it was conviction.
Part of it was self-defense.
Bruce knew too much about the future to ever be completely calm. And because he knew the future could still shift, because the butterfly effect was always there no matter how much he tried to deny it, doubt would always exist somewhere underneath the surface.
That meant he needed this kind of rhetoric too. He needed the momentum. The certainty. Even if some of it was a form of self-hypnosis.
Wendy looked at him for a long moment.
Something about the way he spoke reminded her of religious zealots from another age. The difference was that they worshiped God, while Bruce had placed himself at the altar of success.
And yet she could not deny it.
There was something deeply persuasive about him.
Something that made people want to believe.
Bruce's tone softened a little.
"And it's not as bad as you think. Yes, I'm carrying a lot of debt. But I'm still writing. My old books are still selling, and new books will only increase my royalty base. On top of that, I've got LinkedIn, Matrix, and Thornbird. They'll all become serious sources of revenue. So no, I'm not walking into this empty-handed. I've still got a lot of cards."
Wendy didn't let go of the point.
"But if your capital structure gets too tight, your ability to absorb shocks collapses."
Bruce nodded once.
"That's true. But the trade-off doesn't change. If you want leapfrog growth, you have to accept a level of risk that ordinary people won't. Which brings us right back to the same point. A life like this doesn't offer many chances to bet big."
He smiled faintly.
"Success or failure matters less than making sure I don't regret playing small."
Wendy looked away toward the window.
"No regrets," she said quietly, almost to herself.
Bruce glanced over.
Her expression had changed. For just a second there was something distant in it, something sad and unresolved.
"What is it?"
She snapped back at once and shook her head.
"Nothing."
But the slight panic in her face told him enough.
This woman, as beautiful and composed as she was, clearly had her own history.
Bruce noticed.
He also knew better than to ask.
If she wanted to tell him, she would.
If not, he had no interest in digging through someone else's wounds.
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