Start a company, make loads of cash! Let’s get to work—full steam ahead!
But speaking of starting a company—how do you actually do it? Most young folks would be totally clueless; even if you handed them a company, they wouldn’t know what to do. You can’t just slap a sign on the door and open for business. If you dive headfirst into the business world without a clue, you’ll probably lose your shirt. Lucky for us, Adam Zade isn’t your average guy. Thanks to his elite upbringing, he’s got some serious chops—even if he doesn’t have a diploma and can only get temp jobs. When it comes to running a company, he’s... the expert’s expert’s expert.
Now, welcome to Adam Zade’s Business Masterclass! *Clap clap,* tap the board—everyone listen up! The number one thing to remember when starting a company: a real business is usually powered by three engines—R&D, production, and sales.
In other words: the ability to develop theories, the ability to turn those theories into reality, and the ability to convince the whole world to buy in.
If you can do any one of these three well, your business will at least survive. Nail two of them, and you’ve got a solid company. But if you ace all three—and throw in a smart, efficient management team plus a board of directors who know their limits and don’t butt in with clueless advice—your company is destined for greatness.
In the summer of 1980, Tiberius Technologies was born. Main business: personal computers.
Let’s take a look at what this company’s made of.
Board of Directors: Adam Zade, Sophia.
Management Team: Adam Zade, Sophia.
Production Staff: Adam Zade, Sophia.
Sales: Adam Zade.
R&D: Sophia.
—What a board of directors! Every member holds a key position and works right on the front lines! Apple’s Steve Jobs and crew started out the same way—this is clearly the beginning of a tech giant! —Eh, actually, it’s kind of pitiful...
Summer. Heat waves rolling in. In a rented, old warehouse, a creaky electric fan spins, bringing barely a hint of cool air.
"Can we do this?"
"No problem."
"But it really looks complicated. Personal computers are cutting-edge tech. Just five years ago, IBM built the first real portable computer—the IBM 5100. That thing was insanely expensive, and buggy as heck. Now you want to crack this Apple II Plus? With the tools we’ve got... Sure, we could fix a bike, maybe even a car, but building a computer? Not so much. Plus, what’s the point? These computers aren’t even that useful. Banks can use them for bookkeeping, but what’s a regular person supposed to do with one at home?"
"Adam."
"What?"
"Shut up."
"...Alright, you win. I’ll shut up..."
That’s just how it goes when the head of R&D tells the chairman to zip it—the chairman zips it. But it also shows how open-minded this board is; no clueless outsiders bossing around the experts. Of course, Adam admits he’s not exactly book-smart, and facing a real expert, he’s got no chance. So he just sits on a rickety stool, watching Sophia in her lab coat scribble away at the workbench.
Sophia’s brows knit in concentration, her pen flies across the page, sometimes she’s erasing, sometimes she’s on a roll. When she’s working, there’s a special kind of charm about her—Adam can’t quite put his finger on it, but he’s totally captivated.
After a long while, Sophia straightens up, lets out a breath, wipes the sweat from her forehead—she looks totally wiped out: "Done."
"Already? That fast!" Adam jumps up like a Shiba Inu, bounding over in a couple of steps: "Let me see, let me see! —Uh... what is this?"
"A plan."
She makes it sound simple, but it’s anything but. With a flourish, Sophia grabs a giant A0 blueprint off the workbench and hangs it on the wall. The paper is packed with diagrams and text, all drawn with the kind of precision you’d expect from a printer. Just looking at those dense symbols is enough to give you a headache. And if you look closer, you’ll realize there’s not a single normal word on it—it’s all symbols, totally incomprehensible to regular folks.
Seeing those symbols, Jill Young can’t help but shiver. Her aunt was already using Symbolic Cipher at this stage—impressive.
Having watched her aunt create the blueprint from start to finish, Jill Young is completely blown away by the experience—it’s like seeing the future. She doesn’t know exactly what the Symbolic Cipher means, but this memory isn’t just visual; she can vaguely sense her aunt’s thoughts too, so she kind of gets what she’s writing.
And because she understands, she can’t help but feel her skin crawl.
Basically, this blueprint sketches out the entire electronics industry’s super roadmap—for the next fifty years, starting from 1980!
When Sophia drew this up, it was the era of large-scale integrated circuits—back in 1980, even very-large-scale circuits were barely a rumor. But her blueprint already charts the next fifty years! Look closely and you’ll see every stage of computer development mapped out, even rough diagrams of future core processing units and how they work!
It’s one thing to write a bunch of sci-fi settings—top computer experts have wild imaginations. But to predict the actual structure and manufacturing methods of future CPUs, in just a short time? That’s next-level.
Comparing it to how computers developed in real life, Jill Young is amazed—the blueprint matches up almost perfectly. Where it doesn’t, it’s usually because of some new material or process nobody could’ve seen coming. Those changes are random, impossible to predict. But the big picture? History followed this blueprint to a T.
This one sheet lays out fifty years of computer industry trends. For any tech company, it’s a treasure worth billions.
Is this prophecy really that accurate?!
Nope. Jill Young strokes her chin, thinking deeper. There are a million possible futures, and the tech tree has endless branches—who’s to say which path is best? The Soviet Union’s tech tree was pretty unique, but that doesn’t mean it was bad. The fact that today’s tech giants followed this blueprint so closely... Maybe it’s not just Sophia’s prediction. Maybe there’s something deeper going on.
Like, are those global tech superpowers really... being run by the Zades?!
It could be true... Jill Young snaps her fingers, a plan popping into her head. She’ll track down the manager of that big toothpaste company and grill him—find out if he’s secretly working for the enemy, and finally vent her rage about forced toothpaste squeezing, forced interface changes, and forced motherboard swaps.
The memory keeps playing. Sophia gives a quick, half-baked explanation about the blueprint, and Adam doesn’t get it at all. After all, calling this a mere "plan" doesn’t even begin to cover how epic it really is.
But Adam isn’t a total fool. As a privileged prodigy, even if he can’t read the Symbolic Cipher, he can still sense the intimidating aura radiating from all those lines. He stares for ages, wracking his brain, trying to learn, before finally admitting he’s just not cut out for R&D.
If you can’t handle the technical details, just let it go. As chairman, Adam can always look at the big picture.
"On your... Electronics Industry Roadmap, where does our Apple II Plus fit in?"
"Here." Sophia points at the diagram. Adam takes a look, sizes up the whole thing, remembers how precise and intense Sophia is, and decides to go bold—he draws a pizza-sized circle: "Here?"
"Nope, here." Sophia points again.
Adam squints, wondering if he’s still being too conservative. Hesitantly, he draws an apple-sized circle: "Here...?"
"Adam, come closer." Sophia’s pale, slender finger taps the blueprint: "It’s this, right here."
"Huh?" Adam leans in and finally spots a tiny squiggly symbol buried in the details. "This... this?! Isn’t that just a punctuation mark?!"
"That’s the one."
"So, how much of the current computer industry does this cover?"
Sophia grabs a pen and draws a wavy, crooked outline—about the size of half a palm: "This. That’s where Earth’s tech is at right now."
Adam freezes, a bead of cold sweat forming on his forehead: "Sophia, you didn’t use any fancy tricks, right? Like, purposely making today’s level look tiny and your own ideas super big and detailed?"
"Nope."
"Holy crap!" Adam suddenly gets it—he finally realizes just how priceless this blueprint really is.