Chapter 7: <Close the Gates to Hell>

6:30 pm.

It was the end of the official working hours for Daesan System employees working at Nuri Finances. But no one could ever leave on time as far as Park Junwoo could remember, and he has worked here since the beginning of the new generation system.

He felt nervous.

“Is… is this really ok?”

Kim Yonggun felt the same.

“I know… can we… really do this?”

They left the office, but they felt uncomfortable. Kim Yonggun wanted to ask Park Junwoo but looked at Woosung instead. Woosung was extraordinary.

“You guys deserve to go home on time. You’ve worked so hard.”

He had the ability to attract people. Kim Yonggun has known Woosung for only a day, but he felt like he could trust him. He also felt pressured to follow Woosung’s lead. Park Junwoo’s eyes widened and asked again.

“Hmm…?”

“I could tell how hard you worked from looking at your codes. I can also tell that there will be a lot of problems ahead of us with this system. You must know better than I do those previous programmers messed it up big time. We will have to work hard to fix it.”

Woosung paused. Park Junwoo and Kim Yonggun waited for Woosung to continue. This was no ordinary newbie.

Why was it so easy to trust him?

Because Woosung’s behavior and words seemed right.

“I haven’t graduated from the top school and I may be new, but I am confident about my skills. The only thing I lack is experience, but if you two can help me out, I know I will be a huge asset and the work will become easier for all of us.”

Park Junwoo and Kim Yonggun looked at each other. They believed him. They hesitated to respond. Woosung added.

“As you know, the gates to hell haven’t opened yet. Today was just an open beta but starting tomorrow, the users will log in for real and it will become hectic for us. If we continue to react like today rather than act and think ahead, the problems will pile up and…. You understand, right?”

“We understand what you’re saying. So what do you propose?”

“First, you need to study TDD (Test-driven development) by tomorrow. As soon as I complete the test code, our team should change to using TDD.”

Kim Yonggun remembered hearing about it at a software conference, but it was a new concept to Park Junwoo.

“Have you heard of it, Assistant manager Kim?”

“I think it’s a form of a software development process. It allows a fast development of prototypes to incorporate customers’ frequent feedbacks. It is a newer method to the waterfall model.”

“I… I see.”

They reached the subway. It was now time for them to split. Woosung told them.

“This is the only way to close the gates to hell, so please make sure you study it.”

Both nodded.

***

After dinner, Woosung sat in front of his computer at home. He opened Excel.

-January 15, 2018: Death at the age of 36

Woosung wrote the first line and gritted his teeth.

“That bastard…”

He breathed in deeply and controlled his anger. For his revenge against Choi Gichul, Woosung had to plan every single day carefully. The first thing he had to do was to organize what would happen and figure out which events he can use to his advantage. Woosung typed quickly.

– January 10, 2008: 26 years old again. First day of work. Starting the new Nuri Finances project.

– October 2008: World financial crisis.

– October 2008: Paper on Bitcoin posted.

– November 2008: Bitcoin project registers at Sourceforge.net

– January 2009: Bitcoin Genesis Block mined. Mining program released. First Bitcoin transfer made.

– June 2009: First Android phone Daeyang Electronics’ Blue S released.

– October 2009: 1500 Bitcoin equals 1 dollar.

– November 2009: iPhone released in Korea. Beginning of the rise of smartphones.

– December 2011: Hadoop, a file system for storing big data, released.

– April 2013: Opening of Korea’s first cryptocurrency dealer Buybit.

– December 2014: Cryptocurrency dealer Bitmain opens.

– July 2015: Initial release of Ethereum.

– January 10, 2015: First day of work at Bitmain.

– January 2016: Ethereum equals 1 dollar.

Woosung went furious as he looked at the word Bitmain.

“Phew… just relax. Getting upset will not help. He knows nothing at this point, anyway.”

Looking at the list he made, he knew he had plenty of opportunities.

Financial crisis.

Cryptocurrency.

Smartphone.

These three alone could make him rich enough to destroy Choi Gichul.

“I now have knowledge of the three biggest events, I will add other smaller details later.”

After completing the initial list of future events, Woosung began organizing the current events. He had to remember his present situation.

“I think I had about 26,000 dollars of tuition debt left…”

He started his list.

– 26,000 dollars of tuition debt.

– His parents put 62,000 dollars of down payment on the apartment.

– Of this 62,000 dollars, 35,000 was mortgage debt.

– His current saving balance was 900 dollars.

– His beginning salary was 800 dollars per month for the first three months. It would be 1,700 dollars per month before taxes.

“This is where I start.”

26,000 dollars of debt and savings of 900 dollars.

After taxes, his salary will be less than 900 dollars per month, but Woosung was not worried. If he gained 10,000 Bitcoins next year, it will skyrocket into 180 million dollars in 2017. This wasn’t the only way. Before the release of the smartphones, he could develop an Android game or a chat app like “Coconut,” that would be popular in the future. Either way, he could become filthy rich.

To do this, he needed two things.

Money and skills.

“The fastest way to make money now is…”

He couldn’t remember any winning lotto numbers or potential stocks, but he remembered that the financial crisis in October 2008 caused the plummeting of KOSPI to its lowest point.

“Should I buy some stocks?”

Day trading was not easy. Then, Woosung suddenly remembered what will happen tomorrow at work. Memories from 10 years ago came back. The answer was there.

“Oh! If I use that method, I should be able to at least pay the tuition debt back and make a bit of money. The programming….”

Woosung looked at the list of future events and decided on what he had to study.

“JAVA and Object C for Android, iOS (iPhone OS), C++ for Bitcoin, and… what was it for Ethereum? What was it…?”

He remembered looking it up out of curiosity. It was an unusual word. It was 2008 now, so he couldn’t look it up online.

“Oh! It was the Go from Google.”

Ethereum’s main programming language was Google’s Go. Woosung searched the internet and realized the required compiler or the packages weren’t available yet. This meant the first thing to do was to learn Go. Woosung made plans and prioritized.

“Now I just need to follow my plan.”

It wasn’t even 10 pm. He continued to work till late.

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