Chapter 230: Stronger Support
Asking him to pay money is absolutely impossible.
They were burned once by Hanxin, and no one wants to fall for it a second time.
Even though Lin Ran has the halo of a great mathematician, he feels much more reliable than Chen Jin.
But bureaucrats are like that—they can’t take responsibility. As soon as responsibility is involved, the matter is shelved for further discussion. Academic bureaucrats are bureaucrats too.
Other resources are easy to discuss.
Especially free labor like students—there are as many as you need.
“The NASA employee situation I mentioned earlier was from the 1960s. Now their scale may be much larger than that.
You also heard that what we lack most now is people and suppliers.
I just returned to China, so I really need to rely on the school in this regard.
On one hand, Jiaotong University has nearly 20,000 undergraduate students, especially among the juniors and seniors, many of whom have a solid science and engineering foundation and plenty of free time. They can come help me.
I need the school to help promote my project.
After all, it’s quite a distance from Jiaotong University to Kunshan.
I hope the school can provide some transportation subsidies. Later, when my funds are more ample, I’ll provide accommodation subsidies for the classmates.
Including graduate students and PhD students, I welcome them all equally.
On the other hand, with the current poor economic environment, so many people unemployed by age 35—they’re not exactly old, but not young either, and mainstream companies today won’t accept them. They’re in an awkward in-between spot.
Perfectly, we’re providing them with re-employment opportunities.
I hope Jiaotong University’s counselors can help promote this in the Jiaotong University alumni groups.
For this group, this is real work with a salary!”
Ever since witnessing Lin Ran say he was going to squeeze Buzz Aldrin for money—taking all of Buzz Aldrin’s assets and acting like Buzz Aldrin should thank him—Lin Zhongqing truly didn’t trust Lin Ran’s so-called salary.
“Really?” Lin Zhongqing interrupted.
Lin Ran said firmly: “Definitely.”
Lin Zhongqing: “What about the five insurances and one fund?”
Lin Ran muttered: “That depends on the bottom line of the labor dispatch company.”
“Wait, labor dispatch?” Lin Zhongqing thought to himself that he hadn’t misjudged the man.
Lin Ran said: “Of course. Big companies like Huawei, Tencent, and Baidu all use outsourcing. If I want to cut costs, I definitely have to use outsourcing too.
This is what I call wolf pack mode—do you know what a wolf pack is? Except for the alpha wolf, which can’t be replaced, the other wolves can be swapped out at any time.”
Lin Zhongqing raised his voice: “No, our graduates are all Jiaotong University alumni! Would they do outsourcing?
I’m even embarrassed to ask the counselors to post notices in the alumni groups.”
Lin Ran shook his head: “Is this work? This is humanity’s great undertaking in history.
And in the current market, having work is good enough. Don’t talk about Jiaotong University graduates—even Jiaotong University master’s graduates doing outsourcing isn’t impossible in the future.”
Lin Ran’s words turned out to be prophetic. A few years later, 985 master’s graduates doing Huawei OD was no longer news.
“In short, this requires the administrative colleagues to carefully study how to promote this matter with enough excitement to attract Jiaotong University students to join this great undertaking.
I believe many Jiaotong University students harbored the dream during university of contributing to the homeland’s aerospace undertaking, but reality’s gravity was too strong, preventing them from realizing it.
But now the opportunity to realize the dream has appeared. I hope the school can do a good job.”
After Lin Ran finished speaking, Lin Zhongqing felt extremely frustrated inside.
How can you make persuasion sound so righteous?
But on second thought, it didn’t seem unreasonable.
After all, Lin Ran’s target was the unemployed crowd.
From a higher perspective, Lin Zhongqing understood that whether it was the NASA old timers whose experience was worn out, Jiaotong University students, or the unemployed crowd due to the virus outbreak, they all had one thing in common:
Their price was far below their value.
On-campus university students can be had for one or two thousand yuan a month. If the work is interesting enough or the resume helps with future job hunting, plenty are willing to pay out of pocket for internships.
The NASA old timers and unemployed crowd are the same.
The unemployed crowd should have the lowest discount among these three groups—the other two might be at a 90% discount, while this group is at most 50% off.
In terms of labor costs, Lin Ran had already optimized it to the best.
And this mix of old, middle, and young generations, all in special stages of life, meant the management costs and difficulty were also the lowest.
Interns are constrained by the school; for outsourced employees, if they don’t perform well, just tell the labor dispatch company and they’re off the schedule.
The only potentially hard-to-manage NASA old timers number just a mere 27.
After hearing this, Lin Zhongqing was inwardly shocked—Lin Ran had calculated so precisely.
“What about afterwards?” Lin Zhongqing asked.
Lin Ran countered: “You mean after completing the moon landing?”
Lin Zhongqing nodded: “Of course. After all, the story after the Apollo Moon Landing wasn’t exactly beautiful.
Similarly, after the moon landing is complete, what do you plan to do?”
Lin Ran sighed: “There’s still so much to do. No moon base has been built, no reusable rocket like Falcon has been developed, we can do Starlink too, and we can go to Mars.
Too much work to do.
President, rest assured, by then it won’t be outsourcing—it’ll be formal employees.
For the outsourcing personnel who perform well in this moon landing process, or the Jiaotong University students, I’ll provide them with formal contracts.
Our journey is the sea of stars!”
“Good.” Lin Zhongqing looked straight at Lin Ran. “Recruiting people—I’ll handle it for you.”
Lin Ran continued: “Then the last requirement. This one is simple: I need Jiaotong University to help me find suppliers. This involves many suppliers that may be quite sensitive.
Without Shanghai Jiaotong University backing it, building mutual trust in the middle would be too difficult.”
Lin Ran only mentioned suppliers.
But in reality, the whole process involves far more than just suppliers. You need rocket launch sites—Jiuquan, Wenchang, or Xichang?
These are all resources.
Even if you pay, without resources, you just have to queue up.
Launch window calculated perfectly, but if someone is ahead, why should they yield to you?
These are all resources that need Jiaotong University to help negotiate.
“Time is cost. Buzz Aldrin only invested 30 million US dollars upfront. I need Jiaotong University to help save this part of the cost.”
At this final condition, Lin Zhongqing seemed hesitant.
In plain terms, this requires using Jiaotong University’s credit.
“I need to consider this,” Lin Zhongqing said.
Now it was Lin Ran’s turn to glare at him: “President, you need to understand one thing.
We don’t even need the moon landing—every step we’re taking is creating history.
Completing manned spaceflight would make Jiaotong University the first university domestically and globally to achieve manned spaceflight.
Launching a moon probe would make Jiaotong University the first university globally to successfully land a probe on the moon.
All the way to the final moon landing.
Jiaotong University can establish an unprecedented status.
In the future, Top 3 won’t be a contest between Fudan, Jiaotong University, and China University of Science and Technology—talking about Top 3 will mean only Jiaotong University.
Even in my lifetime, contending for Top 1 isn’t impossible.”
This was a famous university meme.
Tsinghua and Peking University graduates only mention Top 2; Jiaotong University, Fudan, Zhejiang University, and China University of Science and Technology only mention Top 3; Hua Wu is exclusive to Nanjing University; C9 belongs to Xi’an Jiaotong and Harbin Institute of Technology.
Domestic universities are strictly hierarchical in this regard.
“Life rarely offers chances to go all in.” Lin Ran growled lowly: “What time is it now—why hesitate?”
Lin Zhongqing thought for a moment: “Good. Rest assured, I’ll handle all these for you.”
Shanghai
Moon landing has never been a small matter.
This was determined by the space race between America and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
This matter has extremely strong political significance.
And Lin Ran’s approach makes the political significance even more obvious.
From the moment Lin Ran helped Buzz Aldrin and others apply for work visas, mysterious institutions began intervening.
During the NASA former employees’ hotel stay, the entire hotel was strictly protected.
The so-called 14-day hotel for foreigners entering the country had only these 27 foreigners.
Therefore, for Lin Ran’s requests, Lin Zhongqing could only satisfy the first two; for the third, he had to report upward.
Not wanting to take responsibility himself, he left it to the higher-ups to decide.
Originally, for all matters regarding Lin Ran and the Apollo Moon Landing, Xiao Li had to report to him, and he in turn had to report to others.
“Very good. We thought Lin Ran didn’t know the political meaning here, but he knows it very well.
NASA’s inheritance in China, 1960s NASA engineers completing the moon landing in 2020 China together with Chinese youth.
The kindling transferred from American hands to Chinese hands.
As expected of someone who can publicly state he wants to create an environment—this political awareness is quite high.”
“Yes, we originally thought he just wanted to fulfill the regret from his university graduation design, wanted to play big, but unexpectedly, all the significance we could think of, he had thought of too.
It shows his mind is very clear.”
“Yes, clear-headed—the rest is ability.
If he really completes the moon landing, so what if we give him resources?
If he can’t complete the moon landing, as he himself said, winning Fields, Buzz Aldrin would give him 500,000 US dollars upfront investment.
Can’t we afford that?
One Fields, 500,000 US dollars—and it’s not even him spending it. This also indirectly stimulates employment.
Stepping back 10,000 steps, even if he spends it himself, it’s stimulating consumption.
Have Shanghai side prepare and formalize the whole matter.
Add 50 million RMB to him in the name of Shanghai Sci-Tech Investment.
Following the sci-tech investment model, whatever Buzz Aldrin side pays, we’ll match it with a slight premium.
Both sides together approach 1 billion RMB.
He doesn’t need to do too well—just complete manned spaceflight and probe moon landing, and like NASA supporting SpaceX, we can support an aerospace enterprise outside the system too.
Since he wants to prove himself this way, we’ll help build the stage even better. If he can’t do it, don’t blame us for not supporting his aerospace dream.”
The big shots’ ideas were completely different.
From the national level, 50 million RMB is nothing.
National-level support for scientists has always been unreserved in some sense.
In 2008, Tsinghua University was willing to spend a fortune to buy Shi Yigong the then-most-advanced cryo-electron microscope Titan Krios.
The fortune here was 1.4 million US dollars, but consider it was 2008—Tsinghua’s was the first in Asia, and globally fewer than 10.
Later, Quantum Shield of China successfully listed on the STAR Market—you can hardly say it had nothing to do with the academician Pan Jianwei behind it.
Including Wu Yiling of Yiling Pharmaceutical—these pharmaceutical academicians go without saying.
All sorts of wild maneuvers abound.
So national-level support for China’s first Fields winner absolutely cannot be considered much.
More accurately, the thousand-gold-for-a-horse-bone strategy worked.
Convincing Buzz Aldrin, the Chinese side also believes you really have ability in the aerospace field—after all, Buzz Aldrin invested real money.
Then we’ll give you equal support.
Not to mention, in the current environment, China itself wants to ease liquidity, preserve employment, preserve the economy, and promote technological innovation.
So the next day, in the president’s office, Lin Ran saw not only Lin Zhongqing, but also another middle-aged man.
“Professor, let me introduce—this is Song Nanping, head of investment business at Shanghai Sci-Tech Investment Co., Ltd.
Minister Song, this is.”
Before he finished, Song Nanping stood up, extended his hand to Lin Ran: “I know, Professor Lin, I’ve admired your name for a long time. From the moment we knew you were returning to China, we’ve been looking forward to this day.
Welcome back to China.”
Even without words, just from the man’s posture on the sofa—pretending to relax but actually tense—Lin Ran knew what he did.
He’d seen too many at Redstone Arsenal.
It could be said that among that group, the most elite ones could appear before him every few days without repeating.
He could even smell their scent.
Lin Ran shook hands with him, inwardly unsurprised at not feeling calluses in the man’s palm—China wouldn’t mess up such details.
“Minister Song, hello.”
“Professor Lin, here’s the thing: We heard from President Lin that you have financing needs. I think we have ample cooperation opportunities.
To accelerate building a global innovation sci-tech highland, Shanghai Sci-Tech Investment is very willing to invest in companies founded by high-end talents like Professor Lin.
Plus having a renowned figure in the aerospace field like Buzz Aldrin.
We very much hope to help the enterprise grow, including the requests you made to President Lin—the third one, Shanghai Sci-Tech Investment can try its best to fulfill for you.”
Lin Zhongqing immediately added: “Professor, Minister Song is a Jiaotong University alumnus before us, and once my student. After hearing your requests, I immediately thought of him.”
Real student or fake, Lin Ran thought—not necessarily.
“Oh, welcome, welcome.” Lin Ran nodded.
Then Lin Zhongqing timely said: “I’ll step out for a smoke and not disturb your detailed chat.” He vacated the office for the two.
An hour later, Lin Zhongqing returned to an office with only Song Nanping.
“How did it go?”
“Talked well, cooperation reached.” Song Nanping smiled and nodded, then added: “President Lin, does Professor Lin like others calling him professor?”
