The next day...
Zane was in Silicon Valley, visiting the ICQ office in the Wald Building.
ICQ was a brand-new internet company, and everyone who worked there was very young.
The CEO, Weisge, was 27.
The President, Vardy, was 26.
The tech boss, Goldfinger, was 26.
And the marketing boss, Annon, was only 24!
But that was normal for Silicon Valley in the 1990s. It was a young person's world!
The official version of ICQ was finally finished. Zane, who knew from his old life how huge this chat program would become, had made sure to get involved early.
"I'm really a genius," Zane thought happily. "I got 40% of the company for just $400,000! Even if they sell more shares later, I'm still going to make a ton of money!"
He knew that in 1998, AOL would buy ICQ for over $400 million!
"Zane! You're finally here!" Weisge said, greeting him.
"How could I not come?" Zane smiled warmly. "I am the Chief Creative Officer, after all."
"Exactly," Vardy agreed, nodding.
Even though Zane didn't visit often, he was perfect for the job. Every idea he gave them was brilliant.
Of course, it was easy for Zane. He was from the future! He knew exactly how modern chat apps worked. He told them to add things like:
Free downloads.
Special titles for members.
Cool text colors and effects for people who paid.
And most importantly... versions in other languages!
Zane knew that in his old life, ICQ made a big mistake. They only made an English version. Because of that, other countries made their own chat apps in their own languages, and ICQ lost a lot of users.
"With my help," Zane thought, "this new ICQ will be way better than the old one."
But Zane was also realistic. He knew he couldn't make ICQ rule the whole world. Even giants like Amazon and Google had trouble in other countries.
So, his goal was simple: Make ICQ as big as possible, and then sell his shares for a huge profit!
"I'm just a regular guy," he told himself. "Running a movie studio is hard enough. I can't save every company. I'll just help ICQ reach the top, and then... cash out!"
...
"Mr. Blackwood," Goldfinger said, "version 1.0 is ready. We tested it for a week, and it's perfect. Our servers can handle one million people chatting at the same time!"
Zane nodded. "One million is great for now. But we need to add more servers. In the future, we'll need to handle tens of millions, maybe even hundreds of millions!"
The young team agreed. They had no money, but they had plenty of energy!
Then, Zane made another suggestion.
"Are you talking about putting ads inside movies?" Weisge asked, surprised. "Zane, that's a great idea to get people to use ICQ... but we have no money!"
"Yeah," Vardy said. "Money is our biggest problem."
"And," Goldfinger added, "we'd need to pick a movie that hasn't come out yet but is going to be a huge hit."
Money? A huge hit movie?
Zane smiled. He had been waiting for this.
"Everyone," Zane said with a charming grin, "don't forget... I'm not just your creative officer. I'm also the owner of a movie studio! My new movie, Juno, is coming out soon. I can put ICQ ads right inside the movie!"
He knew Juno was going to make $140 million and be super popular with young people—the exact people who use the internet!
"Of course," Zane added playfully, "I'll have to charge you for it. But I'll give you a discount. How about $300,000?"
The room went quiet. $300,000 was a great price... but ICQ didn't even have that.
"Money is not a problem," Zane said, his smile widening. "I have it! I can just invest more money into the company to pay for it."
The team talked it over. They knew they needed the money, so they agreed.
Zane invested another $500,000. In return, he got another 5% of the company.
Now, Zane owned 45% of ICQ! He was officially the biggest shareholder.
...
Back at his movie studio in Los Angeles, Zane told Victor to call the director of Juno.
"Have them shoot a few new scenes," Zane said. "We need to show the characters using ICQ."
"Boss," Victor asked, "is this ICQ company yours, too?"
Zane waved his hand and laughed. "No, no. I just own a small share."
A small share?
If the ICQ team heard that, they would have called him shameless! He owned almost half the company!
But things were going great. Good news always seemed to come in pairs.
Just a few days later, Zane got more wonderful news.
All 40 episodes of the first season of "SpongeBob SquarePants" were finished and ready to go!
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