Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

"I don’t touch a drop of alcohol," Chen Yansen replied with a smile.

Song Yuncheng almost laughed out loud. The lies that came out of Chen Yansen’s mouth were 99.9% pure fiction. But he was her boss, after all, so she couldn’t just call him out on it.

"Then just eat more food. I’ll go get you some drinks." When her aunt heard he didn’t drink, she was even more pleased.

During the meal, the aunt inevitably started asking about Chen Yansen’s family situation.

She learned that he was from Chunshen and that his father owned a bookstore. ’Although he came from a single-parent family, my own niece is hardly in a position to be picky.’

"By the way, when you two came back, did you see who parked that car out front?" the aunt asked suddenly.

That BMW at the door wasn’t blocking the road, but to park it right in front of her house without a word... wasn’t that just bullying them?

"Aunt, that’s my car," Chen Yansen said.

"Ah!?" The aunt looked astonished. Although she didn’t know much about cars, she could recognize a BMW, and just from its appearance, she knew it had to be expensive.

"Aunt, Chen Yansen is the big boss of FoxTao," Song Yuncheng explained, putting down her chopsticks.

"Ah!?" The aunt froze again. She suddenly remembered that just two hours ago, she had cursed Chen Yansen to his face. The embarrassment was so intense she wished she could find a hole to crawl into.

"You were right, Aunt. From now on, I’ll make sure to give Little Orange as little work as possible," Chen Yansen joked.

"No way!" Song Yuncheng disagreed. She was still planning on working hard to earn money.

"I won’t meddle in you young people’s affairs," the aunt said with a satisfied smile, sighing in relief. ’No wonder this kid had no reaction at all when I was talking about Song Yunuo earlier.’

The meal lasted for over an hour. The sky gradually darkened, and it was already 7:30 PM.

"Aunt, thank you. I’ll come visit you again next time." Chen Yansen had to get back to Xucheng. The matter of the employee stock options hadn’t been settled yet, and he needed to go back and handle it.

He stood up and said his goodbyes. After walking out to the driver’s side of the car, he got out again less than a minute later, now holding two red envelopes.

"Aunt, these are for the two little ones." Chen Yansen stuffed the red envelopes into Wang Yu’s hands, signaling for him to give one to his sister.

Wang Yu looked at his mother, his eyes full of questions.

"Xiaochen, you’re of the same generation as them, and it’s not the New Year or any holiday. It’s not appropriate to give red envelopes." The aunt glanced at the envelopes; judging by their thickness, they likely contained several thousand yuan, and she hurriedly refused.

"We’ll go by age, not by generation. Just let them take it. If you don’t accept, Aunt, I won’t dare to come back next time."

Chen Yansen said with a smile.

"Chen Yansen, take them back." Song Yuncheng stepped between them, pushing the red envelopes back toward Chen Yansen.

’I’m not his real girlfriend. Even if I were, I couldn’t accept these.’

"Alright then." Chen Yansen pondered for a few seconds and didn’t insist further. ’I’ll just pick out a few sets of brand-name cosmetics and toys from the sample room later and have Song Yuncheng bring them back instead.’

Chen Yansen got in the car, waved to Song Yuncheng, started the engine, and sped off to the north.

"Little Orange, this boyfriend of yours is not bad. He acts and speaks like a mature adult. He must be serious about you," the aunt said to Song Yuncheng, standing in the same spot.

"He... forget it. I’ll tell you about it later." Song Yuncheng had wanted to tell her aunt that Chen Yansen wasn’t her boyfriend, but the words died on her lips.

Xucheng and Lucheng were over two hundred kilometers apart. Chen Yansen took the highway and entered the Xucheng City District by ten at night. By the time he got back to apartment 0418, it was only ten-thirty.

After a quick wash-up, Chen Yansen lay in bed and, as usual, sent messages to Meng Jie and Song Yuncheng separately.

’What can I do? I’m a fast typer. Chatting with one girl means waiting for replies. Chatting with two at the same time is just right.’

「The next morning, a Sunday.」

Chen Yansen arrived at the Innovation Park. The first floor was completely empty; even Song Yang’s courier station was unmanned.

After the winter break began, Song Yang had experienced a bittersweet feeling. He handled several hundred packages a day, all of them large and small pieces of luggage, and the courier company’s transport trucks had to make several trips each day.

After making a killing, he had happily returned to Qin Island.

At this time, apart from a few scattered faculty and staff, the only ones left on campus were a few "senior" cats, still darting about, MEOWING.

"Brother Sen!" Xiang Pengfei had sharp eyes and spotted Chen Yansen coming upstairs right away.

Chen Yansen looked around and saw that basically everyone was there, including the dozen or so new colleagues hired through social recruitment.

Some of these people rented rooms in the faculty apartments, while others rented houses in the village across from the university. A few of them, after getting familiar with each other, would even go cast a line in the nearby river.

"How’s the optimization for the search function coming along?" Chen Yansen walked up and asked, patting Xiang Pengfei’s shoulder.

"We estimate it can enter the testing phase before the New Year. Right now, we need Hu Yun’s side to cooperate in building user profiles. By analyzing behavioral data like searches, clicks, and purchases, we can achieve personalized search results..." Xiang Pengfei reported, going point by point.

"The technical framework for the search engine needs to be set up properly too. I hired so many algorithm engineers at high salaries; you need to put them to good use for me," Chen Yansen specifically instructed.

"Brother Sen, I understand," Xiang Pengfei said with a knowing grin.

Lately, he had been working with exceptional dedication, even studying to improve himself after hours.

Although he was still the leader of the back-end team, the few newly hired engineers were leagues ahead of him, both in terms of technical skill and project experience.

’I really don’t want to be removed from my team leader position by Chen Yansen one day. Losing my job would be one thing, but the unbearable part would be the loss of face.’

The situation was similar for the other teams. The new hires from the outside were like a "catfish effect," forcing the team leaders to study and improve.

In the short term, Chen Yansen wouldn’t adjust the team leader assignments. But in the long run, for those who couldn’t keep up with the project’s pace, he could only say he was sorry.

"Get the remaining few over here. From the Investment Attraction team, have Zhang Yifeng and Yuan Wei come. We’re having a morning meeting."

Chen Yansen said to Xiang Pengfei.

The FoxTao team was now close to a hundred people. Calling a general meeting for everyone at the drop of a hat, like in the old days, was no longer appropriate.

Chen Yansen waited for a while, and Xu Dan, Zhang Wenbo, Xiang Pengfei, Wang Zihao, Meng Xibo, and the others walked into the conference room one after another.

"Brother Sen!"

"President Chen!"

The group greeted him one by one.

"Zihao, the pre-New Year ad placement plan remains unchanged. Before the holiday break, I want a Q1 ad spend plan from you."

Chen Yansen nodded slightly and instructed Wang Zihao.

"Zhuang Rui, come up with a new referral program. Keep the CPA cost under 5 yuan. Coordinate well with Zihao. Before the end of Q1, I want to see our cumulative registered users break 100 million."

Chen Yansen looked at Zhuang Rui and beckoned him closer before laying out the task.

"Got it, Brother Sen," Zhuang Rui replied readily. He did a quick mental calculation: they needed to attract 60 million new customers in two and a half months, averaging 800,000 per day. It seemed difficult, but when broken down, it wasn’t an impossible task.

Currently, they were already getting over 400,000 new customers daily from the referral program, the "zero-yuan bargain" feature, and ad channels. Now, with sufficient funding and more mature technology, there was no reason they couldn’t do it.

Chen Yansen assigned tasks one by one, setting the Q1 performance goals for the group in advance.

Finally, he dropped the bombshell: "Next week, I’m issuing stock options to everyone, with a total value of 20 million."