Meeting each CEO individually, one-on-one, would take way too long and consume too much of Ludo's time.
So instead, he made his intentions clear in his reply with all of the executives cc'd.
[Dear Esteemed Sirs and Madams,
As the founder and sole owner of Bluestar Technologies, I appreciate all of your enthusiastic replies, inquiries, offers and… colourful expressions of interest regarding the AI system I have developed.
After thoroughly reviewing your proposals, allow me to clarify some things, so there is no confusion between us moving forward.
First and foremost: I am not selling any shares, I am not offering any equity, nor am I inviting any investors or strategic partners to join me.
Bluestar Technologies will remain entirely under my ownership and control — that is a non-negotiable term.
What is available for purchase, however, is the technology itself — specifically the ownership rights to Blue 1.0 for the next 10 years, excluding any research documents or development infrastructure.
After careful consideration, and to save my valuable time, I have decided the following.
1. Each interested party may submit a private bid via this email.
2. These bids must represent your final offer, there will be no changing of minds, or a rebid should you be dissatisfied that you don't win it.
3. No parties will be informed of the amounts offered by rival companies — of course, I can't stop you from sharing that information with each other, but its your own choice to trust whether they amounts they tell you are truthful or not, you are all businessmen of stature after all, I'm sure I don't need you to remind you of that.
4. After 24 hours have passed from the timestamp of this email, the winning bidder will be announced.
Happy Bidding. ]
He hit reply and pushed that to the back of his mind from that moment onwards. The reason he gave them 24 hours' time was simple: some of them may not have the funds immediately on hand to transfer over, and he was giving courtesy to some of the executives who were in a different timezone to him as well.
Though, his thoughts did run deeper than that, and Blue had helped him consider some things.
The idea of all of them sending in a private bid was one that he was proud of; he had no desire to be the mediator of what would effectively be a 'who can shout the loudest' competition between each of the executives should he have a public bid with each of them involved.
It saved him time and allowed him to allocate his mind to other things.
And he was currently mulling over those other things.
'Do I…? I could be putting myself, and the whole planet at risk if I did so…'
Over the past few days, Ludo had come to realise that his hopes of keeping the Earth a secret from the galactic society, where the Galactic Terminal originated from, were nothing but a pipe dream.
He'd originally planned to only purchase virtual items from the trading hubs, namely technology, so that he could use his funds and influence on Earth to develop those technologies himself, instead of buying the physical item from the trading hub and risk exposing Earth to outsiders – or well, more outsiders, since the Galactic Terminal had already obtained his location.
But he knew that wasn't going to cut it in the long run.
It could probably work for the first few years, but then he'd hit an eventual roadblock and be forced to buy and even sell physical items on the trading hub and even inevitably come into contact with the galactic society.
Most importantly though, the biggest reason for his concern regarding this was, ironically, his own safety.
Not from aliens, but from his own people, humans.
The implicit threats sent by some of the more aggressive executives had made him realise the harsh reality that he lived in, and while none of them had actually done anything to him (yet), the idea that someday somebody might be bold enough to try something against him was not one that he liked.
And he knew that even if he hired the best private security, and constructed the safest facilities that Earth had to offer, he was never truly safe from attacks.
Right now, the biggest threat to his safety he could think of was the various governments across the world. As time moved on and he started revealing more and more groundbreaking technology — ones that would be of particular interest to the powerful countries — the risk of him being kidnapped and held for ransom, outright killed, or threatened to reveal his secrets would rise.
The reason for this was that on Earth, everyone was on an even playing field.
The only way for Ludo to at least guarantee his safety from most attacks, save for the most improbable kind like nuclear bombs, was to use technology that elevated him above Earth's playing field.
The only way to do that would be to trade for the items directly from the Galactic Terminal's trading hub.
And in the end, Ludo came to the conclusion that instead of reaching an eventual bottleneck sometime in the future, at the risk that he may be harmed before that point by hostile forces on Earth, it was better to take the risk now.
Besides, it would be a lie to say that Ludo wasn't at least a tiny bit curious to see how his items would be delivered.
'Okay, maybe more than a tiny bit…'
But he made sure to confirm with the Galactic Terminal first.
"Is there a discreet delivery option? I'd rather not cause an international incident with a great big spaceship hovering in the sky above Earth just to deliver some items to me…"
[Such an option is available, but a surcharge of 5% must be paid on top of the existing costs. Items delivered through this method must have a designated set of coordinates sent to the seller, who will then airdrop the contents of your delivery using stealth and cloaking technology to conceal their presence.]
'Phew. Thank god for that option…'
Honestly, Ludo didn't know how he would even conduct business over the Galactic Net if it weren't for this, though he was also curious how sales from his end would work in that case, but that was a problem for him to consider in the future when the need arose.
He had no business trying to sell anything of his own at the moment on the trading hub.
Besides, the sell option was still locked, while Ludo was still clueless on how to change that.