Chapter 75 Three Clever Guys
Chen Jing took off her safety helmet and climbed into the backseat of a Jeep, leaving the construction site behind. When they had originally acquired the land, Su Yuanshan had made good on his promise — he had placed Yuanchip's VCD factory right next to the motherboard factory. He had said they were all family and that having the factories side by side would allow them to look after each other.
But to Chen Jing, it seemed more like SOYO was taking care of Yuanchip — after all, Yuanchip had sent over nothing but technical staff, even the interns! If it weren't for another of Yuanchip's partners, Zhang Jianjun, occasionally dropping by to check on things, there was no telling what kind of mess these tech nerds would have made out of the factory.
Just then, the brick phone rang. The secretary sitting in the passenger seat answered and then, covering the receiver, turned to Chen Jing: "President Chen, it's young Su General Manager calling. He says he needs a favor."
Already annoyed from dealing with two construction sites, Chen Jing frowned slightly and said calmly: "Tell him I'm driving. Ask him to call the office line in twenty minutes, or I'll call him back."
After relaying the message, the secretary hesitated and said: "Young Su General Manager says... he wants you to stop and get in his car."
"..."
After thinking for a few seconds, Chen Jing pulled the car to the side of the road, rolled up the window, and took the brick phone herself.
Su Yuanshan's voice came through slightly distorted: "President Chen, I need a favor."
Chen Jing raised an eyebrow, a smile playing at her lips: "Go ahead, Su General Manager."
"Over the next stretch of time, Yuanchip will be negotiating a series of deals with Sony. You must have noticed by now that Yuanchip is filled top to bottom with technical people — barely anyone good at negotiations."
Chen Jing was momentarily stunned but quickly realized this had nothing to do with EDA: "Is this about the VCD?"
"Yes, and other things too."
Chen Jing bit her lip, thought for a few seconds, then laughed: "You're the master negotiator. Why would you need help?"
"I'm no good at it. I'm only good at negotiating technical stuff — or giving a take-it-or-leave-it price. If you ask me to go back-and-forth in negotiations, I'd rather just write more code. President Chen, help me out."
Thinking of Su Yuanshan's earlier jokes, Chen Jing asked playfully: "And what role would I be helping in?"
After a few seconds of silence, Su Yuanshan's laughter came through the phone: "Yuanchip's corporate structure in China hasn't been fully formalized yet, so for now, we'll temporarily wrong you a bit — you'll act as a deputy general manager."
He added: "You'll have authority over me, too."
At this last part, Chen Jing couldn't help but let out a soft chuckle, but she quickly composed herself, her eyes growing serious.
As a business partner, she knew Yuanchip still operated under a very traditional structure: Professor Su Xinghe was nominally the General Manager, with Zhang Ke as the only Vice General Manager. But neither actually handled day-to-day operations. Even the Assistant General Manager, Qin Weimin, didn't touch administrative affairs.
Practically speaking, all company matters were handled by Su Yuanshan himself, under the title of Secretary to the General Manager.
"Are you officially inviting me?"
"Yes. I officially invite Miss Chen Jing to join Yuanchip Technology Co., Ltd."
Chen Jing gazed out the window, remembering the flashes of strength she had glimpsed at Yuanchip. A surge of excitement welled up in her chest.
Although she had only recently graduated, she had been born into a merchant family and was deeply familiar with business structures. After earning her degree in trade, she had pursued a master's degree in economics abroad. Thanks to her brother's company, she had developed a clear understanding of the future potential of the computer industry.
The future would undeniably belong to computers and networks.
Frankly, if Yuanchip didn't exist, she wouldn't have even considered staying in China — even in the Special Economic Zones. The booming electronics factories around her were mostly low-end assembly plants, churning out radios and cassette players — cheap products with no future.
But Yuanchip had changed her view.
Here was a company that, on such barren soil, had developed a cutting-edge EDA tool and was already nearing market dominance in the semiconductor sector. Such a company's future was undoubtedly bright.
Chen Jing lowered the window, letting the breeze wash over her face. She took a deep breath away from the phone. When she spoke again, her voice was calm, with only the faintest hint of a smile: "I'll discuss it with my brother."
"Good. My uncle will arrange accommodation for you. Bye~"
Chen Jing's smiling eyes froze mid-curve: "You're that sure..."
The line cut off.
"How can you be so sure she'll say yes?" Xi Xiaoding asked curiously, having listened to the whole conversation.
"If she says she'll 'think about it,' then she's genuinely uncertain. But if she says she'll 'discuss it with her brother'..." Su Yuanshan rested his head on his arms, a grin spreading across his face, "Senior Brother, believe me, if I were a few years older, her brother would be thrilled to call me brother-in-law."
"... I have never seen anyone as shameless as you," Xi Xiaoding said with a laugh.
"Haha!" Su Yuanshan sat up, suddenly serious: "Inserting family members into a partner company's senior management is the best way to cement cooperation. Big family-run businesses often marry off their children just for this reason."
"The only thing he needs to consider is whether I would mind. And why would I mind? Mind a little motherboard factory that produces 800,000 units a year? A factory in which I own 53% of the shares?"
Su Yuanshan laughed again: "Besides, SOYO's motherboard designs are pretty decent — some of their features are actually quite impressive."
Xi Xiaoding: "..."
"Oh right, Senior Brother, is SGI one of our clients?"
SGI — Silicon Graphics. Although not particularly famous in later years, SGI was, at this time, a titan in the field of graphic workstations. Thanks to SGI, later movies like Jurassic Park, The Lord of the Rings, and Flightplan featured groundbreaking special effects.
But Su Yuanshan wasn't asking because he wanted to buy workstations. He had another goal in mind — this year, one of SGI's peripheral departments would be sold off to a company called Media Vision. The CEO of Media Vision, a talented but shortsighted man, would force his top graphics engineers to switch to audio engineering, even threatening them: "If you keep thinking about 3D graphics, I'll twist your heads off."
Three particularly passionate graphics engineers couldn't stand it and chose to leave Media Vision to start their own company.
Of course, passion alone wasn't enough to start a company. They were engineers, not businessmen — they had no money.
So, these three clever guys borrowed SGI's graphic workstations and created a dazzling demo, claiming their design could achieve such 3D effects. At the same exhibition, NVIDIA showcased their early graphics card, but compared to the demo from these guys, it was laughably bad. NVIDIA's team was reportedly so humiliated they swore it couldn't have come from a real desktop graphics card.
That stunning demo caught investors' attention — and thus, the legendary 3DFX was born.
Since Su Yuanshan had already decided to cooperate with Sony to develop a game console, he wanted to lock down as much chip technology as possible. After all, the original PlayStation had also used a graphics chip developed by SGI.
Xi Xiaoding instantly understood Su Yuanshan's thinking and nodded: "Yes, they're our client."
"Have they sold or spun off any departments recently?"
Xi Xiaoding nodded again: "I know a guy there. He told me his department was sold to Media Vision recently."
Su Yuanshan's eyes lit up: "What's his name?"
"Scott."
"Scott Schiller."
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