World's Richest Man: I Leaped Across Time

After lunch, I booked a room in Boston for the night.

Once I settled in, I pulled out my notebook and checked the Market Watch website for the article I was expecting.

Sure enough, it had just been published a few hours ago:

"Google Receives $100 Million in Additional Funding from Johnson Trading Corp. Orlando and Jack Somnus, Private Investor."

I stood up and walked over to the coffee maker that came with the room.

I had paid a premium for it, and I intended to make full use of it.

Once I had a steaming cup in hand, I sat back down and took a sip.

'It's the end of me being an unknown person; my name will be out there in the financial world from now on...' I thought.

It was time to go forward with my plan for the online video streaming industry.

The first thing I wanted to do was buy a domain.

I went online and secured .

I needed to set up a company and bring together the right talent. It was 2003, a time when creating software like this was far more challenging. Without StackOverflow or detailed documentation for most libraries, finding solutions will be tough.

But that wasn't my problem; I'd leave this to the software developers and computer engineers that I hire.

The idea of streaming videos and clips wasn't impossible; it just hadn't been done on a large scale yet. People hadn't yet realized how big this could be.

My job was to make it happen before the Californian men did.

I needed to start looking for people—especially experienced software developers that saw the advent of the internet and worked in the industry as it happened, as well as talented computer engineers at MIT and Harvard.

These universities were gold mines.

On Wednesday, I started setting up PlayTube. I went to the business registration office to file the paperwork for the new company. After that, I visited a legal office to handle trademark registration for "PlayTube".

In the afternoon, I opened a business bank account, depositing $500,000 out of the $993,221 that I had left in my personal bank account.

I also stopped by the chamber of commerce to gather information on local business regulations.

On Thursday, I looked for a new office space for PlayTube. I found a medium-sized office that could fit up to 40 people. It was bigger than Immortal Investments' office.

The lease was $8,000 a month, but it was also available for purchase at $450,000.

Since the prices for square feet would rise at a neck-breaking pace, this same office would be worth over $1 million in just four years.

'Buying it is the only correct option,' I thought.

Then I dialed the number of the real estate agency selling the office.

"Hello, this is Edmund Sober from Beacon Real Estate Group. How can I assist you?"

"Good afternoon. I'm Jack Somnus. I've been looking at the office space in Boston, Thirty-one Milk Street. I saw it's available for purchase."

"Yes, absolutely!" he said, sounding enthusiastic. "It's a fantastic property, prime location. Are you interested?"

"I am," I replied. "I'd like to complete the purchase as soon as possible—ideally tomorrow morning. Can we arrange that?"

"Absolutely, Mr. Somnus..."

After setting up the meeting, I thought about the fact that typically successful software startups at this time were started by younger, more technically oriented founders.

Reddit, Justin.tv, Xobni, Dropbox, Airbnb, and Stripe were all founded by people like these.

They lived and breathed their innovations...

Yet here I was, stepping into this with little to no technical knowledge of my own.

If I wanted to make PlayTube a success, I needed to surround myself with top-tier talent.

Someone who would steer this company in the right direction.

Immediately, my thoughts turned to Raheem Reddy.

He was still working on his software and had already found a name for it, "Modulus". In the future it would offer algorithmic trading solutions, real-time analysis and strategy performance tracking.

His software would later be sold to Wells Fargo for $80 million.

'Well... now it was our software.' I thought.

I didn't know if he would agree to being a part of this company, with how much time he spends on working on his project.

However, if I wanted to find people who were not only skilled but also excited about the project, I needed someone who could help me create a compelling pitch about PlayTube, someone who could prepare detailed job descriptions.

Having that, I could reach out to MIT and Harvard to set up meetings, or at least have banners hung on the campus.

I would have to set up interviews, and once more, I would need someone to test the job candidates.

I called Raheem.

He agreed to join the project without any hesitation.

'What a nice guy,' I thought.

Next, I reached out to Robert and Michael, the Cruise Guys.

They were skeptical, and they said they would much rather work at Google than here.

I decided not to waste any more time on them and ended the call.

Ungrateful bunch...

Then I went to the Department of State to handle passport arrangements. I gave them both my and Charlotte's information and paid extra to get it processed faster.

We would get our passports within three weeks.

...

On Friday morning, I headed to finalize the purchase of the office for PlayTube.

I met with Edmund Sober to check out the office. Right there and then we completed all the paperwork and the office officially belonged to me.

Getting out of the office, I caught a taxi to the airport.

As I flew back to Gainessville, I remembered the trip I took to Boston in December to meet Alice Griffin.

Despite me telling her about what kind of person I was, she believed that she could change me, fix me somehow.

But the truth was, I didn't want to be controlled or influenced by anyone.

I wanted to live without any outside pressure or interference.

Alice's vision didn't align with that, which I completely understood, but I realized our relationship couldn't work if she wanted to be involved in such a way.

It wasn't what I needed or wanted.

Needless to say, that relationship had to end right then and there. Otherwise, I would only hurt her more.

However, now that I have accepted Charlotte as my girlfriend, I might call myself a hypocrite...

But this was different. Charlotte hadn't pressured me or tried to control my decisions.

Accepting her as my girlfriend was a choice I made on my own.