Investor That Can See The Future

Chapter 249

Hyun-joo’s older sister informed the Golden Gate employees that she was pregnant. It was because the stomach started to swell now and it was difficult to hide it any longer.

The male employees were surprised, but it seems that some of the female employees had already guessed. Anyway, everyone got into a fight and handed me congratulations.

Hyunjoo’s older sister is the first Korean and the first female Golden Gate branch manager, and the 3rd largest shareholder of OTK Company. She covered this news carefully, both in the domestic and foreign press, because she did.

If a female CEO of a chaebol family announced that she was pregnant before marriage without her marriage plans, the public might have been wearing sunglasses for nothing, but Golden Gate does not seem to care as much as it is classified as a foreign IB.

What? In a Korean company, this is not possible, but in a foreign company, it feels like it is okay?

A foreign media company even published a special article analyzing successful single mother CEOs.

The Internet was noisy for a different reason.

-Once I was born, her mother was the 3rd largest shareholder of the OTK Company in the Golden Gate branch!

-Her mother is rich, her maternal uncle is richer, and her maternal uncle friend is the richest man in the world.

– I start with max level alone. My mom gold infinite. An SSS-class newborn born by drawing. The greatest chaebol life. this is life very good at birth.

-envy. I’m so jealous. I’m jealous

– Who the hell is this guy?

– According to advanced information from her friend’s girlfriend’s brother’s friend’s cousin, the head of the OTK company and an American.

– There was a talk about having a good face.

-Great. The man has completely changed his life.

– I don’t know. Isn’t that guy really rich too? What kind of heir to a chaebol family?

– Hahahaha.

* * *

Hyun-joo’s older sister received congratulatory calls from all sides of her. And the same goes for us. As such, the pregnancy news of OTK Company’s third-largest shareholder (and the second-largest shareholder’s older sister) was a big issue abroad.

Carlos CEO Daryl gave congratulations and then reported on the company’s status. AD1 and AD2 are still selling well, and the waiting volume is gradually dissipating.

But there was another problem.

“How are electric cars going?”

Karos has formed a separate team and is focusing on developing electric vehicle technology.

[We are aiming to release it within this year, but it is true that our technology is lagging behind other companies.]

At the time of our acquisition, Chrysler had no technology for electric vehicles. That’s why FCA Group also sold it at a bargain price.

There is autonomous driving technology, and there is also a battery. However, they do not have the technology to make electric vehicles.

Whereas existing cars have a huge entry barrier such as engines and missions, electric vehicles only need batteries and motors.

It is easy to make as the structure is simple. That’s why startups like Nikola and BID were able to jump in and launch vehicles.

Carlos can also make as many as he wants if he wants.

But just making it and making it well are two different things. It is difficult to find a place that does not offer electric vehicles, whether it is a new company or an existing automaker.

As there are many types of cars pouring in, the public’s level of interest has increased that much. Making it clumsy and putting it out is worse than not making it.

Some technologies have strengths, and some technologies have weaknesses. One company cannot do everything.

[I think we should consider the direction of acquiring technology through mergers and acquisitions or technical alliances.]

I nodded.

“You have to be open to all possibilities.”

* * *

I went to the Gangnam office building of Seosung Group with Taek-gyu. This is to express gratitude for the help with finding a house.

Upon entering the president’s room, Chairman Im Jin-yong welcomed us warmly.

“Welcome to.”

Taek-gyu said hello.

“I want my older sister to say that she likes the house and say thank you.”

Hyunjoo’s older sister toured the house with Henry, and she liked it very much.

“Haha, what? I’m glad you liked it too.”

I sat down on the sofa and the secretary served coffee and drinks.

“Would you mind sitting and waiting for a moment? I have a job right now. I think it will be over in the next five minutes.”

“Yes. Take it slow.”

Chairman Im Jin-yong continued his work, which he had been sitting at his desk. I took a peek at what he was doing, and to my surprise, he was assembling Lego!

Taehyung said in a low voice.

“Did you have any hobbies like that?”

“Yeah.”

I also first found out

It’s no wonder that even adults these days enjoy Lego. There is no law that says that the chairman of a chaebol group should not play with assembling Lego.

After a while, Chairman Im Jin-yong said.

“It’s all over now.”

He boasted by putting the finished car-shaped Lego on the table.

“It took about a month to put everything together. In the meantime, I was busy on business trips and attending hearings. Isn’t it cool?”

“It looks great.”

The size is also quite large. About 50 centimeters?

I used to assemble it a few times when I was young, but I haven’t really touched it since I was in high school. Taek-gyu likes plastic models and figures, but he’s not very interested in Lego.

When the wheels moved, miraculously, other parts of the engine moved together. Looking inside, I could see plastic cogs turning in elaborate meshes.

“Legos are coming out very well these days.”

Chairman Im Jin-yong shook his head.

“This is not Lego.”

“Yes?”

I said looking around the finished car.

“Isn’t this lego?”

“It’s not Lego, it’s Recu.”

“Recue?”

Is it a pun?

Thinking so, Chairman Im Jin-yong looked up at the box on the floor.

The logo was engraved in white letters on a red background on the top of the box. At a glance, I thought it was ‘LEGO’, but looking closer, it’s ‘LEQU’.

What is this?

Taehyung nodded his head as if he knew.

“It’s fake Lego.”

“Yes. I found out that there are various fakes besides Req, such as Rene and Repan.”

“What’s the difference with Lego?”

“The biggest difference would be the price. In the case of this product, Lego costs 400,000 won, but this one costs 60,000 won.”

I asked with a serious expression.

“Are you having a hard time these days?”

“Hahaha.”

Chairman Im Jin-yong burst into laughter at my words.

Of course it’s a joke. Maybe the chairman of the Suseong Group didn’t have enough money to buy Req instead of Lego.

“When these replicas first came out, the quality was poor. The finish was a mess, and the bricks didn’t fit together well, so it was difficult to assemble. So the Lego side didn’t really care. Poor quality replicas actually increase the value of the original. But as you can see, it’s not much different from Lego now. If you just change the box and sell it, most people won’t even notice.”

But the price is less than one-fifth. Of course, from the Lego standpoint, the damage is bound to be huge.

Chairman Im Jin-yong shook his head and said.

“Now it seems that it is difficult to ignore him as a living person. It’s just that there’s no license, but it’s practically no different from a genuine product.”

In China, fakes are called ‘Sanzai’.

Originally, it meant a barrier in the mountains, but it was later used to mean a den of bandits, and this again became a term to refer to fakes.

It can be seen that it is similar to what we used to call pirated products in the past. As pirated products disappeared, the term became less commonly used, but there was a time when piracy was prevalent in Korea.

Records and games were particularly bad, but until the 1990s, they had a rear car parked on the street and proudly sold replicas.

While the original album sold 10,000 copies, the pirated version sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Because it wasn’t even half the price. At the very least, pirated songs were collected separately and called the ‘Gilboard Chart’. (Of course, it was coined by comparing the Billboard charts of the United States).

However, in the case of China, what is unique is that it is being encouraged at the national level.

There is a saying, “If you copy quickly and Chineseize it, that is creation.”

I wonder what kind of bullshit this is, but the person who said this was Litianyu Li, the founder of Weichent, the number one company by market capitalization in China.

To say this openly means that the majority of Chinese agree with the idea.

It can grow into a global company even if it only takes over the domestic market in China. In this way, they accumulate technology and capital, grow in size, and then advance into the global market.(Read more @ wuxiax.com)

In hindsight, Aligeny, which has now become a conglomerate, was created by imitating Abei, Baidu by Guble, and Weibo by imitation of Twitter.

Among them, there are many things that can be called plagiarism beyond just imitation. However, in China, copyrights and patents are virtually ignored.

Even if a lawsuit is filed, the Chinese court unconditionally favors the domestic company.

Complaining is of no use. The reality is that the companies that have suffered damage can’t even speak out loud in order not to be disadvantaged in the Chinese domestic market.

Lego is also helpless for Chinese manufacturers of counterfeit Lego. It is only possible to request import bans from countries where intellectual property rights are protected, such as the United States and Korea.

“I felt it while assembling Req, but now China’s technology is not formidable. It’s hard to compare with the past. As I said before, Chinese companies are experimenting with AD1 and AD2 themselves, disassembling them, and trying to copy autonomous driving technology. And this time, he said he was trying to open the OTK battery.”

The OTK battery developed by the OTK Research Institute is a next-generation battery that overcomes the limitations of NCM batteries.

It has already applied for patents in countries around the world. However, China has a history and tradition of ignoring other countries’ patents.

If I could just copy and make the same thing, I would do it anyway.

Taek-gyu asked.

“It’s not some kind of Lego, can you tell by looking at it?”

Chairman Im Jin-yong nodded his head.

“That’s right. So, it seems that they are planning to take out research personnel. It has been confirmed that several companies, including BID, have already contacted Seoseong SB researchers.”

“Isn’t that illegal?”

“Sometimes it’s illegal, sometimes it’s not.”

In a bad way, it’s hiring people, but in a good way, it’s scouting.

In fact, this is not uncommon among companies. A semiconductor designer at Suseong Electronics may transfer to Intel or Qualcomm, and a person in charge of autonomous driving technology development at Nikola may move to NPL or Guble. Karos also brought in researchers from other companies to develop electric vehicles.

“Just because one or two researchers are removed does not mean that the core technology can be copied. If that was possible, China’s advanced technology would have reached the level of the US today. However, it is true that it is of great help from the point of view of the pursuit.”

Chairman Im Jin-yong said with a firm expression on his face.

“China is betting life and death on the leadership of the future car. So, in the meantime, the government has been pouring subsidies and nurturing related companies. However, OTK Company caused a major setback in our plans.”

“Is it because we went too far?”

“Yes. Autonomous driving and batteries are core technologies for driverless cars and electric vehicles.”

China is the world’s largest battery producer and consumer. It is also the world’s largest producer and seller of electric vehicles.

Chinese battery makers have already established a mass production system for NCM and LFP batteries and are working hard on technology development. However, in this situation, we succeeded in developing the next-generation battery first. This is a game-changing card not only for electric vehicles but also for the electronics industry.

And in autonomous driving technology, we are several years ahead of Chinese companies.

As long as the OTK company does not go bankrupt, the technology gap will widen, not narrow.

“Now the Chinese Ministry of Commerce is closely watching. Some time ago, representatives of related companies met in Beijing. They will probably contact the OTK company in some way. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”