Soon enough, business started moving a little. He started to receive contracts from companies all over the country, so Jerry began hiring people to the company he built, which numbered up to four in the first year.
Two years later, as a result of his transparency and hard work, his company boomed, and more and more companies began to associate with him to popularize the company's web application. More and more people began using the web conferencing application, which was completely free, although it was monetized by ads.
Jerry was happy about this, so he hired more people to work for his company. Jerry then decided to bring his entire family to New York City, and used his connection to give his father a new construction job and his mother a manicure job. Things were going well for him until one mistake shook the foundation of the company to its very core.
A group of hackers allegedly hacked their servers stole all the user's credentials and began selling their identities for money on the dark web. To make the matters worse, Jerry did not even know their servers were broken on, so he never saw any reason to check and reinforce the security of the server's database.
As a result, when this vulnerability reached the ears of citizens of the US, they backlash angrily at the company, and consequently, they stopped using the services, one after the other. As a result, the companies that swore solidarity began cutting ties with him, and the more than seventy per cent of volunteers that maintains the web app disappeared like they never existed.
To make the matters worse, his employees began to resign one after the other, until it was only twenty out of the fifty employees he had, and right now, his biggest contractor had just withdrawn from him, which threatened to doom the company.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Tears formed in the eyes of Jerry as he stared at the family photos on his desk. His father did his best in making him what he is today, despite the blue-collar job he was doing. If all he built crashed down right now, he would return to zero, and that would spell doom for him.
Jerry had no other choice but to grab the bull by the horn and visit the freelancing site. He typed the name that Michael had said earlier and checked the info.
The person claims he is twenty-four years old, and he's a graduate of Oxford University. He was certified with web design and desktop and mobile program development. That seems a lot of achievement for a twenty-four-year-old man.
Although Jerry did not have faith that this would work, what choice does he have right now? So he decided to send him a proposal and requested him to create a backend of the company's website from scratch. He wanted to test this person as to if he would freak and back out.
Jerry did not expect the person to message him back immediately. He opened the message which read:
Hi Mr Jerry, I received your message and I would like to thank you for messaging me. My name is Andrew Pierce, and I am a website engineer. I had been doing this work for more than five years, so certain that whatever anyone asks me to do relating to website development, I bring that to reality.
As much as I want to satisfy my potential client, I am a bit confused. You asked me to build something that pertains to web development, which I don't understand. Are you asking me to build a website front end or a backend? Reply to me immediately for more of the info.
Simon Pierce.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
In a street in Canada, James was inside an electronic store carting off couples of SSDs and cables and placing them on the cart. The AI was expanding too rapidly on his home PC, and his storage was not able to accommodate it anymore, so James had no choice but to buy more space.
James bought more than fifteen SSDs, each 12 TB in size and totalling up to 180TB. He chose this type of storage unit because they were both faster, although expensive, and they have no moving parts, perfect for long term use.
"Hey, are you not the boy that was shown on TV about eight months ago? You look, better than now" A shopper who saw him on the line approached him. James wanted to ignore this person as soon as possible. 'I don't have the god-damn time to engage In small talk bro' he thought as he advanced ahead of the line.
The man-boy walked to him and made a goofy smile. "Hi, I'm John Walker, and I'm a streamer and gamer. I saw you one time on the news like months ago carried by policemen. Some people said you died later, but here you are, wow!"
As a result of the volume of his voice, other people started listening to his conversation, and they began looking at James like they recognize him. "Oh yeah, you were that half-dead kid that was almost mauled by that bleeding lady" one female shopper added, and others started joining in the conversation.
This was the last thing he needed right now. James ignored the boy and walked to the counter when it was his turn. "Please take this and process this immediately", James pleaded to the attendant. Much to his relief, the woman attendant was understanding, so she quickly scanned his SSDs and processed his card.
James quickly left the store and went outside and took a deep breath, but it was not over. The boy ran outside and waved at him, angering James when he noticed him.
"Hey man, please give me your number, I want us to keep in touch", the boy said as he walked up to him.