We are all reborn, who wants to be the richest man?

The car was driving along a long road and through the woods, and the scenery outside the car made Huasteiner feel very familiar.

The scenery of Bell Labs on the top of Murray Mountain coincides with that of this place. It is also gently surrounded by lush bushes. A winding mountain road acts as a link, cleverly connecting to the magnificent buildings of Bell Labs.

"Any questions?"

In the grand and luxurious Rolls-Royce, Erickson, who was sitting next to his old friend, asked while looking at his old friend Warsteiner's dazed expression outside the window.

The two are very good friends. They knew each other when Erickson was in the United States. Later, with the rise of the Far East Laboratory, the two, as the heads of the world's top technology laboratories, met at many summits and naturally became more familiar with each other.

"No, I just think this place has a great environment, surrounded by mountains, just like Murray Mountain."

Ericsson knew that the other party was reminded of the past, so he smiled and said, "If you like, you can live in Lantau Island.

In the south is the Luo family mansion. Apart from the resort at the southeast end, there are no other buildings. This is the Luo family's territory.

But it’s different in the north. A lot of villas have been developed in the north of central Lantau Island. They are all of this style of being surrounded by nature. Many of Hong Kong Island’s top elites live there, including my home.”

Eriksson's sincere invitation not only failed to bring joy to Warsteiner as expected, but instead quietly wove a heavy melancholy and sadness in his heart.

Don't like this environment? Not really.

Don’t like Hong Kong Island? Not really.

The problem is that moving to Hong Kong Island means that Bell Labs will enter a new era, which is equivalent to changing its name.

Now, Warsteiner's inner world is occupied by an extremely complex emotion, an indescribable feeling of being caught in a dilemma, and the contradictions are intertwined to an unprecedented level.

His mind seemed to be in an intricate maze. Every step was filled with difficulty and helplessness in making choices. Moving forward and retreating were not easy. The balance in his heart swayed between two completely different forces.

Stay the same? Every time I applied for funding, I saw Stein had a sullen face, which was almost written with disgust and disgust. It made Warsteiner feel that he was rejected from a thousand miles away, and he almost said "dislike" to him directly.

This feeling made Warsteiner extremely depressed but helpless, because behind him were tens of thousands of hungry scientific researchers waiting for his funding.

Being indifferent is relatively good, but the problem is that the higher-ups pay less and less attention to Bell Labs, even to the point of insulting it.

This year, Bell Labs' research budget hit an all-time low of just over $1 billion. This is not a small amount for a research institution with more than 10,000 researchers at this time; on the contrary, it is a lot.

But the problem is that Bell Labs is not an ordinary research institution. The researchers here are researching the most advanced technology of mankind.

What does it represent? More consumables, more waste, and better lab equipment.

From this perspective, this amount of R&D funding is a bit stretched.

And now it is certain that after the split of AT&T, Bell will belong to the split-off Lucent and the result cannot be changed.

Warsteiner doesn't care which company it belongs to, but he will be very uncomfortable if the scientific research budget is reportedly cut again next year.

And there is another point, that is, the senior executives of Lucent have contacted him several times, and their implicit meaning is to reform Bell Labs and make their own money and spend it like the Far East Laboratory.

But the problem is that they are scientists, not businessmen.

They don’t understand whether many of the technologies they develop have commercial value; they are just scholars doing research.

Why can Far East Laboratory achieve self-sufficiency? That is because Far East Group has a dedicated evaluation team.

This evaluation team is specifically responsible for evaluating the results developed by the Far East Laboratory and examining whether they have commercial value.

Another point is that Far Eastern companies will launch projects, which will be handed over to R&D personnel who have no ideas.

These patents will remain in the Far East Laboratory, which will undoubtedly bring a lot of extra income to the Far East Laboratory.

These projects all need to be applied to products, and commercialization is inevitable.

Finally, there are universities. Many researchers at the Far East Laboratory work part-time at HKUST to supervise graduate students.

What do you need to do when you supervise graduate students? Experiments, of course.

Who will pay for this part? Of course, it is HKUST.

In other words, HKUST will help the Far East Laboratory share part of the scientific research funding, so that these researchers have more sufficient funding.

The development of HKUST over the years is obvious to all. It is now one of the top ten universities in the world and the best comprehensive university in Asia, attracting talents from all over Southeast Asia.

There are many wealthy people in Hong Kong Island and even more wealthy people in Southeast Asia. All of them are unwilling to devote themselves to education. Donations from everyone add up to a huge astronomical figure.

According to the latest announcement, the amount of donations received by HKUST last year exceeded US$6.18 million, which exceeded that of MIT and was second only to Harvard's US$6.27 million in social donations.

These are not the things that Huasteiner can't stand the most. The most outrageous thing is that a few days ago, a real estate developer came to him to discuss something.

It is said that they want to buy the land of Bell Labs and develop it into a commercial district and residential area to create another luxury commercial district in New Jersey.

Warsteiner was so angry that he almost broke the other person's legs. If someone hadn't stopped him, the other person could thank God if he wanted to leave Murray Hill unscathed.

The real estate developer left, but Warsteiner came to his senses.

This real estate developer was most likely sent by AT&T to test me, otherwise why would they contact me? Shouldn't they contact the higher-ups directly?

Murray Hill has a superior location and pleasant environment, which is a rare good location in New Jersey. It is normal for the group to intend to use this huge piece of land to develop real estate projects.

However, Bell Labs has a special status, and the group did not dare to give direct orders, nor could it speak on its own, so it could only send people to test the waters.

It was this test that completely chilled Warsteiner's heart.

His disagreement with the relocation had basically offended the group completely. Whether Warsteiner admitted it or not, there was a difficult problem before him, which was to attract investors for Bell Labs.

Now the capitalists above are almost crazy for the stock price. Research and development funds? Forget about increasing them. They will definitely decrease. There is no way for him to compromise and move to develop real estate projects.

For AT&T, which has forgotten its original intention, Warsteiner no longer has any hope, but the tens of thousands of scientific researchers behind him make it impossible for him to just walk away.

Since you greedy parasites don't want Bell Labs and think that we are a burden, I will grant your wish.

So Warsteiner began to save himself and agreed to Eriksson's invitation, which also reflects his dilemma.

If nothing is done, Bell Labs will slowly die.

But if it is really acquired by Far East Laboratory, as Erickson said, some scientific researchers will definitely have to move to Hong Kong Island, and he, as the top leader, will definitely have to come here.

Leaving home, no one knows whether they can adapt.