novelno Chapter 176 The Sun God Research Institute
Chapter 176 The Sun God Research Institute
Chapter 176 The Sun God Research Institute
Menlo Park, a city located in the heart of Silicon Valley, is where Ernst chose to establish the headquarters for his ambitious cloud computing development plan.
If Silicon Valley is likened to a vast and prosperous metropolis, then the scattered cities of Menlo Park, San Jose, and Mountain View are like its various administrative districts, adjacent to each other and only a dozen or twenty kilometers apart, together forming this fertile ground for global technological innovation.
In Silicon Valley, when choosing a company headquarters, you don't need to consider factors like talent; they're all pretty much the same. You only need to consider the city environment and land costs.
As Ernst and his party arrived at the entrance of a stylish hotel in Menlo Park, they were greeted by Cassio Lake, dressed casually, accompanied by a man.
Cassio, with a warm smile on his face, said, "Ernst, it's only been a few days, but you're still as handsome as ever."
This sounded like flattery, and he even gave Ernst a warm hug.
However, Ernst felt a little awkward. If you can't flatter, don't force it. Even though I'll soon be your boss, there's no need to fawn over me. What changes could I possibly make in a few days?
"I didn't expect you to arrive so quickly. I thought you'd have to wait a few days until you finished your handover work before you could come over," Ernst said, looking at Cassio with genuine surprise on his face.
They just talked on the phone yesterday, and he arrived today. Are Amazon and Bezos really that easy to talk to, letting him come over so readily?
Cassio seemed to see through Ernst's doubts and revealed the truth: "Actually, my resignation hasn't been approved yet, so I'm basically absent from work today."
"I see," Ernst realized, and then turned his gaze to the man of similar age standing next to Cassio.
Cassio then slapped his forehead and laughed, "Look at me, I forgot to introduce you. This is Toby Burton, my best partner at the MAC Institute."
He paused, his tone full of confidence and admiration, "I can assure you that Toby's achievements in distributed computing research are absolutely no less than mine."
Then, Cassio excitedly added, "When I told him you were willing to invest heavily in developing distributed computing, Toby came over without hesitation."
Cassio then looked slightly apologetic and explained to Ernst, "As you know, I still have to deal with my resignation and hand over my work, so I can't stay here long-term. Therefore, the preliminary preparations will have to be handled by Toby."
After he finished speaking, he glanced at Ernst cautiously. After all, he was unsure of himself for making the decision without Ernst's permission, and he knew that these business tycoons disliked such uncontrollable behavior the most.
Clearly, his worries were unnecessary. Ernst disliked nothing more than an amateur leading an expert. Seeing the addition of Toby Burton, a man of considerable talent, his smile deepened, and he extended his right hand to shake hands with Toby Burton.
"Welcome. I didn't expect that before I could even set up my platform, I would have another great general."
Toby Burton felt much more at ease knowing that Ernst was not being insincere.
For researchers, encountering an investor who values talent and gives them full trust is undoubtedly a great blessing, often meaning a high degree of freedom in research and development.
After exchanging brief greetings, the group walked side by side into the hotel.
On the way, Ernst asked with concern, "Has Mr. McCarthy not arrived yet?"
Cassio Lake pressed the elevator button and replied, "The teacher has arrived, but he's too old, so I didn't ask him to come down."
Ernst waved his hand dismissively and said, "It is only right. As a respected scholar, it is my duty to pay him a visit."
At that moment, the elevator doors slowly opened, and everyone stepped inside.
As the elevator ascended, Cassio couldn't hide his excitement. "I really didn't expect you to actually be able to invite the teacher. I thought you were joking."
Ernst smiled slightly and said calmly, "I'm a man of my word, I don't do anything deceptive or fraudulent. You'll see once you get to know me better."
1
Scams and deceptions are commonplace in the business world.
The cutthroat competition in various business sectors is particularly evident in the battle for talent, with dangling empty promises to lure talent becoming the norm in the industry.
The elevator quickly reached the top floor of the hotel, and the group walked all the way to John McCarthy's room.
Upon entering, Ernst took two quick steps forward and shook hands with John McCarthy to greet him.
This highly respected elderly man was completely unpretentious, with a natural and approachable demeanor that made people feel very welcome.
After everyone was seated, John McCarthy immediately steered the conversation to cloud computing: "I spoke with Cassio on the phone, and he told me about your distributed computing concept, which is what you call cloud computing."
"You want to break down the barriers of traditional IT and achieve massive sharing across hardware, storage, and networks, right?"
Ernst nodded and said seriously, "That's right, that's indeed the initial goal. Computing resources, storage resources, and network resources should all be realized through virtualization, thereby reducing the start-up costs for IT entrepreneurs and breaking the traditional IT model that is mainly based on servers, hardware, and software."
Upon hearing this, the group exchanged glances, all keenly noting the key phrase "initial goal."
John McCarthy asked, somewhat puzzled, "You have more ideas?"
Ernst didn't hide anything, revealing all he knew about the development of cloud computing: "Yes, this is only the first part."
"In my view, I divide cloud computing into two main categories: hardware and software. We just talked about the hardware aspect, and next we will discuss the goal of software sharing."
He organized his thoughts and continued, "From design to implementation, a software product involves many software modules. With the continuous development of the Internet, these modules will become increasingly diverse, such as customer modules, review systems, text modules, recognition modules, and so on."
"These modules are used very frequently, but their development costs are not low. If a company develops them in-house, it will not only require a large number of technical personnel and a long time, but also continuous iteration and maintenance in the later stages."
"Then why can't we provide these modules? Just like providing hardware services, we can also implement cloud computing on the software side —"
Ernst spoke at length, and what he was describing was essentially what later became known as SaaS (Software as a Service).
The concepts of PaaS (Platform as a Service) and IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service).
The entire internet industry can be subdivided into network resources, storage resources, computing resources, virtualization, operating systems, middleware, runtime environments, applications, and user data, all of which can become the services provided by cloud computing.
"Specifically, it can provide underlying hardware and virtualization design, namely network resources, storage resources, computing resources, and virtualization-related services, as well as software application and data maintenance services on this basis."
"In the future, an internet company may only need to focus on user data, and all other resources and services can be purchased on a cloud computing platform."
This is similar to making dumplings for Chinese New Year. Under normal circumstances, making dumplings requires a kitchen, water, electricity, gas, pots and pans, meat, vegetables, flour, and seasonings.
However, if you only cook at home on Chinese New Year and don't need these things at other times, buying them is undoubtedly a waste of resources.
Just then, a public kitchen offered to provide all of these things at a very low price.
You can bring your own meat, vegetables, noodles, and seasonings, or you can bring nothing at all. All the ingredients are prepared by the communal kitchen, so you can just come and pack them up.
Even more conveniently, you don't even need to lift a finger; the communal kitchen can provide pre-made dumplings.
Cloud computing is like this communal kitchen, capable of providing a variety of services based on different needs, charging for each service used.
Looking at the world's top internet companies that followed, not one of them failed to get involved in the cloud computing field.
In the internet industry, there are countless companies that need to "make dumplings." Whoever controls this central kitchen is essentially controlling the lifeline of everyone who eats dumplings.
John McCarthy and his two companions were immediately struck by Ernst's words, their eyes lighting up with astonishment.
They hadn't expected Ernst's imagination to be so boundless; they were still only considering hardware concepts, while Ernst had already taken into account the software aspect, which was still in its infancy.
After a moment's thought, John McCarthy shook his head. "Then your Google isn't good enough to be this guinea pig."
"I originally thought that after establishing the initial cloud computing you mentioned, we could use Google for testing. But now it seems that companies that mainly focus on C-end business are inherently disadvantaged and simply cannot perfectly complete data collection. Only companies that mainly focus on B-end business are the largest experimental platforms."
Ernst was astonished, realizing that Ernst was indeed a leading figure in the industry.
I only said a few words about the general content, but the other party was able to pinpoint the key point.
Why is Alibaba, an e-commerce platform, considered the best cloud computing provider in Asia in recent years? Why has Amazon's cloud computing been so successful, while Tencent and Google's cloud computing have been somewhat inferior?
Because Alibaba and Amazon are primarily B2B businesses, they have a large number of platform merchants who can act as guinea pigs, thus obtaining more feedback.
These businesses are like real product managers, playing a crucial role in the research and development of technology.
In contrast, Google and Tencent are both companies that primarily focus on consumer-facing (C-end) businesses, directly engaging with a broad user base.
You can't expect users to provide feedback on platform computing while they're playing games, listening to music, or watching videos, can you? That's obviously unrealistic.
This is one of the reasons why Tencent is willing to lose so much money to enter the e-commerce field, because B2B companies will become increasingly important in the future.
"That's right, I've already planned to set up an e-commerce company, just to be the guinea pig in the future," Ernst nodded in response.
Cassio, standing to the side, hesitated, but Ernst knew he wanted to talk about Amazon, though the other man probably didn't know Bezos's hostility towards him.
John McCarthy, unaware of the reasons, was most concerned with funding, so he asked, "How much are you planning to invest in this research institute?"
Developing cloud computing requires significant investment in hardware; even the initial investment alone requires a massive amount of capital.
"One hundred million US dollars. I will initially invest one hundred million US dollars in the Sun God Research Institute," Ernst gave a clear answer.
The research and development of cloud computing takes place in research institutes, not by establishing a company.
The institute's core research and development task is currently cloud computing, but that doesn't mean it won't explore other areas.
With a luminary like John McCarthy at the helm, the institute would undoubtedly attract a large number of talented individuals, and Ernst had no reason not to maximize its value.
The three were deeply attracted when they heard Ernst's offer of one hundred million dollars.
The fact that Ernst was able to come up with such a huge amount of funding in the early stages shows that his determination to vigorously develop cloud computing is not just empty talk, which makes them full of expectations for future research and development.
The atmosphere in the room then became even more lively.
Toby Burton spoke first, sharing his views on Ernst's hardware virtualization concept based on his research experience in distributed computing: "Mr. Ernst, your proposed hardware resource virtualization is indeed key to breaking down traditional IT barriers. However, in practice, how to achieve seamless collaboration between different hardware devices and how to ensure data security during the virtualization process are key challenges that need to be addressed."
Ernst listened attentively. The people in front of him were the experts in this field, while he was just a novice.
"You make a very good point; these issues are indeed not to be ignored. Data security is of paramount importance, and we must invest a great deal of effort in developing reliable encryption technologies and protection systems to ensure that user data is not leaked or tampered with in a virtualized environment."
John McCarthy added, "Hardware virtualization is just the foundation; software-level sharing involves more technical details and standardization issues. Different software modules may be based on different development languages and architectures. How to achieve efficient compatibility and invocation between them on cloud computing platforms requires a complete set of interface standards and protocols."
Cassio chimed in, "The teacher is right, and the iteration and maintenance of software modules is also a major issue. If the modules we provide cannot be updated in a timely manner to adapt to market demands, then their appeal will be greatly reduced. We need to establish a rapid-response R&D team to continuously optimize module performance based on user feedback."
Seeing the three of them having such a heated discussion, Ernst became even more determined in his decision.
He said, "Fortunately, we have plenty of time to achieve hardware sharing first. As for the software issue, the Internet is developing, and perhaps a solution will be available by then."
John McCarthy nodded in agreement, saying, "We have to take things one step at a time. Ernst is right. We can't be too ambitious."
Before we knew it, the sky was gradually darkening.
Ernst glanced at his watch, surprised that the group had been discussing for so long that they had even forgotten about lunch.
Just as I was about to ask Annie to book a restaurant, I turned around and found that she was gone.
John McCarthy seemed to know who he was looking for, and said, "Are you looking for that girl? I saw her walk into the bedroom this afternoon carrying a bunch of snacks."
Ernst glanced at the tightly closed master bedroom door, walked over, pushed it open, and nearly burst out laughing at the scene inside.
Annie was snoring away on the big bed, with various snacks and packaging scattered on the floor, and an empty steak plate on the table.
So you think you're the only one who knows how hungry you are? Why didn't you remind me?
Ernst then cursed himself for leaving the bodyguards outside the door. At least Muller and the others in the room would have reminded him.