WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Arsène
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Conglomerate Heir Just Wants to Fail ◈
Chapter 32
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Daeseung Future Strategy Institute.
Since the Vice Chairman's new guidelines were issued, this place had become both a paradise for researchers and a hellish free-for-all.
The researchers walking the halls had hollow eyes from pulling all-nighters, but fanatical passion burned within them.
“What? Our team had that cryogenic transmission electron microscope booked for today!”
“You lunatic, wait your turn! Your team ran it all night yesterday! Today is our turn!”
The eye-wateringly expensive state-of-the-art equipment newly brought into every corner of the institute ran around the clock without rest, and the struggle between research teams to claim it grew fiercer by the day.
“There are only three of those mass spectrometers in the entire United States! This isn't the time for this. I'm using it first!”
“Is that... the atomic microscope I've only ever seen in papers? My God, they really brought one in?”
Whenever new equipment appeared in the halls, researchers swarmed over it like hyenas.
There was no longer any consideration for colleagues or organizational hierarchy here.
Only the primal desire to advance their own research as quickly as possible gleamed in their eyes.
“Move, you bastard! I applied for and got that metal sample!”
“It looks like there's plenty. Let us use just a little first. We'll pay it back later.”
“Hey... hey! Catch that bastard! Security!”
Shouting and curses flew everywhere in the institute.
Half-eaten cup noodle containers and coffee cans piled up like mountains, while researchers who had not been home for days snatched brief sleep on cots in the corners of the halls.
The space that had once belonged to an elite group ruled by silence and order had become a wild battlefield where only the madness of survival and competition remained.
The institute director, who was guiding me around, kept wiping cold sweat from their brow, at a complete loss over the uncontrollable situation.
They felt like dying at the thought of showing this awful sight to the Vice Chairman.
“Ha... ha... I apologize, Vice Chairman. Our researchers are simply so full of passion...”
.
“No. It looks wonderful. Wonderful.”
The institute inspection was a little different from what I had imagined, but I was very satisfied.
Before my eyes was a perfect free-for-all.
Very good.
Fight each other. Be jealous. Hold each other back.
Show me clearly how easily your precious elite consciousness and teamwork collapse before money.
This was exactly what I wanted.
To ruin the organization with money.
Chaos, where key talent left and those who remained distrusted and tore each other down.
It felt as if I could hear the perfectly functioning system collapsing from within.
But the two researchers who had been grabbing each other by the collars and fighting in front of me suddenly stopped.
Still clutching each other's collars, they rushed to the whiteboard beside them.
With the same eyes that had been glaring at each other as if they wanted to kill one another moments earlier, they began frantically writing equations across the board.
“No, that's not how this reaction formula works! If the electrons move like this here...”
“Idiot! That's what I've been saying! We need to use this catalyst to ensure stability!”
“That's impossible!”
“It is possible if we control the pressure conditions properly! The paper you read is garbage that failed to control its variables!”
Then another researcher, who had been watching their fight, stepped in.
“You two. If you've got a complaint, you know what to do, right?”
“Fine! If you have a complaint...”
“We'll settle it with papers!”
The two researchers glared at each other again, then raced madly toward their respective labs.
“...Is that really all right?”
Lee Jinju, Chief of Staff, who had accompanied me on the inspection, asked quietly. The institute director already wore the expression of someone who had attained enlightenment.
“Pardon? Ah, yes, yes. It's normal. Please don't worry about it.”
The director quickly led me into the director's office, but another researcher was already waiting there.
Without even noticing me beside them, the researcher immediately pushed forward their own request.
“Director! Couldn't you just buy another piece of analytical equipment with the money I'm supposed to receive?”
They struck their chest as if they were truly frustrated.
“No, we have mountains of cell samples to examine, but does it make sense for research to be delayed because we don't have enough analytical equipment? This is all time and money! Those bastards on the other teams won't move until they finish their experiments! I'd rather buy one with my own money and use it alone!”
“Ha... all right. Buy one. Go ahead.”
“Yahoo! You gave permission! Thank you!”
.
The strange rumors spread across national borders.
The name Daeseung began reaching the ears of distinguished scholars and young geniuses around the world.
A tenured professor at MIT had their research proposals rejected time after time over budget concerns. After much thought, they came knocking at Daeseung's institute.
“I... only wish to complete the research of my lifetime. I hear that at Daeseung, if the idea is good, they support it without asking questions about the budget. Is that rumor true?”
A genius developer who had created core technology at an Israeli AI startup fought with a CEO who tried to control every one of their ideas, then left the company without regret.
Their next destination was Daeseung's institute in Korea.
Contrary to the senior executive team's concerns, the vacancies left by a few departing talents were being filled by eccentrics and geniuses from around the world with far greater ability and passion.
The atmosphere in the senior executive team meeting room, which had been convened again, was quite different from before.
When they had discussed the R&D reform plan last time, the room had been full of worry and concern. Now excitement and slight confusion were mixed across their faces.
“I finally understand the Vice Chairman's intentions.”
The silence was broken by President Geum of Daeseung Metals.
Clenching both fists, President Geum looked around at the other presidents with blazing eyes.
“I think I finally understand why the Vice Chairman proposed such extraordinary compensation and why he stood by while talent left. This was... a sieve!”
President Geum's voice trembled with excitement.
“Think about it! The Vice Chairman emphasized the ‘essence.’ Then what is the essence of a researcher? Is it not pure passion, being obsessed with one's research, rather than being satisfied with a little money and settling down? The Vice Chairman has placed our researchers into the crucible of enormous rewards and is filtering out the impurities! Those who are blinded by money and leave the company were people we never needed in the first place, while true talents, hard as steel, are pouring in from around the world to fill those empty places!”
In an explanation worthy of the president of a metals company, President Geum made the other presidents nod as well.
It sent chills down their spines to realize that while they had been fretting over the departure of a few researchers, the Vice Chairman had been redrawing the global map of talent.
“Then... the failure incentive was not simply meant as a lesson to learn through failure...”
“It must mean he wants us to freely take on difficult research with high risks and high returns.”
Less than a year had passed since the massive overhaul, but countless patents were already pouring out in competition.
Reckless projects that would once have been rejected at the paperwork stage for their low chance of success were now being recognized as the group's most promising next-generation technologies.
As data from failures accumulated, the paradoxical result was that the path to success became clearer instead.
“In the end, it was all connected.”
President Park of Daeseung Heavy Industries, who had quietly listened until now, spoke while pointing at the words scribbled in a notebook.
“‘Increase the number of attempts.’ Do you remember? The Vice Chairman said that to raise the probability of success, we needed to explosively increase the number of attempts themselves. And the ones making those attempts are people. Our group has now become a vast probability laboratory, gathering the best talent from around the world and allowing them to make nearly limitless attempts without worrying about money or fearing failure.”
A heavy silence settled over the meeting room at that explanation.
They realized that what they had considered a mere reform of the compensation system was actually a grand design that changed the very paradigm of the group's R&D from its roots.
“But...”
President Oh of Daeseung Bio spoke, unable to shake off lingering unease.
Drug development, his specialty, was a field where failure was more commonplace than anywhere else.
“But how can we continue this enormous investment when we don't know when success will come? It could become like pouring water into a bottomless jar. The institute is practically an uncontrollable battlefield right now. If we leave it like that, technology leaks or unexpected accidents could occur. Some degree of control and management is absolutely necessary.”
It was an entirely rational and reasonable concern.
But President Geum looked at President Oh as if he found him pathetic and snorted.
“Control? Management? President Oh, you still don't understand the Vice Chairman. What the Vice Chairman wants isn't order. It's chaos itself!”
President Geum jumped to his feet and shouted as if making a declaration to the other presidents, who had frozen in shock.
“Our task isn't to control that chaos. On the contrary, we must pour oil on that fire and fan it until it burns even more fiercely! No one knows what kind of monster will be born within it. But one thing is certain. The moment that monster enters the world, every existing rule and order will vanish into a handful of ashes. That is the completion of the Vice Chairman's true ‘deconstructive creation’!”
At that mad cry, every president in the room trembled.
The executives seated here were no longer managers of a stable conglomerate. They had become witnesses to a myth, watching for the birth of a monster that would destroy all the rules of the world.
And merely imagining what destructive creation the young god of destruction who had planned it all might now be devising in the Vice Chairman's office sent chills down their spines.
.
These days, I was engrossed in the research trend reports submitted by the institute director.
I was gradually getting used to some of the new terminology, making them easier to read. More than that, though, R&D was spending piles of money, so even seeing strange research that looked likely to fail made me feel good.
“Hmm... this person is working on the same research again.”
Dr. Park of Daeseung Chemicals.
The reason this person caught my attention was not only because the reports always said they were conducting the same research.
Even if it succeeded, its self-assessed economic value was so low that it would be quicker to count it backward. In short, it was research that would not make money.
I had even heard that President Kim had instructed Dr. Park to switch to another project if there were no results by this quarter.
“Hmm, that won't do.”
I immediately issued a special directive from the Vice Chairman through Lee Jinju, Chief of Staff.
Dr. Park was to be encouraged to continue the research regardless of the outcome.
“EUV photoresist? Even the name is difficult. Anyway, it keeps failing, and even if it succeeds, it won't make money. Aren't there more people who only research things like this?”
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