Chapter 159: Entering Many Fields

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio  Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

For the mass population of office workers, in terms of salary, they would never be content, no matter how high pay was. Everyone’s pursuit was in consideration of the higher the better, and the pursuit never ended.

After Xing Hai Technologies “Absolute Wages” standard was proposed, the office workers calculated their “Absolute Wage” according to the standards. Then, they all expressed the pricks on their hearts.

“My intern salary was $5,000. Deducting rent, food, transport, phone, and other expenses, my absolute wage is only $1,500 dollars.”

“D*mn, my salary is $8,000 on paper, but deducting all those miscellaneous expenses, my absolute wage is $2,800, even less than an intern at Xing Hai Technologies!”

“Simply upsetting. I’ve been working for five years. Originally I was quite content with my $12,000 monthly salary. But after deduction according to absolute wage calculations, the actual amount that I could use freely was not even $5,000 dollars, even less than a junior staff at Xing Hai Technologies.”

“I have a monthly salary of $20,000 in a first-tier city. But my absolute wage is only $6,000!”

“I’m done, I’m quitting! With my life, I worked for my boss for two years, and I can’t even earn a single cent. My boss’s plea ain’t making me stay, I’m going to Xing Hai Technologies!”

Innumerable netizens said that they wanted to resign and go be an intern at Xing Hai Technologies. There were also countless entrepreneurs and bosses that strongly criticized Xing Hai Technologies.

“According to this calculation of Xing Hai Technologies, if it was in first-tier cities in Shang Hai, Kings City, Shen Zhen City, and Yang City, the actual expense of an enterprise will exceed $8,000 dollars to provide an absolute wage of $3,000! This is over the ‘death line’ for many companies. If they all follow this standard, more than half of the SME’s will perish!”

“Easier said than done! You, Xing Hai Technologies, are rich; of course you can afford to be generous, but have you ever considered the life and death of the others? Various expenses are already making us breathless. This absolute wage concept you came up with is literally stabbing a knife on our already fragile body. Your intention is to kill us.”

“Xing Hai Technologies! Please do not simply introduce new concepts, you’ll kill people!”

“Hua Yao will be abolishing the original salary calculation system and adopt the ‘Absolute Wages’ system. As of current times, staff at Hua Yao have an average absolute wage of $28,400 dollars, the top within the country. Sincerely welcoming all talent to join us.”

“Ali Corporation will also be adopting the ‘Absolute Wages’ system. Our standards will be similar to that of Xing Hai Technologies. Even for a new intern, their absolute wage will not be less than $3,000. This will definitely increase our business expenditures, but only by doing so, every staff that joins our big family can have a true sense of acquisition.”

“Baidu Inc.…”

The SME’s were all condemning Xing Hai Technologies. But the tech giants within the country all followed the heatwave. They announced that they were in line with Xing Hai Technologies and would be adopting the “Absolute Wages” standard.

There was even a man that created a ‘Corporate Competitiveness Ranking’ list based on his knowledge of the different zones within the country and the wage level of various enterprises. The rankings were not based on the size of an enterprise and their popularity, but on the average absolute wage that staff were receiving. The list went down from high to low and made everything crystal clear.

In the upshot, the mass population of netizens discovered that many of the well-known large enterprises within the country were either not in the list or ranked at the very bottom. It was simply unbelievable. The netizens said, “Don’t look at things other than this competitiveness ranking list when finding a job. If you are finding a job, go for the companies with high absolute wage!”

…

The proposal of the absolute wage concept thrust Xing Hai Technologies into the teeth of the storm as they were subjected to mixed opinions from both ends. It also played a good effect in advertising. Xing Hai Technologies’ blueprint of their future expansions was also pellucidly presented before the eyes of the public. It was eye-catching.

In each province across the whole country, they would build 28 R&D divisions and recruit several ten-thousands of talents of all kinds. Preparing to enter 11 key fields, they were:

Chip design: Design a better CPU, design an AI chip with better performance.

Chip manufacturing: Commence research on chip manufacturing.

Supercomputer: Prepare to develop own supercomputer, save cost on the procurement of supercomputers.

New material: The main research direction will be graphene and nanomaterials.

New energy source: Commence R&D in the battery field.

Biomedicine: Commence R&D on terminal, difficult, and complicated illnesses. Commit efforts into healthcare.

High-end medical equipment: This was a trillion-dollar market, which was currently dominated by foreign companies.

Domestically produced operating system: Prepare to create own operating system, build own ecosystem of software.

Industrial software: Develop domestic industrial software. Improve domestic industrial manufacturing capacity.

Artificial Intelligence: This was the strong point of Xing Hai Technologies, but it still needed to be further developed.

Household robots: This was also the strong point of Xing Hai Technologies. It also needed to be further developed.

Thus, the new efforts totaled 11 fields. All of them were high-tech fields. The threshold for each field was extremely high. A large number of funds must be injected, and only after a long development cycle could they expect a return. The risk involved could be described as incredibly high. Speaking in terms of fund injections, for 28 R&D divisions, the construction cost for each R&D center would be at least three billion dollars on average! Multiplying the amount by 28, it would be 84 billion! And this only accounts for the hardware facility. They would have to put in more investments subsequently.

At the current time, Xing Hai Technologies had ample cash flow, they would not even have a strain on their budget if it were to be ten billion dollars. But for an amount exceeding 80 billion, Xing Hai Technologies did not have that many assets at the present time.

What would they do if money was not enough? The only thing to do was apply for bank loans. As a high-tech company with zero debt, prominent profitability, and each asset possessing unlimited potential value, it would not be necessary for Xing Hai Technologies to send their personnel to negotiate with the bank. In fact, there were some banks that took initiative to come to Xing Hai Technologies and inquire with them as to whether they needed a loan for the sake of their own business.

Chen Jin opted for the Industrial and Commercial Bank of Z, which had a favorable interest rate, and got a loan guarantee of 50 billion. He could use this fund anytime for his corporate expansion.

Even so, because of all 11 fields that Xing Hai Technologies prepared to enter, most of them were in the high-input and high-risk region, in which it might bear no fruit even with a ten-billion-dollar fund injection into their project. This drew a long line of questioning.

“First is chip design, and now, they even dare step foot in chip manufacturing? That’s some courage they plucked up there. If they could yield results without putting in a few ten-billions, I’ll admit that I lost.”

“Domestic OS? Their own ecosystem of software? Are you dreaming Xing Hai Technologies? How many domestic OS’s that proclaimed themselves as ‘independent intellectual property’ popped up over these years and ended up being complete rip-offs? How ‘independent’ could it really be? How much market could it occupy? Never thought that Xing Hai would not wake up yet. They want to jinx themselves again. You people should be saving money and putting it in the things you are good at!”

“I was always positive about Xing Hai Technologies’ developments. But this time, this is too big of a step and the consequences will not be as simple as just pulling back. This is literally scattering nets at a place with no fish. This is a complete waste of energy and resources. Indeed, they are squandering to the highest extreme.”

Among the tech community and online forums, most people were having doubts about Xing Hai Technologies’ development plan. There were also people that criticized Xing Hai Technologies as someone who was rich but dumb. Even the higher executives of Xing Hai Technologies had a certain amount of doubt towards their young chairman’s expansion blueprint. They were not very optimistic on a few of the projects.

But after being proven wrong many times, they learned their lesson and did not express their doubts directly to Chen Jin. Instead, they said euphemistically, “Mr. Chen, we have so many projects at hand. If half of them achieved success, it will already be a great success. Even a third will be considered good enough. Isn’t our scheme a little too broad? Why don’t we first focus on a few projects that we are confident in?

“Half of them?” Chen Jin shook his head as he smiled. “You people are really looking down on your own company. If only half succeeded, it would be considered a failure for Xing Hai Technologies! Don’t say that our scheme is too broad, either. With Xing Hai Technologies’ profitability, making our scheme wider won’t matter. The more we spend in more places, the better it is for us! Keeping so much cash flow at hand is what scrooges do. Besides, we still have to pay corporate income tax. So instead, why don’t we use them all in investments and create more cakes with the money? To be a tech giant, we must have plenty of product lines, and the pool of our intellectual property must be deep enough as well. Therefore, we still have to continue expanding!”

“Yeah, yeah!”

“What Mr. Chen said is not wrong.”

“Indeed, we cannot stay in our comfort zone. Our goal is to become a tech giant.”

All the high executives nodded their heads. Motivation flowed through their veins as they were filled with boundless pride and enthusiasm.

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