American History 1988
Chapter 349 - 338: The Third

Chapter 349: Chapter 338: The Third

"When is Toktok expected to go live?" Dean occasionally tapped the keyboard twice, then stopped to think for a moment.

"We are conducting a Beta test and expect to launch the download before Christmas." This time, Thomas’s face was full of confidence.

Ever since Dean had criticized the UI interface as utterly useless last time, Thomas had learned his lesson and hired the master of graphic design—Clement Mo.

The software was still the same, and its core had not changed.

But after Clement Mo’s redesign, its appearance was completely transformed.

The current Toktok had abandoned its previous "clumsy" color scheme, featuring a sky blue tone that gradually faded from top to bottom.

This gave the entire interface a sense of ease and agility, with the various function buttons also gaining more depth.

Not only that, the system avatars had also become much more attractive than before and varied in style.

Even in the display of personal business cards, multiple templates had been added.

The user only needed to click on a friend’s avatar, and it would be automatically displayed.

Besides the basic information, there was also a virtual character image standing on the right edge.

The design team prepared multiple racial choices, including Caucasian, Black, Latino, Asian, and more.

The characters had distinct features, and their clothing could be freely mixed and matched.

However, since it was still in the testing phase, the overall selectivity was relatively simple.

As for whether it was possible to start offering value-added services in the future, that would depend on how Toktok performed.

"Before going live, I’ll have Yahoo over there help us advertise, and we’ll try to save on other promotion investments as much as possible."

Dean had roughly tried it out, and although it was still somewhat short of what he ultimately wanted, it was passably usable.

And hearing that Yahoo would push the advertisement for Toktok, Thomas’s eyes immediately lit up.

"With their help, Toktok will definitely attract a lot of attention."

Yahoo, now boosted by the Explorer browser, had become a true internet portal site.

After the funding from Sequoia Capital was in place, David and Yang Zhiyuan had long moved out of the Stanford University trailer camp.

They rented an office near Menlo Park, recruited some staff, and then began a major overhaul of the homepage.

The most prominent feature was still the search bar at the top of the page, while the middle was reserved for various news and information.

The right side was organized into categories such as movies, music, cars, lifestyle, and technology.

The left side featured weather conditions and stock information, making it more colorful and diverse.

Although they lacked their own editorial team, making many of the news articles look somewhat rudimentary,

at least the framework was set up, and this change gradually attracted more and more users.

If Toktok could be featured on the homepage, it would be like getting a cover advertisement on a top-tier media network.

As the head of the consumer division, Thomas understood the logic behind it.

"Boss, if the market feedback for Toktok is good, can we launch the value-added services ahead of schedule?"

Although Toktok was free, Bit was not planning to maintain this status indefinitely.

Dean had written a plan about its future operations a long time ago, in which value-added services were a major component.

However, Dean shook his head at Thomas’s somewhat eager idea.

"In my plan, Toktok won’t generate any profit for the next year.

Our sole aim is to cultivate the market!"

Dean wouldn’t easily initiate Toktok’s commercial process before completely dominating the instant messaging software market.

This would prematurely expose Bit’s strategy and might even attract the covetousness of Microsoft.

Running Toktok completely free for one to two years was easy for Bit.

Worst case, they could accept some advertisements later as a transition.

In any case, they needed to capture as much of the market as possible; in the future, users would be everything.

"OK, I will keep up with its market feedback, and we won’t let any competitor grow strong."

Thomas had seen the business plan and was already gradually changing his views.

Free things could indeed become a business.

"Good!" Dean nodded in satisfaction.

There was no need to worry about competitors because no one wanted to develop free stuff now.

Microsoft, despite being such a large company, wasn’t willing to experiment, let alone other Silicon Valley peers.

Even their promotion of Bit was met with skepticism; many believed that this instant messaging software wouldn’t truly be free in the end.

Dean didn’t care about external opinions; Bit’s scale was enough to disregard all that.

Just this past October, the Dow Jones Index had officially added Bit to its list of blue-chip stocks.

Companies listed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were all leaders in their industries.

Since its establishment in 1885, the list initially included only twenty companies.

Later, as the economy and technology developed, it expanded to thirty companies by 1928.

Looking at the companies on the list, one could see how difficult it was to become part of the Dow Jones Index.

The leading defense stock—Boeing, the largest biopharmaceutical company—Pfizer, the largest beverage company—Coca-Cola, the largest computer software provider—Microsoft...

Those listed were essentially the industry leaders, and this year Bit also joined the ranks as the world’s largest information service and business software solution company.

From here, it can also be seen that the Dow Jones index positioned Bit Company as a specialized office software provider.

After all, it’s the only one in this industry to reach a market value of 20 billion US Dollars.

And as it became a blue-chip stock, Bit Company’s stocks were also favored by investors for a long time.

Because blue-chip stocks are also called "stocks with excellent performance," only the stocks of companies that have reached a certain market value, are well-known, and consistently profitable and distribute dividends can become blue-chip stocks.

Purchasing their stocks was like depositing money in a bank at a fixed term, and the interest was considerable.

Being included in the Dow Jones index was already a kind of honor.

By the way, along with Bit Company’s market value breaking through 20 billion US Dollars.

Dean’s wealth was also talked about extensively, as the annual Forbes 400 list had just been announced.

This year, with the rise of the technology and entertainment industry, the top ten of the list changed significantly compared to last year.

First of all, Gates, with 93.5 billion US Dollars, became the deserving richest person in the world.

Yes, although the Forbes 400 ranks the wealthiest people in America.

But his wealth had transcended national boundaries, making him the richest person in the world, aside from royalty.

After all, the tycoons over there at the camel had long exceeded the billion US Dollar count.

So, counting only as a civilian, Gates was now the richest person in the world.

His assets still primarily came from Microsoft’s stocks, and by the end of ’94, the latter’s market value had reached an astonishing 385 billion US Dollars.

This was almost unmatched in the software industry, comfortably surpassing Bit Company by nearly twice the difference.

Because of this, Gates was extremely proud of his foresight. He believed Microsoft was the most proficient profit-making company, and no one could surpass them.

With his second ascent to the top of the list, media also cast a lot of attention towards Seattle.

However, Gates seemed not too keen on accepting interviews, expressing some disdain for the Forbes ranking.

Apart from this Wealthy Gentleman, Buffett, who had replaced this spot last year, was ranked second this year with a fortune of 92 billion US Dollars.

His assets were unremarkable; they all came from his company, Berkshire.

But the third spot on the list was very topical because he also came from the high-tech industry and was famously young.

Yes, Forbes 400’s third rank this year was Dean.

The magazine estimated his assets to be around 88 billion US Dollars, which was about 5 billion US Dollars behind the first place, Gates.

Without a doubt, Bit Company contributed a large portion of his wealth.

After all, based on Dean’s current shareholding ratio, just this part alone was valued at over 74 billion US Dollars.

Plus his investments in several well-known companies, AOL’s current market value was approximately 80 billion US Dollars, with Dean holding 9%.

Cisco’s market value was 30 billion US Dollars, and Dean owned 6% of the shares.

Intuit’s development this year was relatively stable, with its market value approaching 20 billion US Dollars.

Adding all these together, Dean’s wealth from the stock market was exactly 87 billion US Dollars.

Other real estate and private planes, etc., were altogether valued at 1 billion US Dollars.

Although his gap was slightly larger than the close state of the top two on the list, it was still a very remarkable achievement.

In media accounts, he was the fastest-rising person on the Forbes list.

Because from his first appearance in 35th place at the beginning of ’91 to directly entering the top three this year, it was merely a little over three years.

And before this, he was a student with nothing to his name.

Even Gates, known as a genius, took over a decade to make his first appearance on the Forbes 400 when Microsoft had just gone public, and another decade to sit on today’s top spot.

Compared to him, Dean probably shortened this time by more than five times.

So, although his current wealth didn’t match Gates’, no one thought he would lose to Gates.

Even Dean’s potential had already surpassed the latter.

Because not only had he successfully founded one of the largest software companies in the world, but he also possessed an extraordinary investing acumen.

This was particularly crucial, as binding all wealth to a single public company was a high-risk move.

People were guessing when Dean would surpass Gates.

This largely depended on the development of the companies under their respective names, yet Microsoft was like a huge mountain standing before all software companies.

This was a pity, but fortunately, Dean also had the title "Nasdaq Bell Ringer," which could compensate for his shortcomings.

People were looking forward to when he could once again display his keen insight.

After all, those who followed Dean in the stock market rush had reaped many benefits.

However, external rumors didn’t affect Dean’s decision-making at all.

He didn’t care about these; instead, his friends nearby kept asking him if he had any interest in investing.

Having so much wealth, wasn’t it very normal to make a small investment in other industries to hedge a bit?

Look, Spielberg and others had repeatedly issued invitations to Dean.

Cough, in the DreamWorks founded in October, Dean didn’t make a move lightly.

Now, as its fundraising had not met expectations, they could only come to Dean for help.

This time he planned to visit Hollywood and see if there were any worthy investment opportunities.

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