The file was a hefty one, eighteen pages in total.

Linda Yun picked out the key points to help translate, while Su Yehao listened attentively from the sofa.

In summary, the team had developed a patent that could enhance the accuracy of user search results, creating a brand-new algorithm to optimize webpage rankings.

Su Yehao already had a team working on search engines.

His tot portal and search engine had become popular in the mainland, boasting over 300,000 monthly active users and a market share exceeding 90%.

A market share of over 90% sounded almost like a fantasy.

However, the reality was that no one was competing with him, or rather, even if there were mainland competitors, they weren't on the same level. Su Yehao's business was only of medium size in Silicon Valley, easily crushing them.

Interrupting Linda Yun, Su Yehao said with interest:

"Although I'm a bit confused, it sounds like they have something good. Which company owns this technology?"

After reviewing it, Linda Yun replied, "I'm not sure, it doesn't seem to be written here. This presentation is quite detailed, not like those small companies starting in a garage. I saw Larry Ellison's name on the shareholder list; he holds 25%."

"Oh? The founder of Oracle invested in it?"

Su Yehao sat up and reached for the folder. Larry Ellison's name was indeed on the seventh page.

As if afraid others wouldn't see it, the font was specially enlarged and bolded, two sizes bigger than the other text. The description next to it said that Larry Ellison had invested $200,000 in June.

Calculating the time, it had only been a little over five months.

This indicated that even if the company was developing rapidly, its size couldn't be that large.

The all-English material gave Su Yehao a headache. He looked left and right but couldn't find any information about the founding team or the company. He guessed that it was because they were neither famous nor large enough to be included in the presentation.

Linda Yun looked at the authentic British butler and asked, "This document didn't come in an envelope, so it wasn't sent by mail, right? Did they leave a business card?"

"...I remember a bit. Two young men came, saying they were students from Stanford University, driving a very old white Dodge car. The security guards didn't let them in."

After speaking, the old butler immediately blamed himself, "I'm very sorry, I should have had them register and leave their information. I was busy arranging for someone to clean the pool at the time."

Su Yehao waved his hand dismissively and said to the butler, "It's okay, we can still find them. There's security footage at the entrance, which should have captured the license plate, or we can ask around at Stanford University. It's a simple matter..."

He looked at the file again.

For some reason, he felt that this patent looked familiar.

Algorithm, ranking, plus a search engine, and originating from Stanford University, it looked more and more like a famous future giant—Google.

Like Yahoo, Google also emerged from Stanford campus in his previous life.

Su Yehao had even seen news like "Jerry Yang Missed Google! Regretting it, Crying Bitterly!", "Shocking! Losing out on Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, the Most Miserable Man in the World...", so even though he didn't use Google, he had a vague impression of the company.

Logically speaking.

The butterfly effect caused by Su Yehao had already brought some subtle changes to the world.

His products had tens of millions of users, and each person changing just a little bit, added up to push the future in an unknown direction.

Someone who should have lived healthily into the 2020s in his previous life might have been in a car accident because they were delayed by chatting and left the house a little later.

Or they might have been supposed to marry someone else, but ended up marrying someone else because they fell into online dating.

Many small things had changed, but the overall direction hadn't changed much.

Talented people with ability and brains could still develop similar products, after all, the demand was there. So, Su Yehao still dared to invest in companies like Apple and Amazon because the general direction of technological development hadn't changed. Some products themselves met market demands and had the opportunity to go far.

Thinking that he might indeed encounter Google again, Su Yehao perked up.

If it really was Google, whether it could replicate its success was another matter, but this patented algorithm technology looked interesting.

Su Yehao was also using Yahoo's search engine, which wasn't accurate enough to begin with. Recently, with the pressure to increase revenue, it had added many advertisements. Increasing profits did stimulate the stock price, but the user experience wasn't very good.

With a try-and-see attitude, he asked someone to contact the security company to check the surveillance footage and find the white Dodge car the butler mentioned.

The license plate was quickly found, and the rest was simple...

————————————

That evening.

A briefing appeared in Su Yehao's hands.

As an ordinary person in his previous life, Su Yehao had almost no impression of Google's founders.

Now, seeing the names "Larry Page" and "Sergey Brin" in the document, he felt completely unfamiliar.

If it were Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Su Yehao would definitely recognize them at a glance. Logically speaking, they were all super-rich, but he really didn't know enough about these two.

With enough money, the investigation was especially fast.

According to the information in the document, in 1996, Page and Brin, two Stanford University roommates, began collaborating on a search engine called "Backrub," and after improving it, they developed a webpage ranking patent.

In June of this year, they received funding from the founder of Oracle and registered a search engine company called "Backline" in September. Currently, the daily search volume had just exceeded 20,000 and was well-received by Stanford University students.

And its users were mostly students.

The document said that they were currently seeking investment, which explained why they had approached Su Yehao.

However... Su Yehao still didn't have an accurate answer as to whether it was Google or not, all because it was called "Backline."

"Damn these self-media outlets, why don't they push more accurate Google news?"

After complaining, he searched for the keyword "Backline search engine" on the computer and tried using it on the simple page. He felt that it wasn't as useful as Yahoo.

With the example of tot first, Su Yehao knew that search engines needed user data optimization, so he wasn't in a hurry to draw a conclusion. He casually made a phone call and asked John Zhou to find some programmers who understood search engines to study this Backline.

A different name didn't matter.

Maybe when they were thinking about the company name, they didn't have that flash of inspiration, and then it took on another guise.

When evaluating a project, the key was to see whether the technology and talent team were reliable.

If it really was better than Yahoo and developed successfully, Su Yehao didn't want the self-media to mock him for being so miserable, blind, and missing out on a good company fifteen or twenty years later.

He had rejected so many entrepreneurial teams recently, there were bound to be a few that slipped through the net.

After personally experiencing Silicon Valley, Su Yehao understood that it wasn't that Yahoo's Jerry Yang didn't have vision, but that he was unlucky and didn't have enough fate...