Chapter 120: Dotcom Bubble (1)
1995.
Realizing that made me sigh without thinking.
‘It’s about to get busy now.’
People always assume that things unfold in a straight line. They think when a bubble bursts, the market crashes hard for a few days and it’s over. That stocks will soar suddenly by dozens of percentage points during a bull run.
But reality doesn’t work like that. Japan’s bubble economy collapse is still ongoing, and the Madoff Fund lawsuits haven’t ended either.
Even after I visited Microsoft Korea and organized the Windows 95 launch event, I still had mountains of work left. I rubbed my forehead.
“I still have to deal with the First Chechen War... develop shale gas... take advantage of the yen depreciation while cleaning up earthquake aftermath...”
Ugh.
I suppose it would’ve been mentally easier to just exploit the aftermath of the earthquake without thinking. But I’m way too busy to focus on such minor issues.
Take George Soros for example—he just happened to be hedged against the yen weakening, and he made a massive profit during the Kobe earthquake.
Now the Japanese call him some kind of demon, Soros the Yokai.
I didn’t want to be called that, so I didn’t touch it. Making huge money directly off a disaster isn’t a good long-term move. It’s not like I plan to stop operating in Japan forever, and fixing my reputation later would be too hard.