Wearing a plain black crewneck T-shirt, durable blue jeans and a pair of smoky gray casual sneakers, Tommy, Jason, Holly, Mark, and Susan are wearing the same outfits, leaning on the front of Tommy's classic car covered with fancy graffiti outside the garage, looking directly at the camera with gentle but determined eyes.

The Stanford Daily photographer adjusted the angle of the camera and finally pressed the shutter.

"Stanford Daily" is the school newspaper of Stanford University, a Stanford Daily publishing company operated and managed by Stanford students, the circulation is not high, only about four or five thousand copies, the customer group is mainly teachers and students of the university, as for the main income of the newspaper, it depends on donations and advertising.

It's a serious newspaper, not the kind of high school newspaper that Tommy saw at Lincoln High School, but just a few interesting things that happened on campus.

The style of the newspaper has changed as the editor-in-chief has graduated, for example, the style of the Washington Post in the first two years has been like that of the Washington Post, and the two years have looked like USA Today.

Basically, by looking at the style of the newspaper, you can tell which newspaper group the editor-in-chief will join after graduation, and this is the best internship for students who want to become the editor-in-chief of the newspaper.

Although the style is varied, the only thing that remains constant is the blood feud between the Stanford Daily and the management of Stanford University, because in 1973, the school tried to take over the paper, and after the students refused, they used off-the-board tricks, causing several student editors to be taken away by the police.

So, from that year on, the Stanford Daily had an unwritten rule, that is: school scandals are always the first headline of this newspaper.

For example, in 1978, the whole of California and even the whole of the United States was paying attention to California Proposition 6, and all the newspapers gave the front page to this news.

Only the Stanford Daily put the news of national concern on the second page, and the front page news of the day was "XXX with a leather whip: XXX, dean of the School of Geology of Stanford University, went to the ** store to buy a leather whip, and he would teach all the students badly".

It can be said that the management of Stanford University was trembling by this newspaper, lest a small mistake be made and completely reduced to a laughing stock, such as the XXX professor, who received various leather whips from his students as gifts every Christmas since '78.

Of the 4,000 to 5,000 copies of the Stanford Daily Journal's circulation, 2,000 were contributed by Stanford University administrators, professors, and faculty members, simply to see if they had done something wrong, and made the headlines of the Stanford Daily.

At this moment, the Stanford Daily Journal's interview with Actor naturally has nothing to do with Tommy and Actor's popularity, mainly because Actor donated a donation of 500 to the newspaper, and then bought advertising space in the newspaper, so the newspaper arranged this interview.

……

Jason sat in his seat and said with a smile to the reporter of the Daily who turned on the tape recorder and spread out the shorthand book at this time:

"When you find that your roommate is busy every day and no longer takes you to have fun like before, you have to figure out what attracts him, roommates must first have the same interests and hobbies, Tommy and I are like that, we like computers, we like change, we like Girls, we all come from small places, but we don't lack a sense of social responsibility, especially me, I have a gentlemanly spirit......"

"Jason White works part-time as a cowherd in addition to founding Actor with me, can you put up an ad for him by the way?" Tommy leaned against the wall with his arms folded, and suddenly said with a smile.

Jason, who just claimed to have a gentlemanly spirit, ignored the presence of reporters at the moment, and greeted Tommy with a series of greetings with extremely high F content.

"Tommy, it's a jerk." At the end of the interview, Jason told reporters.

……

"Well, the social responsibility of the Actor company, that attracted me, you know? When these two big boys stood in front of me and said to me, "Holly, we should help those women." I was instantly struck down by the softness that the two of them showed, and I couldn't find any reason to refuse. Holly tied her long hair back at the back of her head today, looking more shrewd and capable, less of the usual blonde hair with her shoulders down:

"It was very difficult in the early days, we didn't know what to do ourselves, but now, we have successfully helped nearly 100 women gain work and confidence in life in Silicon Valley, and 1,700 students from nearby community colleges are interested in our training program, but because of the number of classrooms and computers, they can only wait slowly, and our families and schools are teaching us to do the right thing, so what could be more right than helping others?"

"What do you think of Tommy?" Holly laughed when she heard the question, and she thought for a moment, "Tommy Hawke, he's a bad guy who does good things, yes, he's a jerk. ”

……

"I started my meat business in San Jose right out of high school, and I always considered myself lucky to be in that place and lived until I was twenty-four years old." Susan Curtis looked at the reporter with a calm face:

"But it wasn't until I saw an ad for free training in Joy Seeker magazine that I realized that my good fortune had just begun, I learned OSS, I got an A, I went to Symantec as an intern, and I'm currently helping Actor give some good advice to those trainers, and by the way, I also founded Hope Human Resources with Holly and Mark, and I can't imagine that I actually became a partner in the company, how can I say it? Knowledge changed my bad fate, but without Tommy, Jason and Holly, I couldn't have had the opportunity to acquire knowledge, I want to work with them to help more people, I don't know how to say too much, but I know that I am doing the right thing. ”

"What do you think of Tommy?" Susan turned her head to look at Tommy, who was smoking with Jason and Mark outside the garage, then withdrew her gaze and looked at the reporter:

"I'm a little older than him, but I feel like he's more of my godfather, guiding me, teaching me, correcting my life, and both Holly and Jason say he's a jerk? Hahaha~ Yes, he's a bastard, but I'll never say that about him, if he's really a bastard, it's also this society that has taught him badly, in Tommy's words to me, it's this country that is a bastard, not us. ”

……

"Data Engineer, that's my job at Actor, and I love the title." Mark looked at the reporter calmly: "I enter the data of various potential customers into the computer every day, and then call them and ask them if they want to master a computer technology, I like this job, this job at Actor, cured my anxiety and let me out of the unbearable past." ”

"Jason is a brutal and rough asshole, Holly is a scheming woman with great abilities, Susan is a fanatic of Tommy, and I, I'm just a shadow, you don't see me most of the time, I'm busy collecting data in the dark, yes, that's how I think of us, like the Four Horsemen of Actor."

"Tommy? Isn't my analogy clear? Needless to say, he is the bastard king of Actors. ”

……

Tommy was the last to sit in front of the reporter.

The reporter looked through his shorthand notebook: "Four of your colleagues call you a jerk, but you can feel that they like you very much." ”

"They don't like me, they just like our cause." Tommy took out the cigarette case and motioned to the reporter: "Do you want one?" ”

"No, thank you, Tommy, can you talk about why you came up with the idea to make such a software?"

Tommy lit a puff, then seemed to fall into a memory, slowed down and said: "I'm from Warwick, Rhode Island, it's a rural place, my father runs a small shipbreaking yard, which is the heavy physical work of dismantling scrapped ships, but he values his children very much, I can come here to study because of him, in high school, he wanted to buy me a computer, because it is said that other rich families buy this kind of thing for their children, he went to the computer store, listened to the salesman in it for a long time, and finally walked out empty-handedHe couldn't afford it, not to mention a computer, he couldn't even afford software, so he blamed himself very much, worked harder, tried to save enough money, and once he was too tired and was smashed by a boat plank, leaving a scar on his thigh. ”

"That's when I started to think about how many people like my father blamed themselves because they couldn't afford computers, and after I studied computer science, I realized that I might not have the money to start a hardware company, but at least I could start with software, try to make a low-cost but practical software, for those who are discouraged by the high cost of software, technology should not be a privilege that only rich people can experience."

"So my peers and I started Actor to help the poor get back the convenience and quality that technology brings to life because of the high software pricing, and Actor has partnered with the Stanford Women's Equality Association to train those women, and a lot of people have said to me, Tommy, it's great to know that you're a supporter of women's equality."

"No, that's not enough, I told them, equality in science and technology is what I'm striving for."

The reporter's pen paused in his sketchbook for a moment, eventually coming up with the title: "Actor: The Birth of a Bastard." ”

There is only one watch tonight, and tomorrow the third watch will come back to make amends, I wish you all a happy New Year~

(End of chapter)