To build a Westeros Tower in Manhattan modeled after the Avengers Tower in his memory, Simon had gradually purchased an entire city block east of Madison Avenue between 59th and 60th Streets over the past few years, six buildings in total.
The tenants inside those six buildings could not be cleared out all at once in the short term, and the timing for construction had not yet arrived, so Simon had treated the buildings as commercial properties and signed two- to three-year leases with most of the residents.
Those leases would expire one after another over the next year or two. With his current wealth, Simon now had more than enough resources to support the construction of the Westeros Tower.
Therefore, when James raised the question, Simon nodded and explained, "The design work for the tower has been ongoing for the past two years. We start preparations now, break ground at the end of next year, and the main structure alone will probably take five years. Adding interior finishing, by the time it's ready for occupancy we'll already be close to the new millennium. With such a long cycle, even if the total cost exceeds one billion dollars, we can raise the funds comfortably."
Perhaps every boy dreamed of building a tower.
Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building, the Twin Towers, behind all of them there had probably been similar motivations.
James could not help thinking this. Even though he knew Simon's mind was made up, he still advised, "Simon, this isn't just a funding issue. Have you considered that a two-thousand-foot building with more than a hundred floors and several million square feet of interior space all needs to be filled with people?"
"Of course I have, Jim. I also know that many towers secure tenants before construction even begins. But from now until the Westeros Tower is actually completed and ready for use will take at least seven or eight years. So I don't think we need to rush. We can look for tenants while we build. And in the worst case, our own companies can use the building."
After the meeting, the Westeros Tower construction plan was officially placed on the agenda and placed under Janet's personal oversight.
To achieve the most perfect architectural effect in every tiny detail of the tower, Simon simply set no budget ceiling. With his current confidence, he could easily afford to spend more than one billion dollars.
While Simon was busy with various matters inside the Westeros system, other major events were also unfolding in this May of 1991.
The two major American political parties had begun laying the groundwork for the 1992 presidential election.
On the Republican side, riding the momentum from the Gulf War, George Bush faced virtually no suspense in becoming the party's candidate for the next presidential election.
On the Democratic side, although they had won the 1990 midterms, the party now faced a shortage of heavyweight candidates. Up to now, no widely respected figure capable of challenging George Bush had emerged.
It was well known that American politicians usually had only one chance at a presidential run in their lifetime, not counting reelection.
Once they failed, obtaining the party nomination again became extremely difficult.
Therefore, several Democratic heavyweights with enough prestige and ambition for the presidency had chosen to sit this one out, wary of the enormous advantage George Bush had gained from the Gulf War victory.
Even so, someone still had to step up and face Bush.
Thus, in this month of May, a young politician named Bill Clinton, currently serving as governor of Arkansas, and New York governor Mario Cuomo, who was too old to wait any longer, successively announced their candidacies for the 1992 presidential election.
What concerned Simon the most, however, was the public statement of interest from business tycoon Ross Perot, ranked near the top of the Forbes 400 with a net worth exceeding two billion dollars.
Ross Perot was deeply dissatisfied with both major parties and declared he would form his own party to run in the 1992 election.
Simon remembered very clearly that in the original timeline, although George Bush's domestic approval had plummeted due to domestic issues, he had still held a clear advantage over Bill Clinton.
It was precisely because Ross Perot, a candidate also leaning toward the conservative camp, had split a record 19 percent of the vote as a third-party candidate, taking a large number of votes from Bush, that Bush ultimately lost his reelection bid.
There were further consequences. Bill Clinton, who originally had almost no hope of winning, unexpectedly moved into the White House. Because of the suspicion of having "gained the position unjustly," his eight years in office were constantly surrounded by scandals, and he even became one of the few American presidents to be impeached by Congress.
The situation was very similar to another complete outsider, a businessman, who would later unexpectedly step into the White House in Simon's memory. [TL/N: Trump]
Coincidentally, the person who lost the next election was none other than Clinton's wife, Hillary Clinton.
Come to think of it, this was probably a kind of political ecology in America.
Those from deep-rooted old political families or widely respected veteran politicians who ascended to power, like George Bush at the moment, never faced similar troubles.
Although Simon's political layout focused more on Congress and he did not intend to spend too much energy on the White House, this time he still instructed James Rebould to quietly establish contact with the Clintons.
Greenwich, Connecticut.
Inside the estate Simon owned here, preparations were underway for a birthday party. Tomorrow was Sophia Fache's daughter Gemma Fache's eighth birthday. Sophia's apartment in Greenwich was not large, so Janet had willingly lent their estate for little Gemma's party.
Not only that, tomorrow evening they would screen the Antarctic documentary Janet had promised Gemma as her birthday gift.
The documentary had begun production last year and was finally titled Ice World, with a budget of three million dollars. The content did not focus mainly on penguins but showcased various Antarctic landscapes.
At the same time, after tomorrow evening's "premiere" as Gemma's birthday gift, the documentary would open in North American theaters the following Friday.
As long as it received a good response, the March of the Penguins project from Simon's memory would immediately follow, using the experience gained from the first documentary.
May was also the new television pilot season. Since he wanted to strengthen Daenerys Entertainment's position in television, Simon had come to New York these past few days to personally participate in the selection and preparation of several projects.
Janet could not come because of her pregnancy. Although it was the weekend, Simon did not return to the West Coast. He planned to stay here until after little Gemma's birthday party before leaving.
In the evening, after Sophia had inspected the birthday party setup that the housekeeper Alice and the girls had arranged, she went up to the second-floor study. Simon was sitting behind the desk, carefully flipping through some documents.
She was about to sit down across from him when he looked up, saw her, and gestured for her to come over. Sophia hesitated for a split second, then walked around the desk to his side and was immediately pulled into his arms.
She felt a little nervous about what Simon might do, but once she confirmed he was simply holding her, she relaxed.
Her face still flushed slightly.
This position felt more like an adult holding a child, or a boy holding his girlfriend.
Yet she was so many years older than him.
She could only hypnotize herself as best she could and turn her attention to the document in his hands. "What is this?"
Simon tilted his head and gently pressed against her smooth cheek, explaining, "A development plan for a data interface."
Sophia made a soft sound of acknowledgment. Her mind was wandering, so she did not feel much interest.
Simon finished explaining and said nothing more, simply holding her as he continued to focus on the document in his hands.
After the idea of building an entire hardware ecosystem around the USB interface had come up last time, things had progressed quite well during this period.
In fact, Apple had already begun developing a similar data interface since 1986, the "FireWire" interface that would be used on many Apple computers in the 1990s but ultimately failed to become widespread.
In Simon's memory, the reason this data interface, which actually appeared earlier than USB and offered higher transmission speeds, had never caught on was partly because of Apple's rapid decline in the 1990s and partly because of its high cost and the conservative, expensive licensing strategy of the patent-holding Apple.
Simply put, the difference between FireWire and USB was roughly the same as the difference between CCD and CMOS sensors in digital cameras.
Because of advantages in cost, power consumption, and other factors, CMOS was destined to become the trend for consumer-grade digital cameras, and USB held the same advantage over FireWire.
Right now, however, FireWire had the advantage of time.
If Simon had control over Apple, he would temporarily promote FireWire as a transitional standard and then switch to the cheaper and more convenient USB standard once that solution was ready.
Unfortunately, Simon could not intervene in Apple's operations.
At the same time, he did not want to waste too much time on Apple.
Fortunately, Ygritte's team had successfully found a solution similar to USB.
Simon had little memory of this, yet he was almost certain it was the USB interface solution from his memory.
The solution came from an Indian-American hardware engineer named Ajay Bhatt at Intel. Two years earlier he had submitted his proposal to Intel's senior management, wanting to develop a data interface that was more widely applicable, more convenient than existing serial and parallel ports, and truly plug-and-play.
However, after three revisions and submissions over two years, Ajay Bhatt's proposal had never been approved. Until now the engineer had been working in Intel's processor chip team.
Information flow inside Silicon Valley was extremely open.
The popularity of the web had further accelerated information exchange within Silicon Valley.
After Simon put forward his idea, Ygritte released word that it was looking for similar solutions or talent. Ajay Bhatt quickly contacted them on his own.
Ygritte, which had rapidly become a Silicon Valley newcomer, along with other Westeros system star tech companies such as America Online and Cisco, had drawn intense attention with every move over the past year or so.
Therefore, the matter had unsurprisingly alarmed Intel's senior management.
Ajay Bhatt's data interface proposal, which had been ignored for two straight years, suddenly attracted a great deal of interest.
Building a hardware ecosystem around personal computers had never been a core focus for Ygritte. Westeros Company was still Intel's largest shareholder with a 15 percent stake. Since Intel now valued the project, Simon did not insist on poaching the engineer. Instead he proactively brought Microsoft into the fold as well.
Promoting the USB interface required joint efforts on the hardware side, the operating system side, and from peripheral manufacturers.
Intel would handle hardware, Microsoft would handle software, and Ygritte or Westeros Company would focus on developing peripheral hardware such as digital cameras, USB flash drives, and MP3 players.
The combined strength of the three companies would perfectly achieve the goal of popularizing USB.
Therefore, recently the three companies had jointly established the "Universal Serial Bus" project team, with Ajay Bhatt as project leader. The technical patents would be jointly held by Intel, Microsoft, and Ygritte.
With ample budget and support at the hardware system and operating system levels, the USB development cycle was estimated at one to two years. The first stage of peripheral hardware ecosystem promotion would focus mainly on the two essential PC peripherals: mice and keyboards.
Westeros Company would also invest in developing USB-interface versions of digital cameras, USB flash drives, and other peripheral hardware products.
Simon quietly finished reading the USB project materials, set the folder down, and discovered that the woman in his arms had her eyes slightly closed, her face flushed, looking as if she was about to fall asleep.
He smiled mischievously and moved to place her on the desk, but Sophia woke up at once, pushing at the hands trying to undo her clothes. "It's getting late. I still need to go home and have dinner with the children."
Simon pretended to be dissatisfied. "Then what about me?"
Seeing that Simon did not intend to insist, Sophia took his hand and pressed it against her chest. "I'll come back after dinner. Mm, after the children fall asleep."
Simon smiled. "How about I come over instead? I kind of want to try the feeling of a night raid."
Sophia rolled her eyes coquettishly and patted the back of his hand. The two of them maintained a certain intimate yet ambiguous posture, one standing and one sitting behind the desk, but neither made any further moves. Sophia no longer hurried to escape. Her calf continued to rub gently against his leg as she changed the subject. "By the way, about the detective team, I've already found some people."
"From Germany's Stasi?"
Sophia nodded. "I've contacted about a dozen so far, including some fairly high-ranking ones. I'll organize a report for you soon. Or, if you want to meet them in person, I can have them come to America?"
Simon thought for a moment. "No need for now. Arrange some tasks first and test their abilities."
Sophia nodded. "I plan to have them conduct background checks on your European housekeeper and maid teams as a test. Also, I recently visited several major universities in Europe myself and found quite a few very talented girls. According to your idea, we really can create a large group of female millionaires and billionaires. Thinking about it does feel quite satisfying. This world always tends to underestimate women."