Chapter 119 - All Monsters
The reason why the word "traitor" was placed in quotation marks was because Su Yuanshan actually knew the inside story quite well.
Back then, when Li Yinan officially joined Su's old employer, he was promoted at rocket speed, becoming Vice President of Technology at the age of twenty-seven. His reputation as a genius and prodigy spread throughout the industry.
Seven years later, at the age of thirty, Li Yinan took a large amount of equipment and a substantial team to start an internal venture.
What is internal entrepreneurship?
In plain terms, it means spinning off a non-core, non-profitable team into an independent entity, which would either act as an agent for the parent company's products, take on outsourced business, or supply related technical products.
This way, it could both solve the growing "power problem" posed by veteran contributors and expand the parent company's influence while encouraging entrepreneurial passion among employees.
If done correctly, it could be a win-win for both the parent company and the spin-off startup.
Therefore, when Li Yinan left to start his company, the old employer was actually quite pleased. They even held a formal farewell party.
Afterward, Li Yinan's new company developed rapidly, leveraging the old employer's channels and products, along with his own formidable strength, achieving impressive business success and realizing mutual benefits for both sides.
However, genius is always genius.
Li Yinan quickly spotted the weaknesses in the old employer's products.
He began to feel dissatisfied with the existing cooperation model.
On one hand, he acquired another spin-off startup; on the other, he personally led a team to develop a new product — one that surpassed the old employer's equivalent offerings in technical performance — and even pursued a public listing.
And just like that, the two sides shifted from partners to competitors, eventually to outright adversaries.
To give a Yuanchip analogy:
Imagine if Xi Xiaoding left with people and money to start a business focused on selling and supporting Yuanchip's EDA products and developing related plugins — all supplementary to Yuanchip's business.
But then one day, Xi Xiaoding created an EDA tool even more powerful than Yuanchip's — and started selling his own product.
— Naturally, Li Yinan ended up labeled a "traitor."
Later, the old employer was forced to recognize Li Yinan as a true competitor, leveraging every available channel to suppress and compete against him, eventually forcing Li Yinan to surrender.
The parent company then bought his company, and Li Yinan returned to the fold as Chief Technology Officer of the telecommunications division.
Some said Li Yinan was sidelined and buried after his return.
Others said he returned out of frustration.
Whatever the truth, after only two years back at the old employer, Li Yinan resigned, joined a search engine company as CTO, worked there for another two years, then moved to a website company as CEO — only to leave again after just a year.
As someone deeply devoted to technology, Su Yuanshan inwardly disliked frequent job-hopping — or rather, he hated leaving familiar environments.
Yet Li Yinan, a genius-level communications expert with both technical brilliance and extraordinary insight, repeatedly leapt from one venture to another, and eventually even moved into the world of venture capital.
Countless memories and sighs flashed through Su Yuanshan's mind in an instant.
...
"Congratulations," Su Yuanshan said warmly as he rose from behind his desk.
He walked over and extended his hand toward Li Yinan.
"Senior Brother Yinan, are you interested in staying?"
Li Yinan gave a shy smile and shook Su Yuanshan's hand firmly.
"I am."
"Good.
Sister Xiaohui, please notify Finance later.
Treat him as a formal employee — adjust the salary accordingly.
Project bonuses and rewards will be evaluated later."
Li Yinan pursed his lips but did not look surprised by Su Yuanshan's decision.
He was confident that he was not inferior to any formal employee at Yuanchip.
After settling onto the sofa in the reception area, Su Yuanshan turned to Tian Yaoming.
"Senior Brother Tian, tell me about the details.
Was it design completion or system validation?"
Tian Yaoming had calmed down by now and smiled.
"Validation is done.
We emailed the source code to Silicon Valley.
Howard and the others directly installed the system onto a GSM test base station.
They successfully sent the world's first text message.
They've already submitted a technical standards application to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute."
Su Yuanshan nodded approvingly.
"Very good.
This function might not seem like much now, but it'll be hugely important in the future."
At that moment, Li Yinan spoke up.
"President Su, based on the trends in wireless networks and semiconductor development, I think the SMS system could be further upgraded — for example, to transmit not only text but also image data."
Su Yuanshan looked over at him.
Li Yinan appeared calm, clearly having thought about this long beforehand.
After a brief pause, Su Yuanshan smiled and asked,
"Good idea.
But it would require simultaneous upgrades to terminal systems, communication protocols, and base station systems.
Tell me — which part do you want to tackle?"
"I..."
Li Yinan hesitated for the first time.
He licked his lips and eventually shook his head.
"I haven't thought it through yet."
Su Yuanshan laughed softly.
"Well, think it over carefully.
Pick a direction later and focus your research.
Text and image messaging isn't part of the current generation of GSM — that's 2G and 3G functionality.
Implementing it isn't hard.
The real challenge lies in the terminal system — since you need computers inside mobile phones to handle data formats."
Li Yinan pursed his lips and nodded seriously.
"Yes."
...
...
As they walked up the staircase back to the tenth floor, Tian Yaoming watched Li Yinan with a faint, teasing smile.
He liked this young man — even though he wasn't good at talking, wasn't good at socializing, and was even a little impulsive.
In the eyes of tech people, technical talent could make up for anything.
Seeing that Li Yinan had lost the cocky attitude he had displayed earlier, Tian Yaoming stopped at a corner landing, chuckled, and said,
"So you've had your first real encounter with President Su.
What do you think?"
"President Su is amazing," Li Yinan said seriously.
"I thought being able to think four steps ahead was already impressive.
But President Su can think five or six steps ahead almost instantly."
He stared at Tian Yaoming.
"He's really just a freshman?
And self-taught in physics?"
"Yup," Tian Yaoming said with a sigh.
"He didn't major in integrated circuits or programming because he already understood them.
And not just ordinary understanding —
we all think he's at the very top level domestically, maybe even globally."
"..."
Li Yinan was silent for a few seconds, then shook his head.
"Terrifying.
What about Senior Brother Xi?"
"Senior Brother Xi...
Well, let's put it this way:
Xi was also overwhelmed by Su Yuanshan's brilliance.
He willingly gave up his green card and returned to China to focus on algorithm research.
In the field of algorithms, Senior Brother Xi still holds a slight edge over Su Yuanshan."
Li Yinan sighed.
"Monsters.
All of them are monsters."
"Haha, you have the potential to become one too," Tian Yaoming laughed, patting Li Yinan's shoulder.
"Our department has no survival pressure.
If you need a gun, we'll get you a gun; if you need a cannon, we'll get you a cannon.
Just pick a direction and focus on research."
"Mm."
Li Yinan nodded seriously.
...
Of course, Su Yuanshan hadn't intentionally tried to crush Li Yinan's spirit.
He just needed to teach him a lesson: when proposing ideas, you had to consider the full system.
As for how Li Yinan would feel about it, Su Yuanshan didn't particularly care.
Tian Yaoming was his senior brother — technically strong, capable, and with a solid foundation.
The only thing he lacked was forward-looking vision — understandable, considering that the University of Electronic Science and Technology had been originally called Chengdu Institute of Radio Engineering, the first school in China dedicated solely to wireless engineering.
Tian Yaoming's mentor, Professor Zhang, was one of the very few academicians in the department.
There was no reason to make Tian Yaoming yield just because Li Yinan was a genius.
No matter how talented he was.
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