Takuya Nakayama rubbed the sore spot on his back where Tom had slapped him, shot him a helpless look, and walked toward the whiteboard.
He picked up a marker and drew three circles.
In the first one, he wrote "User Traffic", pointing toward the Computer Science board still erupting in fierce argunts.
In the second, he wrote "Industry Value", gesturing to the Industry board where deep technical exchanges were already taking shape.
Finally, he pressed the tip of the marker hard into the third circle and wrote four bold characters:
Capital Convergence
Then he pointed to the Startups & VC board—the one that had just given birth to its very first potential deal.
He drew three arrows, connecting the circles into a perfect closed loop.
"Argunts bring attention.
Attention accumulates value.
Capital chases value."
Nakayama's voice wasn't loud, but every person in the room heard it clearly.
"When all three wheels begin turning, Silicon Valley Online BBS becos the signature of Silicon Valley itself."
He turned, sweeping his gaze across the faces flushed with excitent and adrenaline.
Tom Kalinske's smile slowly faded.
He looked at the closed loop on the board, then at the impossibly young Eastern man beside him—his expression growing heavier, deeper.
In that mont, he realized:
From the very beginning, he had underestimated Takuya Nakayama's ambition.
This wasn't so small extension of SEGA's gaming division.
This might very well be Nakayama's true ambition in Silicon Valley.
"Takuya—" Tom's voice was slightly hoarse. "This 'Silicon Valley Online'… what is it to you?"
Nakayama lowered the pen, t all the watching eyes, and smiled faintly.
"Tom, I already told you."
"This is only the beginning of the Internet tidal wave."
He paused, then turned toward the administrative staff standing in the back.
"Did you get all the photos for today?"
"All taken, Executive Director!" the staffer responded imdiately.
Takuya nodded, then looked back at Tom.
"I'll leave the dia arrangents to you."
"You don't need to tell twice," Tom laughed, flashing an OK sign.
---
The next morning, when Section Chief Nohara and the others dragged themselves into the office with dark circles and coffee in hand, Harry rushed in, waving several newspapers.
"Front page! We made the front page!"
He slapped a copy of the Los Angeles Tis onto the conference table.
A massive headline dominated half the tech section:
"Silicon Valley Online: A New Era of the Internet."
"Listen to this!" Harry cleared his throat and read in an exaggerated theatrical voice:
"The reporter interviewed a Stanford Computer Science PhD, who declared:
'Emacs users are a bunch of self-important blowhards who need a bloated program to feel smart. Vi is pure, efficient, and beautiful philosophy!'
Hahaha! These nerds!"
He doubled over laughing.
The Arican engineers joined in, roaring.
Nohara and the Japanese staff leaned in to look.
Seeing the heated, fully quoted comnts printed word-for-word in the newspaper left them with complicated expressions.
"Executive Director… they really printed… the fla war?" Nohara whispered.
"Nohara-san, argunts an heat. And heat is the best PR."
Nakayama took a sip of coffee, serene as ever.
Harry flipped to another page and jabbed at an article from the San Jose rcury News, noticeably more serious.
"Look at this! They interviewed a Berkeley professor!" Harry's voice rose with excitent.
"The professor says the discussions in 'Industry' are incredibly high-level. He's already exchanged views with an engineer from Sun Microsystems on SPARC optimization—says it's more efficient than any academic conference!"
Then the article shifted tone—toward the topic everyone in the room was secretly waiting for.
"The most eye-catching developnt is the birth of the 'Startups & VC' board," Harry said dramatically.
"On the very first afternoon, a startup project called 'TaWiz' posted a funding request.
Minutes later—Sequoia Capital and KPCB responded!"
He sucked in a deep breath and read the conclusion aloud, one word at a ti:
"A brand-new online ecosystem is erging. The sharks of capital have already slled blood. Silicon Valley Online may beco the first great na to define the 1990s."
Harry kept acting out the nerdy quotes from the newspaper, sending the entire office into waves of laughter.
The atmosphere was like they had just won a decisive battle.
But the uproar ca to an abrupt halt when Tom Kalinske walked in.
He wasn't holding a local paper.
He carried a neatly folded newspaper printed on premium stock—
and he wasn't smiling.
He stopped at the conference table and snapped it open.
The Wall Street Journal.
Those five words were like a silent command—
the office fell completely still.
Everyone's eyes locked onto the paper.
This wasn't the tech section.
This was the front-page business comntary.
The headline was calm yet profound:
"The Internet Catalyst: How Silicon Valley Online BBS Is Reshaping the Venture Capital Landscape."
Tom tapped a firm finger on the opening paragraph.
"They didn't ntion the editor war.
They didn't ntion the OS fla war."
His voice was low—nothing like his usual booming confidence.
"They only care about one thing."
Everyone held their breath.
Harry leaned in and read aloud:
"The article focuses on the 'TaWiz' project posted yesterday afternoon. The columnist argues that with PCs becoming increasingly mainstream, the computing industry is already on a high-speed track.
And the Internet—especially efficient information platforms like Silicon Valley Online—will act as an unprecedented turbocharger for this accelerating machine."
Harry's voice wavered.
He swallowed and continued, speaking faster and faster:
"The Wall Street Journal analyzes our user base in detail—top university faculty and students, core engineers from major tech companies, researchers from national labs. They call it:
'A highly concentrated, imasurably valuable intellectual gold mine.'"
"The article cites the SPARC architecture discussion in the 'Industry' board, calling it 'a zero-cost, top-tier technical symposium.'
And then—it cuts straight to the heart—"
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