Anyone who had ever paid even passing attention to the internet economy would know the name.
During the early internet boom, Yahoo was without question one of the biggest goldmines in existence.
In John Leighton’s eyes, sitting there on that screen, Netscape and Yahoo together looked like two enormous piles of US dollars just waiting to be claimed.
He casually clicked on the Yahoo link and browsed for a while.
At this point in time, Yahoo wasn’t really a portal site in the way people would later understand the term.
It was more like a detailed directory of the web, a guide that helped people find their way around an internet that most of the world was only just discovering.
Even so, his heart stirred the moment he saw it.
He wondered exactly how far along Yahoo’s development was right now.
As for Netscape, he already knew it wasn’t an option.
Netscape was going public in 1995, which meant the window for early involvement had effectively closed.
Besides, Netscape was eventually acquired and absorbed.
Yahoo, on the other hand, was a different story entirely.
Yahoo had far more potential and far more staying power in the early internet era.
Although its story in later years was not without turbulence, during the formative years of the internet Yahoo held genuine power over half the online world.
From memory, Yahoo had officially registered as a company and completed its first round of financing in 1995, backed by Sequoia Capital.
It became one of the most celebrated cases in venture capital history.
That deal made Sequoia’s reputation and turned Masayoshi Son into the man people would later call the King of Investment.
Yahoo then went public in 1996.
As for the exact dates, he couldn’t be certain.
In his previous life he had been an internet café manager, not a student of internet history.
He remembered the broad strokes, not the fine print.
…
Every time John Leighton thought about things like this, he felt a quiet sense of amusement at the protagonists of transmigration novels from his previous life.
Those characters always seemed to carry perfect knowledge with them, remembering specific dates, locations, and figures with photographic clarity, as though they had memorised entire encyclopedias before being reborn.
And yet, with all that supposed genius, they had somehow all lived unremarkable lives before their second chance.
He could only laugh at himself too.
He had been reborn for fifteen years and his greatest achievement so far was winning a few World Cup bets.
That was it.
Who actually remembered which teams competed in every round of the 1994 World Cup?
He certainly didn’t.
He only knew Baggio’s matches because Baggio had become a global icon through that tournament and the story had stuck with him.
Even then, he couldn’t have named every team in the Round of 16 or the quarterfinals.
When he thought about how those novel protagonists turned a few sports bets into billions, he couldn’t help but shake his head.
He had known about major financial events too.
The Plaza Accord.
The British pound crisis of the nineties.
He had heard of both.
But knowing something had happened and knowing how to act on it were two entirely different things.
By the time he understood what those events meant, they had already become history.
All he could do was listen and treat them as interesting stories.
…
Thinking that Yahoo must already be in the process of reaching out to financial backers and preparing for its first round of financing, and wondering whether the concept of a web portal had even been proposed yet, he lost all interest in casual browsing.
Yahoo had been the first to introduce the portal concept, the original model that internet companies around the world would later imitate and build upon.
But right now, at this moment, Yahoo was still just called “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web.” The name Yahoo, complete with its exclamation mark, wouldn’t come until the company was formally registered later in 1995.
He wanted nothing more than to drive straight to Silicon Valley, find Jerry Yang, and tell him directly that he would invest every dollar he had, all five hundred thousand of it, in exchange for a few shares.
At its peak in 1999, Yahoo’s market value would reach nearly one hundred billion US dollars.
He stopped surfing.
He told Uncle Yang to settle the bill and walked out, ignoring Zach’s complaints entirely.
…
Back at the apartment, John Leighton pulled Zach into his room and closed the door.
“Zach, I’ve found a way for us to get rich.”
“What?”
“Zach, when you were online just now, what were you using to browse information?”
“The website directory?”
“Yes.
That website directory.
What would you think about us investing in it?”
“Oh, my God.
Do you even know where their company is?
And these kinds of companies, they probably already have venture capital firms circling them.
Boy, I’ll admit it might be a good idea, but a few hundred thousand dollars isn’t going to compete at that level.”
…
“Zach, please don’t discourage me before we’ve even tried.
How will we know unless we make the attempt?
Don’t you trust me by now?
Believe me, if we can pull this off, this might be the only chance either of us gets to truly become wealthy.
And reaching out to them isn’t even difficult.
Their website has contact information right there.
I need to go to Silicon Valley immediately.
I know that’s where these companies are based.
From this moment on, Zach, I am hiring you as my private lawyer.
I need you to book us an afternoon flight right now.
I want to be in Silicon Valley today and sitting across from their people tomorrow morning.
I am going to invest.”
John said it with complete seriousness, punctuating his words with firm gestures to make absolutely clear he meant every syllable.
…
Perhaps it was John’s certainty that wore Zach down.
Perhaps it was the persuasion itself, and the fact that the pursuit of wealth runs deep in every person’s bones.
Perhaps it was watching John immediately begin packing his luggage, making his determination impossible to ignore.
Perhaps it was simply Zach’s good nature and the role he had taken on as guardian.
Whatever the reason, Zach called the law firm, explained the situation, took a week off, and eventually loaded John and their bags into the old pickup truck and headed for the airport.
He didn’t let the fact that it was New Year’s Day, a national holiday, slow him down for a moment.
Thanks to America’s well developed domestic air network, the journey from Los Angeles to San Francisco, where Silicon Valley was located, took just over an hour despite spanning several hundred kilometers.
They arrived in San Francisco around three in the afternoon, found a hotel with internet access, and arranged a rental car for the following morning.
During the flight, John couldn’t help but notice that the flight attendants were all middle aged women.
He kept the observation to himself.
…
Back in the hotel room, he went online again, found the contact number on the website, and had Zach make the call.
The message was simple and direct: they were angel investors interested in a meeting the following morning.
“Yeah…
Yes…
Yes…
Yes!”
Zach hung up, noted down the address, and nodded.
John shouted.
“Boy, calm down and listen to me first.
The person on the phone sounded genuinely excited when I mentioned angel investor.
Which tells me they probably haven’t raised any funds yet, John.
If you truly want to invest, it might actually work.
But I can’t tell you what happens after that.”
Zach held up a hand, trying to bring some measured thinking to the moment before John’s excitement ran away entirely.
“Zach, as long as they are willing to talk, as long as I can get a share, I am committed.
We are going to get rich.”
John said it like a fact.
“I hope so.
Alright.
You’re the boss.” Zach shrugged, acknowledging there was no stopping him.
…
With a positive answer secured, John Leighton could barely hear anything else.
He knew what this was.
This was the future Yahoo.
Nearly one hundred billion dollars at its peak.
From this point forward, money would never be a problem again.
To borrow a phrase from a later era: from here on out, money is just a number.
Early the next morning, Zach drove their rented car out of the hotel parking lot with a yawning John Leighton in the passenger seat, who had been far too wound up to sleep all night.
They pulled onto the road and headed toward Silicon Valley.
Toward what John Leighton was absolutely certain would be the moment everything changed.