Chapter 128: The Grand Plan of the Learning Machine - Part 1

Ethan only felt sour for a while, then he balanced himself mentally.

Because he remembered, he still had Little Jiao by his side~

Although the four Nintendo emperors, Gunpei Yokoi, Masayuki Uemura, Genyo Takeda, and Shigeru Miyamoto, were all impressive, compared to Steve Jobs, they seemed a bit lacking. The influence of Nintendo's four generals was only in one field, but Steve Jobs had penetrated multiple industries!

If you had to describe it, it would be one section stronger than four!

Heh heh~

When this fact dawned on Ethan, he felt much better.

At the same time, he also remembered one thing—

"Darn it! I almost forgot to buy a special gift for Little Jiao!"

Was Jobs petty? Ethan wasn't sure.

But he believed that when Spielberg received blessings from Akira Kurosawa, Jobs, who only received ordinary gifts, would surely take issue with it. Thinking of this, he patted Hanai Haruki's shoulder as if they were good buddies, and they hooked arms.

"Ethan, is something wrong?" Hanai Haruki asked in confusion.

"Brother, can you do me a favor?" Ethan said. "I have a friend who is very interested in Buddhist culture, so... do you have any suggestions?"

Hanai Haruki was puzzled by Ethan's ambiguous words. After thinking for a moment, he realized that Ethan might be asking him if he could get some gifts representing Zen Buddhist culture.

As for that...

He really wasn't familiar with it.

Because Hanai Haruki was born with a silver spoon in his mouth!

He usually wanted to play every day, so how could he possibly pay attention to self-cultivation matters?

But not knowing was okay, he could ask.

With Hanai Haruki's search, he quickly found a set of books for Ethan. They were scriptures of the Soto Zen sect from Eihei-ji Temple, written by the founder Dogen Zenji, titled "Shobogenzo."

Of course, Hanai Haruki couldn't get his hands on ancient books that had been around for hundreds of years, but what he gave Ethan was not inferior. Because it was a handwritten copy by the current abbot of Eihei-ji Temple.

Not only did it perfectly reproduce the Chinese characters' features of the ancient books, but it also had annotations and explanations in Japanese.

When these things appeared in front of Ethan, the first thought in his mind was that Jobs probably couldn't understand them. But then he thought it didn't matter much, after all, Jobs didn't understand Japanese either, but he still went on a pilgrimage to Kyoto. So, even though there were linguistic differences, as long as it was related to Buddhist scriptures, he should have the intention to study it, right?

While Ethan entertained such thoughts, he returned to the Bay Area at the end of August and presented the scriptures he specially sought to Jobs...

The spirited young man at home immediately couldn't contain his joy!

He opened his arms and wanted to hug Ethan and plant a kiss on his face!

If Ethan hadn't shielded himself with his arms and repeatedly emphasized that Zen culture emphasizes self-cultivation and one shouldn't get too excited or too sad, he might have really been spat on by Jobs!

After breaking free, wiping the fine beads of sweat from his forehead made him pant heavily.

"Oh! Damn! Are you a llama?"

"If you're a llama, I won't dare bring you gifts in the future!"

Ethan scolded irritably.

Jobs sitting on the floor didn't mind at all, smiling and saying, "Oh, Ethan, I'm happy!"

"I really like your gift!"

Jobs' playful appearance made Ethan roll his eyes. He didn't want to argue with this guy anymore, so he slapped his butt and wanted to leave, but his departure made Jobs jump up.

"Ethan, wait!"

"I haven't told you something yet!"

Jobs shouted earnestly, and Ethan stopped in his tracks.

And when he turned his head, looking at Jobs with a puzzled expression, Steve Jobs also jumped into his own garage, slapping a stack of documents in front of him.

With a simple glance, Ethan discovered that it was a set of three copies, totaling two books of stock transfer agreements. Woz and Jobs decided to each take out fifteen percent of the shares and transfer them to him for a total price of fifty thousand dollars.

"You..." Ethan trembled the contract, understanding Jobs' intention.

Jobs was also not coy, leaning back on the table, smiling, "Ethan, I've already told you before, I can't return the fifty thousand dollars you gave me."

"The company hadn't been established before, so there was no way to allocate shares to you."

"On the day the company was established, you happened to be busy with 'Pac-Man', so things had to be postponed."

"And when we registered the company, I had already told Stephen that although we each had fifty percent of the shares, fifteen percent of it belonged to you."

"Stephen didn't mind, he had already signed the stock transfer agreement."

"And mine was signed after finding a lawyer."

"Now, since you're here, just take these things..."

Jobs took out a pen from his coat pocket and handed it to Ethan.

In this situation, Ethan burst into laughter.

With a rustling sound, this company called Apple Computer gained another owner.

At the same time, Ethan's assets also grew a bit:

At this moment, he was the majority shareholder of Destiny Game, owning seventy percent of the shares;

He was also a shareholder of Chuck Peddle's chip company, owning twenty percent of the shares;

He was a partner of Nintendo Kyoto Chip Company, owning thirty percent of the shares;

He was also an angel investor for Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, owning thirty percent of the shares of Apple Computer Company...

Ethan wasn't sure about the value of these things.

But it didn't matter.

Because Ethan Jones wasn't interested in money~

Heh heh~

After returning the contracts belonging to the company, Jobs, and Woz, Ethan casually asked, "Steve, why did you suddenly ask me to sign? Did something happen to the company?"

In fact, after giving Jobs fifty thousand dollars, Ethan had never understood the situation of the company.

Not that he didn't want to, but he didn't have the chance.

Today happened to have some time, so he casually asked, and his words made Jobs laugh as he pulled out a ledger from the drawer and pushed it in front of him.

"Yes, something happened to the company," Jobs said triumphantly. "The sales of the APPLE 1 exceeded expectations, and Stephen thinks this business has great potential, so we're going to take off like an airplane!"

Opening the ledger, those records were like spring rain, nourishing a sapling to grow vigorously.

Although Apple had been established for less than half a year, they had already sold two thousand six hundred eighty-three units of the APPLE 1, with total revenue exceeding one million eight hundred thousand dollars!

Although this sales volume couldn't match the Nintendo that was released in January 1975, it was already remarkable among startup companies!

What's more important was that while countless companies were seeking sales methods, the name Apple had already spread throughout North America thanks to 'Pac-Man'!

And this was something that made all companies en

vious!

After all, no matter how good a product was, it still needed promotion!

Ethan was very satisfied with this report.

After a simple flip through, without careful reading, he closed it and said, "Do you have any plans?"

"Of course!"

Facing Ethan, Jobs had no intention of concealing anything. He said directly, "I and Stephen have discussed it. I'm going to rent an office, hire a few fixed employees, because I used to ask friends for help, paying them by piecework to assemble computers for me... Then, we also received some feedback from customers. Stephen will go and solve some small problems with the APPLE 1 and try to upgrade it in some categories, striving to launch a better new product next year..."

Perhaps because the future was visibly bright, when talking about his own career, Jobs was shining with excitement. He talked endlessly to Ethan about his arrangements, introduced his and Woz's division of labor, and explained his idea of inviting friends to work and hiring them.

Ethan didn't see any problem with these arrangements.

But when Jobs mentioned Woz and said he wanted to develop some games for future new computers, Ethan, who heard this strange idea, spoke up, "Stephen wants to develop computer games?"

"Why?"

This idea puzzled Ethan.

Because he himself made games!

In this case, Apple also wanted to make games?

What's going on!