World's Richest Man: I Leaped Across Time

Friday, May 7th – 5:00 AM.

I woke up to a ringing phone, I blinked, my eyes adjusting to the dark room.

Beside me, Charlotte stirred, her bare shoulder slipping out from under the sheets, she mumbled something before turning away from the noise.

I reached for my phone on the nightstand and quickly answered before it could wake her.

Slipping out of bed, I moved quietly, stepping into the hallway and shutting the door behind me. The house was still. I made my way to my office, rubbing my face as I sat down in my chair.

I checked the screen. Raegan Lee.

I sighed and answered. "It's 5 AM, Raegan..."

"Ah, fuck, man. I forgot about the time difference again."

I smirked. "No, you didn't. You do this on purpose."

"Maybe," he admitted, laughing a little. "Anyway, it's good to hear you. You up?"

"Well, I am now," I said, leaning back in my chair. "What's up?"

"I've just finalized the proposal with Appaloosa's team."

I sat up a little straighter. "Go on."

"This is big—huge," he said, his voice crisp. "Appaloosa's fully onboard, and if we play this right, we're looking at billions in profit over the next five years. You ready?"

I twirled a pen between my fingers. "Let's hear it, Raegan."

"Alright, let's start with the basics. We're calling this "Project Silk Road". The idea is to build a complete ecosystem across Asia—telecom towers, mobile banking, and online shopping—all tied together. Appaloosa handles the physical side: ports, shipping, trucks. We handle the digital side: phones, money, apps."

"And the money?"

"The total investment: is 2 billion. We put in 1 billion, Appaloosa matches it. Here's where every dollar goes—"

"First, we buy big stakes in cellphone companies in countries where almost no one has a mobile phone yet. Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines—places where only 10–20% of people own a phone."

"In Vietnam, the government's selling part of VietTel, their state-owned telecom. We grab 25% ownership for $250 million."

"In Indonesia, TelkomSel is expanding into villages. We invest $300 million for a 15% stake."

"This is brilliant," I said, tapping my pen against the desk. "I mean, really perfect."

Raegan chuckled. "You like it?"

"Absolutely." I continued, "Right now, in Vietnam, there are 90 million people. How many of them have phones? Eight million. That's nothing. By 2008 that'll be 50 million easy. Maybe more."

Raegan was silent, letting me think out loud.

"Every single one of them will pay for calls, texts… then mobile banking. Once people start handling their money on their phones, if we own the system they have to use... And if we have full control of the pipeline..."

I shook my head, grinning.

Raegan exhaled, sounding satisfied. "Knew you'd get it. I have estimated that by 2007, these will make over $300 million/year in profit for us—and that's just from phone bills."

"Now, here's Britney's genius microloan vision, scaled...." Raegan paused for effect "Most people in these countries don't have bank accounts. But they do have phones. We'll partner with our telecoms to launch SMS banking."

"Farmers can borrow $50 via text to buy seeds. Appaloosa's wiring 300M to seed loans." he continued. "Street vendors can send money to family in another city for a 1% fee. We charge 8% interest on loans, that's half what loan sharks charge, and people repay through their phone credit."

"Hmm..." I gave it a thought. "What about delinquency? How do we make sure that those people repay the loans? Collateral?"

"We use phone data to track behavior. If someone's topping up their phone regularly, they're reliable. We tested this in the Philippines—96% of people repaid loans."

"Alright. Did you project profit?"

"It will start small, probably around 50M$ up to 2006. Everything will depend on the assimilation. But by my humble calculations 400M$ a year by 2009 isn't impossible, and there are many expansion possibilities."

"Sounds great. What about the e-commerce part that we talked about?"

"This is where Appaloosa's ports and ships come in. We'll build online shopping platforms in each country—think "Amazon for Southeast Asia. A farmer in Vietnam buys a rice cooker on our app. The order gets shipped from a warehouse near Appaloosa's port in Haiphong. Delivery is tracked via SMS. And Payments? Done via our mobile banking."

"It goes full circle... Okay, but what's stopping Alibaba or eBay from crushing us?" Read exclusive adventures at My Virtual Library Empire

"They're focused on cities and big businesses. We're targeting rural areas—100 million people who've never used the internet. By the time Alibaba notices, we'll own the market. Overall the profit from everything could come to more than 1 billion dollars per year, but it's really a guessing game at the moment."

"Yhym... but nothing is ever as simple as that, you know? Governments might try to interfere. Especially when some foreign entity is making billions off of their own citizens."

"That's a valid concern, Jack. However, we're partnering with local players—like the Salim Group in Indonesia—to keep them happy. Also, we're not putting all our eggs in one basket—Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines. If one fails, the others balance it out."

"We need your approval to finalize the VietTel deal. I mean... we need Derec's approval... Appaloosa's ready to wire their $1 billion the moment we sign."

I paused, then smiled. "Do it. And Raegan?"

"Yeah?"

"If this works, you'll retire before you're 40."

"I'll settle for a bonus big enough to buy a yacht."

The call ended.

As I turned on my PC, I thought, 'Telecom + banking + shopping = a loop where each part feeds the others. Knowing how evaluation of companies work, if we manage to bring this much profit yearly, this 2 billion investment could turn into 40-50 billion by 2008.'

After ending the call with Raegan, I turned on my PC and logged into my anonymous Yahoo account.

My inbox was flooded. More than a hundred people had followed me since the VitalStream (VSTH) run. People were analyzing my posts, trying to find my next move.

I started scrolling through different threads, checking discussions on beaten-down stocks with high short interest. These were stocks where retail traders had lost thousands, sometimes everything, over the past few months or years.

Stocks that had been forgotten—except by the hedge funds still betting against them.

I found three solid plays. Each had a real business, but their stock prices had been crushed by short sellers. To some degree for the right reason, as the companies were losing money.

I clicked into the first stock's forum and started typing:

"This company is real. The products are real. The revenue is real. The only thing fake? The idea that this stock is worth nothing. The shorts don't understand what's possible. Don't sell. They need your shares to cover. If you hold, they lose. Simple as that."

I hit post and moved on to the next one.

"You ever wonder why the same names always push stocks down? It's because they make money off fear. But they're wrong this time."

"People have been calling this dead for months. But let me remind you—shorts only win when you give up."

Minutes later, notifications flooded in. People were reading. Believing.

"This guy called VSTH perfectly. I'm all in."

"Finally, someone who gets it. I'm following you everywhere."

I smirked. The movement had begun.

Over the next few days, I used multiple brokerage accounts to quietly buy up shares. I didn't make big moves all at once—that would've drawn too much attention. Instead, I spread the buys across different accounts, keeping the volume looking natural.

But even slow buying was enough.

The first stock started creeping up. Then the second. Then the third.

By the end of the week, all three stocks had doubled, even tripled in price.

The forums exploded.

"I should've bought more!"

"Shorts are getting squeezed again! This is beautiful."

"This guy knows something. He sees the plays before anyone else."

...

With the hype still burning, I made my next move.

I went to my profile and wrote a new post:

"Forget stocks for a second. Let's talk about something bigger.

Bitcoin.

Right now, it's worth $0.71 per coin. Almost no one knows about it. Almost no one believes in it. But mark my words: This will be the future of money.

Banks won't control it. Governments won't control it. It's built on pure code—decentralized, unstoppable, borderless.

Don't just watch history happen. Be part of it."

I wasn't in Bitcoin yet to make money.

Most of my friends had already bought some after I told them about it. I had only $30,000 in for now, but that didn't matter.

What mattered was that these people owed me everything.

I had made them money. I had saved their portfolios. And now, I had given them the next big thing before anyone else saw it coming.

They wouldn't forget that.

They would follow me wherever I led them next.

...

On the same day that I made the Bitcoin post, I got a call from Liberation.

"Ava? What's the update?"

"We located Hunter Rothschild. He's hiding in China. But..." She paused. "Let's just say that it will be borderline impossible to get to him. He seems to have made some friends in high places—"