America 1982

Tommy Hawke stood in front of the dressing mirror and carefully adjusted his golden hair, trying to make them look sharper. At the same time, he asked his girlfriend Renee who was waiting next to him: "How do I look now?"

"Charming?" Renee stared at Tommy's face for a few seconds before she truthfully stated her feelings.

Tommy thought for a while, took off his T-shirt, put on a colorful shirt, and unbuttoned the two top buttons: "What now?"

"Like a local man from Texas or California, a little unruly, doesn't matter?" Renee finally realized what Tommy was doing and said.

After getting his girlfriend's answer, Tommy nodded with satisfaction: "Very good, let's go."

On this weekend, James Dunn, the number one employee at Symantec and the shame of SSD, helped Tommy Hawke make an appointment with Ian Knott, the human resources manager of his company. It was not a formal event, just a relaxing weekend. reunion.

Since it was the weekend, of course the three men brought their respective girlfriends. First they went to a restaurant to eat together, and then went to the mall for shopping. The three men were reduced to followers until they arrived at the go-kart track, where the three women went to have an exciting race. During the game, they finally got a chance to rest.

In the leisure area of ​​the Silicon Valley Go-Kart Park, three men watched their girlfriends screaming as they drove the go-kart past the track not far from them at high speed. They all raised their drinks and cheered for each other loudly. Waiting for three After the women chased me away, the men immediately became slumped in their seats and didn't want to speak.

Ian Nott is 32 years old this year. Like the 35-year-old Symantec founder Gary Hendricks, they are both from Texas and graduated from the University of Texas. During college, the two joined the same university. fraternity.

"Tommy, I wasn't like you in college." Ian Nott saw Tommy's world-weary expression and laughed: "Especially with such a beautiful girlfriend, it turns out that only three Only after you are ten years old will you become as perfunctory as me. Of course, you can't count James. That guy has a unique XP. His girlfriend is not as attractive to him as the company's Fletcher. Every time I see James look at Fletcher His eyes looked scary, as if he could take off his pants and pounce on me at any time."

Fletcher is an artificial intelligence robot project developed by Symantec after receiving a large investment from the U.S. National Fund.

Although Symantec has only been founded for a year, it is definitely not a small start-up company. After all, no small start-up company can get eight-digit investment without having any products at all.

Symantec was able to obtain tens of millions of dollars in investment to start a business in Silicon Valley, all thanks to the connections of founder Gary Hendricks. His doctoral supervisor was hired as a computer scientist at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Chief scientist of the artificial intelligence project.

In the United States, everything is a business. DARPA’s annual budget for such projects is only two million, citing the country’s lack of funds.

But if a private company develops similar projects, it will be able to get a lot of investment from the state and the military. The reason is naturally to keep the technology in hand, and it is also convenient for officials to earn wealth in such companies.

Gary Hendrix established Symantec in this way. Mentors, some people from DARPA, and some people from national funds occupied the company's shares in various ways. DARPA's research and development almost stagnated. However, Symantec's progress can be made at a steady pace. Once the development reaches certain key nodes, the country can continue to use money to support Symantec. The final outcome is that DARPA's artificial intelligence project is canceled and the U.S. government purchases it at a high price. Symantec product.

The above operations are not a secret in this land. In Silicon Valley, as long as you see that when a new company is established, it does not start from a garage, but directly rents expensive office buildings, recruits a large number of people, and purchases large computer clusters. So it is basically certain that the new company should be similar to Symantec. It either has senior officials as shareholders or has received state investment. In other words, it is not a nerdy technology startup, but a real businessman's method.

Tommy took a sip of juice and looked at Ian and James next to him: "I thought of a joke. The reporter interviewed a man and said to him, Sir, can I do a random interview for you? Who would you like to spend time with? How about a happy weekend? A, your wife, B... Before the reporter could finish speaking, the man immediately shouted: BBBBBB!"

Ian and James both laughed and nodded: "Yes, you should choose B! That is definitely a wise choice."

After laughing, Ian reached out and patted Tommy, and then said: "James said that you and your girlfriend are doing some social activities to help women find employment at Stanford, and you want me to help arrange some women's employment. Boy, look at this Jokes apart, you can talk to me."

"Yes, James said, Symantec currently has nearly forty clerks in administrative and secretarial departments, not counting assistants in other departments. I would like to ask Mr. Nott to give those women a chance. Those women definitely work harder than anyone else in your company at the moment, value that job, and are more efficient than the clerks you hire at a high price at the moment, but the pay is only two-thirds of those people." Tommy heard Ian Nott talk about this matter, looked at him, put away his smile, and said seriously:

"Most of those women only have a high school degree. They have never gone to college. They don't know what a college job fair is. They don't understand the various company benefits that other college students have already figured out when recruiting. They are as pure as white. They are the same as paper, but they can do the common tasks that we thought only college students could do, such as inputting documents and forms, preparing speeches, printing reports, making coffee for you, etc. Now, in your department, there is only one person who only knows how to turn on the computer. The administrative specialist who enters the time sheet, her job most of the day is just to make coffee for you, Mr. Knott, how much does Symantec pay her?"

"300 weekly salary." Ethan Knott took out a cigarette, held it in his mouth and lit it.

Tommy said with certainty: "The woman I recommend only costs 220 yuan, and if you give her work that does not belong to her, she will complete it obediently, because she has no idea how much work she should be responsible for, she just She knows how to do all the tasks assigned to her by the company.”

Ethan Knott narrowed his eyes slightly and smiled at Tommy Hawke and said: "If you are the one who promotes women's employment, Tommy, no company will refuse, and one person can save eighty yuan in salary. In terms of expenditure, forty people can save 3,200 yuan a week, which is 150,000 yuan per year. This data is more attractive than any words. I will think about it and then talk to Gary."

"By the way, I forgot one thing, the 150,000 saved can still be counted on them. This is the blank paper I said, Mr. Nott." Tommy saw that Ethan did not promise on the spot, as if Suddenly he remembered something he had missed and spoke to him.

Ethan looked into Tommy's deep eyes, and finally stretched out his hand to him, and said seriously: "When can I see the ladies you mentioned who are eager for employment? Symantec has always believed that women are The greatest existence in this world, we should lend a helping hand to them as soon as possible within our ability, Tommy, the world needs social workers like you, the more the better."

"You can conduct internal assessments now to decide whether certain people should stay or go. We will have ten women in the first batch." Tommy and Ethan held hands together: "Thank you for your help in women's employment. I think Stanford Women for Equality would like to give Symantec a certificate of appreciation."

Ethan said seriously: "Symantec is honored to make a small contribution to female employment."

The first update~~ is a bit late, so go ahead and write the second update~