Rebirth Tokyo 1986

Chapter 379 Good Deeds Bear Fruit

"So, how was your trip to Thailand?"

After Takeshita Masato returned to Tokyo, Sakai Izumi curiously asked him about it.

If it's fun, she'd like to find time to go and play with her daughter.

"It's a pretty good tourist destination for us, but not very friendly to ordinary people."

When Izumi Sakai travels, she is not only accompanied by her own bodyguards, but the local military and police departments also send people to help her solve any problems.

Unless you're looking for the Triangle of Death, the rest of the area will be a safe zone.

As for ordinary people, it depends on your luck.

Although Thailand is currently experiencing a period of rapid economic development, the gap between the rich and poor in society is very large, leading to a series of social crises.

If you're not careful, you could be arrested by local criminal gangs or even by internal government forces.

Those who are better off are trafficked to remote areas, those in the middle are taken to unspeakable shops and sold, and those in the worst cases are sold by cutting their bodies into different parts.

It's important to know that Thailand is one of the world's leading centers for human trafficking and organ distribution.

The entire country was distorted beyond recognition under the control of military and imperial power.

"I see. It seems that place is very dangerous."

"That's true. Security is generally not very good in Southeast Asian countries, with only Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei being slightly better."

If you're looking to travel, Europe in the 1990s was considered a relatively safe destination. Hawaii in the United States also had a relatively good safety record.

"If you want to go out and have fun, now is a good time to go to Ryukyu, the weather is also very nice."

"Well, I see."

Izumi Sakai was somewhat tempted, but she planned to go to England, the mecca of modern music in her mind.

Before they knew it, the two had been chatting until 3 p.m.

"It's almost time, let's pick up our daughter together today."

"Well, it's up to you."

Masato Takeshita spent three days being a good father at home before starting to get busy with company matters.

His first stop was the newly established Baidu company, where he wanted to find out how their Yahoo-like website development was progressing.

"Pretty good, is it online at Xinghai Internet Cafe yet?"

The young man looked at the Baidu Navigation website in front of him, which resembled the hao123 navigation website he had first encountered on the internet in his previous life, and felt very satisfied.

Novice users need the most intuitive webpage navigation to quickly find the websites they want to visit.

Entering a URL is too advanced and not suitable for users without computer skills.

"We're still looking for bugs and plan to release it next month."

Faced with the president of Chido Corporation's lack of confidence in his answer, Masato Takeshita gave a straightforward instruction.

"No need, users are our best testers."

What's the point of repeatedly testing a website navigation software? Anyone with a little computer knowledge can do it.

In its previous life, hao123 was run by a webmaster who never went to college.

This shows that the barrier to entry for creating a navigation website is not high.

As for the testing work, that's naturally left to the resourceful netizens.

They are happy to help find and even fix the bugs mentioned above.

"Yes, President!"

Compared to website navigation, browser creation is not as simple.

However, there's no need to rush this; a few years later won't make a difference. As long as the Xinghai operating system exists, the vast majority of users will eventually choose Xinghai Browser.

Netscape Navigator, which is popular all over the world now, will sooner or later become an internet company that dies at the hands of monopolistic giants.

Next, Masato Takeshita began visiting internet companies that had been poached from outside the company.

Because the company was newly established and not all the staff had arrived yet, the young man didn't ask about the website construction, which was his biggest concern.

"Is everyone settling in well? Have there been any problems?"

"It's great. The new company's office environment is much better than my old one."

Google's president, Daichi Ikeda, who was poached from SoftBank by the Starsea Group, responded sincerely.

Although he held a high-ranking position as a department head at SoftBank, his office was relatively small.

The workplaces for the employees became even more crowded.

Unlike Google, where each employee has a spacious office space and a beautiful little garden downstairs.

His office, as the vice president, is a whopping 150 square meters.

50 square meters are the work area, and the other 100 square meters are for rest and fitness.

"That's good."

The young man nodded gently, then asked casually.

"Does the company have any promising young talents you could recommend? Could you briefly introduce them to me?"

"There are many, such as the genius of website architecture, Mr. Hashimoto, and the genius of server architecture, Mr. Yoshida Shigeo..."

"However, the person I admire most is Hiroshi Mikitani. He will become an outstanding business leader."

Daichi Ikeda greatly admired Hiroshi Mikitani and believed he would be his right-hand man in running Google.

"Oh, tell me in detail, what are his strengths that you value?"

"Well, I can't quite explain it either, but it's mainly because Mikitani-san has that extraordinary quality."

At this point, Daichi Ikeda gave a slight, embarrassed bow.

"I'm sorry, President, what I said might be a bit mystical."

"It's okay, this is normal."

Sometimes people have inexplicable intuitions, and they are surprisingly accurate.

Masato Takeshita is going to pay more attention to Hiroshi Mikitani to see if he has the potential to become an outstanding manager.

If so, then Xinghai Group has a backup talent pool in the internet field.

Yes, Masato Takeshita is always looking to poach talent, even from within his own company.

The talent shortage in the internet sector is so severe that we need to promote anyone we find.

Of course, in this life, with the rapid rise of the Xinghai Group and its demonstrated emphasis on computer-related talent, things have changed.

Japan's shortage of computer and internet talent is not expected to be too severe. Furthermore, by the turn of the 21st century, there will likely be a large pool of hardware and software talent available for the Xinghai Group to choose from.

"Thank you."

Daichi Ikeda bowed again, then asked in a respectful tone.

"President, would you like to meet him and find out what kind of person Mikitani-san is?"

He noticed that the chairman had developed a curiosity about Mikitani-san and was willing to give him a helping hand.

In this way, he could become Hiroshi Mikitani's mentor and thus expand his influence within the parent company, Starsea Networks.

Yes, Masato Takeshita directly placed Baidu and Google (which play the navigation game), as well as Xinghai E-commerce and online marketplace (which play the e-commerce game), under Xinghai Network Management.

Most importantly, he also serves as the president of Xinghai Network.

On the one hand, they genuinely couldn't find a suitable candidate for president; on the other hand, it was also to demonstrate the importance they placed on Xinghai Network. Current internet companies are still too weak and must be protected.

"Sure, I'm fine with it."

The young man waited for a little over a minute before the two of them quickly walked into the office.

As a result, after Hiroshi Mikitani finished his self-introduction, he immediately got out of the taxi excitedly.

"Thank you, Chairman Takeshita. Thank you for your help in joining the Xinghai Group..."

"what's the situation?"

Masato Takeshita was completely bewildered, not understanding why Hiroshi Mikitani was so agitated, and even his words were somewhat out of control.

"Sorry, I was too excited."

Hiroshi Mikitani quickly realized the wrongness of his actions and immediately knelt down for a long time.

"Mr. Mikitani, there's no need for this. I didn't mean to punish you. Can you tell me what happened?"

"Thank you, thank you, Chairman."

After calming down, Hiroshi Mikitani stood up again with the help of the young man and then began to explain why he had done so.

When faced with two pre-selected positions at Industrial Bank and Xinghai Group, he, a graduate of Hitotsubashi University, ultimately chose to join the dynamic Xinghai Group.

However, he did not pursue a career in the company afterward, but instead went to Harvard University to study after obtaining a government-funded scholarship.

After returning to Japan, Hiroshi Mikitani continued working at Xinghai Group and then steadily rose to the position of Vice Minister of Xinghai Electronics.

But this year, in 1995, the year the Great Hanshin Earthquake struck, he saw the horrific deaths of his relatives and decided to change his way of life.

One must try all the possibilities of life while one is still alive.

It can be said that a major earthquake directly changed the fate of countless people.

When he first left the company, he didn't know what he wanted to do.

However, influenced by Xinghai Group and SoftBank, he decided to do some consulting work for internet companies.

Then, not long ago, Google opened a recruitment drive. Out of gratitude, he simply brought his subordinates back to the company.

"I see. We just did what we were supposed to do. There's no need for Mikitani-san to go to such lengths."

"However, since what's done is done, I hope that Mr. Mikitani can realize your unfulfilled dream at Google."

At this moment, Masahiro Takeshita suddenly realized that they were employees from the disaster area.

His generous donation of $50 billion from the Xinghai Group and $20 billion from himself caused a sensation throughout Japan.

This donation to the disaster area is more than ten times the world record.

At the time, the Xinghai Group and its members were frequently seen in the overwhelming disaster coverage on Japanese television.

Therefore, within Xinghai Group alone, countless people are deeply grateful to him every day.

The Great Hanshin Earthquake, a high-intensity event, occurred in the Kansai metropolitan area, Japan's second most developed region, affecting tens of millions of people.

About one-fifth of Xinghai Group's employees come from there, which greatly enhances the company's cohesion.

"Yes, President, I will do my best."

"Well, I believe you."

Masato Takeshita now truly believes he can succeed, because after a long period of thought, he finally recognized who Hiroshi Mikitani was.

In his previous life, he was the founder of Rakuten Shopping, Japan's largest e-commerce company, and a well-known self-made billionaire in Japan.

Even if things don't go well here, you can help out in online marketplaces.

After visiting two navigation companies, the young man's next stop was several e-commerce companies.

However, the initial work of e-commerce companies is similar to that of department store companies, requiring them to contact a large number of distributors.

So naturally, Masato Takeshita could only see the surface.

Since the e-commerce companies were still in their early stages, he had no interest in lingering. After a brief exchange with the company presidents, he returned to the group headquarters.

He was waiting for Xinghai Shopping Mall, which was the most advanced in terms of progress, to prepare the goods before contacting the bank.

As for whether it's too late to do this, it certainly won't.

Xinghai Group is already a top-tier company in Japan. Even banks with which it has relatively little business dealings, such as Dai-ichi Kangyo, Mitsubishi, and Mitsui, would give it the courtesy of being included.

Furthermore, this is also very beneficial to the bank. The simplest way is that they can retain the money for a period of time.

As for developing its own payment software system, a good timing is needed. Because a payment system is too offensive to banks, the wrong timing could make it vulnerable to retaliation.

"Uchida-san, could you please bring me the sales report for Seikai Mobile?"

Back at headquarters, Masato Takeshita was still busy, as he needed to check on the sales figures for the new Starry Sea mobile phone model.

This phone with a built-in antenna is Xinghai Electronics' flagship product this year and a guarantee of Xinghai's mobile phone sales.

"Yes, please wait a moment."

Shortly after, his secretary, Miho Uchida, arrived at his office with the relevant documents.

"President, here is the information you need."

"Okay, thank you. You can go now."

"Yes, President."

Secretary-General Miho Uchida's compiled documents were easy to read, and he quickly grasped the sales figures for different mobile phone models.

The best-selling product is naturally Xinghai Electronics' flagship product this year – Xinghai 1995.

This phone with a built-in antenna sold over 120 million units globally in a single month.

This is normal, as new phones usually sell very well in their first month.

As for older models, sales have declined across the board.

Some have two or three hundred thousand units, while others have only tens of thousands.

As for the PHS (Personal Handyphone System) mobile phones, which he also values ​​highly, sales in Japan have also declined sharply, with less than 20 units sold this month.

The Japanese market is almost saturated, and it is estimated that this number will remain the same in the future, or even less.

"That's good. I estimate that this year we can consolidate our position as the world's second largest and continue to close the gap with Motorola."

With the rapid rise of European and Japanese mobile phone companies, Motorola's position in the mobile phone market has become unstable.

Next year or the year after, Xinghai Mobile will have a chance to surpass Motorola.

Of course, this does not include PHS (Personal Handyphone System) phones.

If we include PHS (Personal Handyphone System) phones, they will most likely surpass that next year.

Because Xinghai Group has temporarily monopolized the PHS (Personal Handyphone System) mobile phone market and has a great chance of entering the Chinese market this year.

Once the Chinese market is stimulated, the sales volume of PHS (Personal Handyphone System) handsets will quickly increase to tens of millions, and may even exceed 100 million.

Ultimately, there are still more people in this world who are poor. The vast underdeveloped countries will become the market for PHS (Personal Handyphone System).

In fact, Japan had the opportunity in its previous life to replicate the success of PHS (Personal Handyphone System) in the Chinese market in many developing countries.

However, companies like NTT misjudged the situation and failed to recognize the advantages of PHS (Personal Handyphone System). By the time PHS swept the Chinese telecommunications market, it was already too late to launch it.

By then, mobile phones had become dominant in countries around the world, and the advantages of PHS (Personal Handyphone System) had significantly diminished.

Of course, this approach can be promoted in India, which has a similar economic level to China.

But in India, it's a country where, to put it simply, those who know, know that a potentially profitable business can easily turn into a loss.

(End of this chapter)