Chapter 58: Recruitment

Ye Tianming had always kept the office space he had previously selected for Li Mu, about seventy square meters in size, divided into three rooms of varying sizes. One room occupied half of the area, serving as a fairly spacious workspace. At present, there were six workstations sparsely arranged, though it could easily accommodate ten people. In addition, there was a small meeting room of over twenty square meters and a compact office of just over ten.

At nine in the morning, Li Mu called the owners of several resumes to inform them of their interviews. Among the four, only Kong Lingyu had a mobile phone; the others had left pager numbers, making the notifications somewhat troublesome.

Li Mu first contacted Kong Lingyu, the web developer from China Yahoo. When Kong Lingyu received the call, he hadn’t yet gotten out of bed. Upon hearing about the interview, he was cautious, asking about the company’s background. Recently, many companies had invited him to interviews, only for him to discover they weren’t proper internet companies at all. Most just wanted a web developer to build a corporate page, which left Kong Lingyu quite frustrated.

He’d always thought that, as a second-tier city, Jinling—though not as large as Yanjing—wouldn’t lag far behind in development. But after returning, he realized Jinling was still barren ground for the internet. Apart from a few local forums and chatrooms, there were no fresh internet products. Not to mention portals—even his own “Website Home” was a unique offering.

Over the phone, Kong Lingyu asked Li Mu in detail, “May I know your company’s core business in the internet field?”

Li Mu replied, “Our current focus is developing an online music streaming and downloading site.”

“A streaming site?” Kong Lingyu repeated, now a bit interested. At least it was genuine internet business.

Li Mu explained, “You can think of it as a portal site centered around music.”

Kong Lingyu was somewhat familiar with streaming sites—there were quite a few now, and he often listened to music on similar platforms.

“Alright,” Kong Lingyu agreed without much hesitation. “Please let me know the time and location.”

“I’ll text you the address shortly. As for the time, let’s make it today—the sooner, the better.”

Soon after, Li Mu received calls back from the others, and the interview times were set.

Ye Tianming, not wanting Li Mu’s interviews to appear too shabby, quickly found the building’s management staff. Within less than an hour, he had assembled the necessary desks, sofas, and meeting tables for the office and conference room.

It now looked like a real office, though Li Mu hadn’t had time to register a company. He’d originally planned to do so first, but decided against it—most websites were personal projects at this stage, so there was no need to register a company just for a site.

Kong Lingyu arrived at eleven in the morning. When he found the office building, he was surprised—it was one of Jinling’s premier office towers. Companies that could rent here must have some financial strength.

But upon meeting Li Mu, his astonishment grew severalfold.

“You can’t be twenty yet, right?” That was Kong Lingyu’s first question upon seeing Li Mu.

“That’s correct,” Li Mu replied without hesitation, nodding. “I haven’t started university yet—this September.”

Kong Lingyu was a person with a true internet mindset. He knew two key rules in the field: ability doesn’t depend on age, and greatness doesn’t care about background.

Curious, Kong Lingyu asked, “Since you’re about to start university, why venture into the internet business now?”

Li Mu replied calmly, “I attend university offline and start a business online—these two don’t conflict.”

“Online and offline” was still a fresh concept. Kong Lingyu’s eyes lit up. “You’re right. Besides, university does leave plenty of free time.”

Li Mu nodded, then got straight to the point. “Let’s talk business. I’ve reviewed your resume—it fits my current needs. I want a technical director to help lead the development of Yi Ting and manage post-launch maintenance. Also, overseeing servers and testing is part of the technical director’s role.”

Kong Lingyu asked, “What do you mean by partial development?”

“I’ve already started development myself—about twenty percent is done. But I really don’t have the time, so I need a technical director to take charge, lead other tech staff, and complete the website according to my requirements.”

Kong Lingyu was even more surprised. An eighteen-year-old starting a business wasn’t unheard of, and being able to rent such a space before the project launched suggested he might be a rich kid. But an eighteen-year-old who could do web development was exceedingly rare in the country. After all, high schools hadn’t yet fully adopted computer classes, and even those interested in programming often lacked suitable opportunities.

Seeing some doubt in his expression, Li Mu handed over his laptop to show the unfinished project. “You can take a look—this is just a preliminary backend logic.”

Kong Lingyu, astonished, took the laptop and browsed a few pages of code. His impression of Li Mu changed dramatically.

Code was dull, yet also a kind of art, akin to mathematics. For example, every function in a program was like a math problem; different developers had different ways to solve it. Not everyone could crack the problem, and certainly not everyone could find the most efficient solution. Thus, when a programmer sees superior code, it’s like a mathematician seeing a brilliant solution—they instantly recognize the other’s skill.

After just a few pages, Kong Lingyu sensed Li Mu’s web programming ability was higher than his own. If he were to write code to the same requirements, he’d probably end up with twice the length.

The length of code not only reflected mastery of technology, but also logical ability. In development, logic is paramount. The more concise, direct, and clear the code, the greater the skill—and even the talent and accomplishment—of its author.

“May I ask where you learned programming? Your skill far surpasses mine. It’s like comparing intermediate English to a native speaker—the gap is huge.”

“It’s not as extreme as that,” Li Mu waved his hand. “The most important part of code isn’t the writing, but the thinking before you write. It’s like translation—if I asked you to translate ‘How are you?’ into English, how would you do it?”

“How-are-you,” Kong Lingyu answered immediately.

Li Mu opened a document on the laptop. “Type it out.”

Kong Lingyu typed “how-are-you,” nine letters, into the document.

Li Mu smiled, pulled the laptop to himself, and said as he typed, “If it were me, I’d write it like this. Take a look.”

He handed it back to Kong Lingyu, who was stunned—the words were: “how-r-u,” only five letters.

“This…” Kong Lingyu was confused.

Li Mu explained, “The pronunciation of ‘r’ is the same as ‘are’; ‘u’ sounds like ‘you.’ So this is enough for the reader to understand.”

Now Kong Lingyu got it. That was it! Computer language and human language shared many similarities. Programmers were translators, converting human language into computer language and making it comprehensible to machines. Those who mastered language and thought deeply could use the simplest, most direct way to convey meaning. That was the essence of programming.

Kong Lingyu looked at Li Mu in a new light. He vaguely sensed that Li Mu must have studied overseas or learned from foreign experts; otherwise, he couldn’t possibly have such profound insight into programming.

Li Mu’s analogy neatly sidestepped Kong Lingyu’s previous question. He shared his general plan for Yi Ting, then declared confidently, “The era of online music streaming hasn’t really arrived yet, nor has the widespread adoption of mp3. If we build this business now, we might one day become the Baidu or Yahoo of online music.”

Kong Lingyu didn’t know when mp3s would become ubiquitous, but he agreed with Li Mu’s vision. Online music was a service the internet provided for users’ convenience; demand would only grow. Getting a foothold in this field early meant being ready for the wave when it came.