Reborn in 2010, the AI ​​in my mind is too powerful.

Three days after signing the office contract, on a Tuesday afternoon, Catherine compiled the security company's quote and sent it to Chen Yiran.

The efficiency was higher than Chen Yiran had expected. The attachment contained proposals and quotes from three security companies, each with its advantages and disadvantages marked.

The resources Emily introduced are indeed reliable; they are all local companies specializing in security for small commercial offices, with good reputations and reasonable prices.

Option A is the cheapest, consisting of basic access control and two cameras, costing 4,500.

Option B (mid-range): IC card access control system plus six cameras with 24-hour recording, 8,200.

Option C is all-inclusive, including everything in Option B, plus biometric access control and remote monitoring, for $15,000.

At the end of the email, Catherine wrote a suggestion: Option B has the best cost performance; the biometrics in Option C are not currently needed by the company due to the small number of employees; and Option A is too basic, as there is little difference between installing it on the security door and not installing it.

Chen Yiran carefully considered Catherine's advice and then resolutely chose option C, demanding that the entire building be reinforced and all the doors be replaced with more robust and burglarproof ones.

In the afternoon, Catherine replied to the email saying that the construction was scheduled for next Monday, because Chen Yiran's requirements were quite high and it would take at least a week to complete.

He added: "The equipment procurement team compared three suppliers and selected the one with the biggest discount. They've already placed the order and agreed that it will be delivered after the company completes the modifications."

Chen Yiran felt that employee number 002 was worth the price; he was quite good at using him.

After the security arrangements were finalized, Chen Zelin personally delivered a large envelope.

He said that sending dozens of resumes via email was too sloppy; printing them out, binding them, and sending them over was the proper way for an old-school headhunter like him to do things.

Chen Yiran took it with a bit of helplessness and weighed it in his hand; it was quite heavy.

I called Gao Dewei and asked him to watch it with me. The two of us were in Chen Yiran's living room, each with a pile of papers, a bit like grading papers.

Gao Dewei flipped through the pages very quickly, able to judge about 70-80% of the information just by glancing at the school and work experience.

Chen Yiran was much slower at reviewing the data; he wasn't an EDA professional, so it was mostly Jasmine who did the filtering.

Gao Dewei pointed to a resume and said, "This one is very good. He has a master's degree from National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan and worked at Synopsys for six years in the physics design department. He should have a very solid understanding of placement."

Chen Yiran took it and glanced at it. Lin Zhiwei, 32 years old, Master of Electronics from National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu, Digital Physical Design Engineer at Synopsys. His resume stated that he had participated in placement QoR optimization for IC Compiler.

"Okay, call him over to take a look."

"Take a look at this one too. He's Indian, with a bachelor's degree from IIT and a master's degree from the University of Texas at Austin. He did VLSI design at AMD for three years, but he changed companies twice in those three years."

"Is there a reason written down?"

"The resume only lists completed projects, which could simply mean the pay wasn't enough."

"We'll talk about it after the interview. We'll ask then."

The two went through another round of applications. There were significantly more resumes for C++ engineers than for EDA engineers, and they came from all over the world. Some were from game companies, some worked on financial systems, and some were embedded development engineers, but their skill levels should all be sufficient, and Chen Zelin had specifically screened them all.

Chen Yiran picked out two C++ applications. One was from Zhang Minghui, a Tsinghua University computer science undergraduate and USC master's graduate who had worked at EA for three years developing game engines and whose resume stated he "wanted to switch to a more technically in-depth direction." The other was from Vikram, an Indian with a UIUC CS master's degree who had worked at Motorola for two years developing embedded systems.

Gao Dewei looked down on outsiders: "Why don't you switch to game engines and embedded systems and work with us?"

"As long as the underlying C++ is robust enough, that's fine; just do your job well."

Gao Dewei nodded.

Final selection results: two for VLSI design, two for C++, a total of four interviews. Chen Yiran asked Catherine to send out the interview invitations, all scheduled for the same day.

Because the office was still under renovation, Chen Yiran called and booked a business meeting room at the Four Seasons. The Four Seasons Hotel is located in Palo Alto, not far from anywhere. The rooftop meeting room, with floor-to-ceiling windows and coffee service, was rented for half a day for only $800.

Gao Dewei watched Chen Yiran make a phone call to Datong, just to book an $8 conference room. He was speechless.

"Is this what it's like to be a billionaire? You need someone to help you book a meeting room."

"I've deposited so much money in here, it would be a huge loss if I didn't use their services. That's what makes them happy. If I don't use their services, they'll be afraid I'll switch to another bank. Getting back to the point, what about high-performance computing? My envisioned design involves a huge amount of computation, requiring people to handle distributed training and GPU cluster scheduling."

"Don't ask me. I know people who work in HPC. Chip emulation is also computationally intensive, but it's clearly different from what you're looking for. You're the boss, so figure it out yourself. Go poach someone from Nvidia."

"Fine, I know the heir to Nvidia. If all else fails, I'll just shamelessly go to him and ask him to introduce us. Then, I'll stab that guy in the back."

"The boss is ruthless. To succeed in Silicon Valley, you have to be ruthless. I couldn't start my own business because I wasn't ruthless enough, so I had to become a teacher."

"Is what you're saying a nice thing?"

After discussing the work process again, Chen Yiran saw Gao Dewei off and began their daily parent-child activities.

On the day of the interview, Chen Yiran changed into a slightly more formal shirt and brought Pidan with her. After all, it was a Silicon Valley tech company, and Chen Yiran felt she could learn from the practices of her seniors. For example, in the office, people were allowed to bring their cats and dogs, which actually boosted work efficiency.

The interview was conducted by company employees No. 001, 002, and 003, along with Chen Zelin and Pidan as assistants.

According to the order of the notifications, Lin Zhiwei was the first to be interviewed.

He looked a bit older than his resume photo; he was thirty years old but had the head of a forty. Seeing that everyone was Chinese, he simply conducted the interview in heavily accented Taiwanese Mandarin. Gao Dewei later asked several questions in English about placement algorithms, including the trade-offs in force-directed algorithms and netlist partitioning strategies for multi-level layouts. Lin Zhiwei answered each question well, at least satisfying Gao Dewei.

Then came some standard personal questions, such as why he left Synopsys. Lin Zhiwei said he had worked at a large company for six years and was already familiar with placement matters, but the next step was management. However, he didn't like transitioning to management and preferred to continue working in technology. He didn't have much ambition at his previous company.

Gao Dewei glanced at Chen Yiran, and Chen Yiran nodded.

In fact, Chen Zelin had already screened all these people, and their character and professional ethics should not have any major problems.

The second VLSI candidate was Amit, an Indian from AMD. Technically, he seemed to have no problems. Gao Dewei talked with him for half an hour, covering everything from standard cell libraries to clock tree synthesis; his answers were fluent throughout, demonstrating solid technical skills.

But Chen Yiran always felt that this person was too polite during the interview, saying no problem with everything and even his opinion on working overtime. It was too smooth and made her a little uneasy.

After seeing Amit off, Chen Zelin explained, "I've roughly investigated this person's situation. He was doing K8 architecture verification at AMD. Later, during the financial crisis, AMD sold some projects to ATIC. The personnel were retained, but he needed to move to New York. H1B visa changes take 3-6 months to process. His son is sick, so he can't afford to lose his health insurance or change states."

So he took a pay cut and joined ClearSpeed ​​within two months, but the company soon ran into financial difficulties and laid off 7% of its staff, including him. He's in this situation now because he desperately needs a job. In traditional Chinese terms, this person is having some bad luck. But technically and personally, there's nothing wrong with him. He was just unlucky before; in reality, he has a very high demand for stability.

Chen Yiran nodded and said, "It's okay, this bit of bad luck shouldn't affect me. Why didn't he make that clear on his resume? We thought he was the kind of person who likes to switch jobs for higher salaries."

Chen Zelin said helplessly, "You know Silicon Valley, it has the highest technology, but it's also more superstitious. When the economy is good, it's fine, but with the current economic situation, if he writes everything down clearly, it might be even harder for him to find a job."

Gao Dewei asked curiously, "What illness does his son have? Is it incurable?"

Chen Zelin sighed: "Adolescent idiopathic arthritis requires regular injections of biological agents, each injection costing several thousand dollars. Add to that the monthly check-up fees and the cost of specialized doctors, it's a bottomless pit, which is why he's in such a hurry."

Gao Dewei looked at Chen Yiran and said, "I'd rather spend a fortune on a horse's bones than settle for less; I think he's the one."

Catherine had been listening silently, but she couldn't help but speak up: "Boss, if he's qualified, please help him. I feel sorry for him."

Chen Yiran nodded: "Okay, he's the one."

The next speaker was Zhang Minghui, an outstanding employee of Tencent North America.

Chen Yiran gave Zhang Minghui a task: to write a simple data structure on the whiteboard—an adjacency list implementation for a large-scale sparse graph. Zhang Minghui's code was very clean, demonstrating proficiency in C++'s STL. After finishing, he added a note: if the graph has millions of nodes, a distributed hash table could be used.

The last one was Vikram, which was a bit disappointing. The materials were quite in-depth, but he often got stuck when answering questions. Chen Yiran gave him a question, and although he eventually completed it, his thinking process was rather mediocre.

After seeing the person off, Chen Yiran started complaining to Chen Zelin.

"Anything else good? We rented a meeting room and only interviewed four people. It's such a waste."

"I can't help it if your demands are too high. That Vikram isn't actually that bad, but you obviously don't want him."

"We only want the strong ones! Find me a few more."

"Okay, okay, I'll look for it again for you."

Chen Yiran sighed and asked, "You really have no solution for high-performance computing?"

"Nothing can be done."

Chen Yiran nodded. There was no other way; he had to take matters into his own hands.