Time is always fair to everyone.
Without anyone quite noticing, a month had passed.
Inside a garage in Silicon Valley, the atmosphere was electric.
“Attention!
The fully revamped Yahoo portal officially launches today!
Yahoo begins a new internet journey, a new era of the internet!”
As Jerry Yang’s words rang out, the seven or eight technical staff packed into the garage erupted.
A month of relentless work had become something real, and everyone felt it.
Shouting, cheering, fists in the air.
Standing back and watching the celebration, John Leighton was quietly moved.
It truly had not been easy.
Spending a month in close quarters with a group of technology fanatics was, among other things, exhausting.
Zach was there too.
John had brought him on as the company’s legal counsel, and Jerry Yang and David Filo had raised no objections.
Zach had been helpful from the very beginning, and having a lawyer close at hand in America made a great many things easier.
John Leighton gave him five percentage points of equity, and that was what ultimately convinced Zach to resign from his firm and commit fully.
As for what five percentage points would eventually be worth, John Leighton understood perfectly well.
But money was not the only thing that mattered.
Zach had shown him genuine kindness, and John intended to repay that in the most meaningful way he could.
…
John Leighton had also taken a leave of absence from school.
The weeks ahead would leave no time for sitting in a classroom with kids his age.
He sent Zach back to Los Angeles to handle both the school paperwork and his own resignation from the firm.
The school nearly had Zach arrested.
In America, the education of minors is protected by law, and the school staff assumed that a lawyer turning up to withdraw a fifteen year old meant the child was being neglected or abused.
It took a phone call from John Leighton himself to clear things up and get the paperwork signed.
…
The past month had been a blur of motion.
From the day the shareholding agreement was finalised, they moved fast.
Registering a company in Silicon Valley was quick by any standard, and with Zach handling the legal side, the process moved even faster.
Two days after registration, they found the garage.
Over a hundred square meters, which was more than enough for the early stage.
Garage culture was practically a religion in Silicon Valley, so finding one was not difficult.
They cleaned it out, purchased network equipment, brought in furniture, and recruited personnel.
Within a week the workspace was functional.
The news of Jerry Yang and David Filo leaving Stanford to start a company spread through campus, though it caused barely a ripple.
Such things happened regularly in Silicon Valley.
No one was particularly surprised.
Under the original timeline, this period should have been when Yahoo made contact with Sequoia Capital, with a formal investment following in March or April.
Because of John Leighton’s early involvement, Sequoia had missed the window entirely.
John Leighton felt no guilt about that whatsoever.
He did find it slightly curious.
According to what he knew from his previous life, Sequoia had heard of Yahoo through a referral in January and made inquiries.
What he didn’t know was that when Sequoia reached out, they were told the first angel investment round had already closed.
With dozens of other projects competing for their attention, they quietly moved on.
One missed opportunity among many.
…
Jerry Yang and David Filo, together with seven newly recruited technicians, had worked around the clock for the entire month.
The portal design had been completed the previous week, and after seven days of testing, they had chosen today as the launch date.
The site was built on the bones of the original web directory but transformed into something far more substantial.
It now included a news channel, financial news, sports, entertainment, automotive content, a relationships section, and Yahoo Search, among other major categories.
John Leighton had shown up every day throughout the process.
He understood nothing about the technical side of things, but after years of browsing the internet in a later era, he had strong instincts for what made a site feel good to use.
His suggestions had made a genuine difference.
The Yahoo portal that launched today offered a noticeably better user experience than the early Yahoo of his previous life.
More importantly, Yahoo Search and the portal concept itself had arrived roughly a year and a half ahead of schedule.
In the landscape of the current internet, it was a significant weapon.
The technical team had come to respect him for it, this underage kid who somehow always knew what felt right.
Jerry Yang and David Filo had taken to introducing him as their best product tester and user experience officer.
…
Three days after the launch, John Leighton stood with Jerry Yang in the garage early one morning.
“It’s finally out there.
The feedback over these three days has been strong.
I think we can call the initial stage a success.” Jerry Yang said quietly, with the look of someone who had just exhaled for the first time in weeks.
“Isn’t that exactly what we wanted?
Strong early feedback means we’re on the right track.”
David Filo burst in before Jerry Yang could respond.
“Jerry, the numbers are incredible.
People love the revamped site.
Registered member accounts have already passed three hundred thousand in three days, and the comment sections are active.
Messages keep coming in saying it’s better than anything they’ve seen before.
And starting yesterday, we’ve had calls asking about advertising.
Advertising!
We’ve done it!”
John Leighton had suggested the member registration system from the beginning.
Free email was not yet possible as the server costs were beyond their current budget, but giving users an account and a comment function had been straightforward to implement.
Simple as it was, it immediately made the site feel alive.
Users could post, react, and engage with each other in a way that hadn’t really existed outside of chat rooms before.
Chat rooms had their own feel, but this was different.
Yahoo’s comment function was welcomed across the entire network almost the moment it went live.
The praise had been pouring in for three days, traffic was climbing steadily, and now advertisers were already calling.
…
“Brother Yang, the next part is on you and David.
I’m heading back to Los Angeles.
I’ve been away for over a month.”
“What?
Why go back?
Just stay in Silicon Valley.” Jerry Yang looked genuinely surprised.
“I’m under eighteen.
Are you trying to hire child labour?
You want the authorities coming after you?”
“Get lost.” Jerry Yang said, though he was smiling when he said it.
In the time they had spent together, John Leighton’s maturity had consistently exceeded everyone’s expectations.
When he was in the room, nobody thought of him as a minor.
He operated like someone who had been doing this for decades.
When it was just the two of them and no one else was around, he and Jerry Yang spoke in their shared language.
The first time the rest of the team realised they could communicate that way, there was genuine surprise in the room.
…
“Jerry, Saint, you two are doing it again.
You know I can’t follow a word of that.” David Filo called over from across the garage.
The nickname had evolved over the course of the month.
The staff had learned John Leighton’s background, and many had started calling him by his first name, Saint.
As his reputation in the office grew, someone decided that the way he operated was like receiving a blessing from above, and the nickname Holy Son appeared.
It stuck.
Others went with Saint John, or simply used his surname.
The garage had settled into a comfortable mix of all three.
“I said I’m going back to Los Angeles.
David Filo looked up sharply.
“What?”
“Are you really expecting a fifteen year old to live in a garage with you indefinitely?” John Leighton rolled his eyes, then smiled.
“I genuinely keep forgetting.
Jerry, what were you doing at fifteen?”
Jerry Yang’s expression went blank.
He had no good answer to that.
He could only shake his head at the reality of sharing a company with someone like this.
…
“Here is where things stand going forward.
Within the next month, you should start seeing real advertising revenue.
It won’t be large, but it will be clear proof that the profit model works.
That is when you begin the formal fundraising process, because free email and premium membership tiers will both require serious server investment.
In the meantime, use your connections at Stanford to recruit.
You’ll need dedicated operations people, advertising staff, content managers.
The technical team you have is strong, but the company is going to need more than engineers.
You two are going to be very busy.
Hold on for another month or two and I believe we cross the threshold.
And one more thing.
Our valuation going forward is no longer five million dollars.
The real number, based on what we have built and where it is going, is at minimum one hundred million.
Are you both ready to become very wealthy men?” John Leighton said it with a slight smile, as though he were discussing the weather.
The two of them went quiet for a moment.
They had been so consumed by the work that neither had stopped to think about what it all meant for them personally.
Now that John Leighton had said it plainly, it landed.
They couldn’t confirm the hundred million figure with certainty.
But looking at the trajectory of the site over just three days, ten million in personal net worth felt entirely plausible.
Maybe conservative.
…
“Don’t overthink it.
The point is that when you sit across from anyone in the next fundraising conversation, you do it with complete confidence.
As for me, I’m going back to Los Angeles.
I’ll be waiting for good news.”
He called Zach over, and the two of them walked out of the Yahoo garage.
Behind them, Jerry Yang turned to David Filo.
“David.
Do you think we’re actually about to become multi-millionaires?”
“I think so.
Which means, Mr.
Multi-Millionaire, you still have a considerable amount of work sitting on your desk.”
“True.
And that kid just walked off with our lawyer.
You know what I think, David?
I think he’s going back to Los Angeles to meet Hollywood actresses.”
“Jerry.
I can hear the envy in your voice.
Also, I’m starting to feel like the two of us are working for him.”
“Don’t say that out loud.
Get back to work, Mr.
Multi-Millionaire.”
“After you, Mr.
Multi-Millionaire.”
2 chs pers day