Chapter 14: Payment invoice
After Aron finished making the program ready for subscription, he was reminded that the new version of BugZapper needed someone to oversee it. This meant that he needed to found a company to do it in his place.
This will also help him earn sp, although it will be in small amounts, as he learned it the hard way when he was trying to earn enough to buy the programming language. After the tenth app the amount dropped by half and by the twentieth it also continued dropping by half. From this he hypothesized this will continue until he will only be earning 1sp per every scan.
Although it may seem small, how many websites do you think exist?
That means although the amount will be small, the quantities will be compensating for it.
His current plan was to make it popular enough for every website to use it at least once a month. The plan was to show its importance in website security to make every owner try it at least once. This will mean that he will be able to earn 1sp every time someone uses his program. AFK to the death.
While he was perfecting his plans for the company and its first product he received a call from Felix.
"Hello, long time no talk?" Aron answered the phone and started the conversation.
"You gave us too much work that I didn't have enough rest time to think of contacting others for the past month" Replied in a complaining but happy tone.
"So, why did you call me?"
"I just wanted to inform you that our negotiations with companies have been completed and the payment will be fully forwarded to you after tax and everything is paid" Replied Felix.
"Finally, it took you guys very long," Continued Aron with his fake complaint.
"You gave us too much work, so we even had to make a team to deal with your job. But since you pay us too much money we can't really complain anyway" Laughed Felix as he was replying.
"So, how much total will it remain after taxes and your payment is taken care of?"
"You will find out when we send it to you, but be ready for a surprise " A teasing voice came from the other side of the phone as if it was trying to frustrate him as much as he can to vent out for the work he made them do.
"If you don't tell me, I'm hanging up the phone," threatened Aron.
Crup. Just after he finished voicing his threat, Felix ended the call immediately to make a statement.
'Fuck, He got me' though Aron as he put the phone down and continued his work as he waited for the money to start raining in his account.
....
5 Days later the full payment and the spreadsheet arrived to him.
And here is the breakdown on who paid what. The amount below is after taxes and lawyer fees have been paid.
YouTube, Google+, Android, Google it self paid as a one entity, and since google as itself was among the companies that had the highest user base that depended on them to have the best security since their email were used by almost anyone with email, this meant that if this weaknesses were exploited it would have almost bankrupted them as almost every user caring to keep their secrets would have turned to their competitors.
So, they forked the most money and since they were paying for the 3 of their companies they paid a total of $335million dollars. This included buying the information about weaknesses and their solutions to it as they needed to patch it as fast as possible lest someone use it against them.
Apple - they paid for both the weaknesses and solution for their iOS weaknesses for $87million dollar as they put too much importance to keep their iOS as a black box.
Microsoft - They were also among those who paid too much money as they paid him $145 million dollar for their weaknesses in windows and the solutions to it. And oh god was there enough bugs in it to write a book on how not to make an operating system.
Sina Weibo -they paid $17million dollars without buying the solution. Hey decided to solve it themselves, worrying that if they buy their solution it will mean they know how their app security works and that is not good when it is connected to the CCP and the one who sold it to them is an American. That would put them on their radar.
Qzone - as it is owned by Tencent, a major Chinese technology conglomerate. They simply forked $33million dollars for the same reason as the one up there.
Twitter & vine are parent companies so they paid a joint $75million with the solutions.
LinkedIn - they paid $45million for both problems and solutions.
Instagram - since they paid before as Facebook, they had already solved this same problem in Instagram. So, they only managed to negotiate the remaining ones that didn't exist in those found and sold to Facebook before. So, they paid only $25million for both the problem and solution.
Tumblr - they paid only $10 million dollar because they didn't buy the solution to it.
The remaining 4 paid a total of $39million dollars as they were small social media sites.
This brings the total of the money to $811million dollars and this was after taxes and fees. If he didn't pay tax and lawyer fees he would have more than $900million but brother IRS would be having a field day with him.
And he wasn't ready for them.
This meant he was almost a billionaire. He needed to make the money returns to the market, because the longer he has it as cash in his account the longer inflation will be reducing their purchasing power per dollar.
Also although he already paid tax for it he will need to continue paying tax for any interest he earns from the money if it stays in the bank.
But all these thoughts were cut short when he received a phone call from an unknown number.
Aron: "Hello?"
"Hi, is this Mr. Aron?" asked the voice on the other side.
Aron: "Yes, speaking. Who is this?" asked as he didn't know who was calling him while he was relishing on his net worth.
"Hi Aron, this is Mark from the American Bank. I wanted to talk to you about your account." Said the voice on the other side of the phone.
"Oh, okay. Is everything alright?" Asked Aron as he was startled by the call and thought something bad happened to his account.
Bank Worker: "Yes, everything is fine. Actually, we wanted to set up a meeting with you to discuss your account".
Aron: "Okay, sure. What is this about?" Answered Aron as he was sighing that nothing bad happened to it.
Just think about it, just as you become an almost billionaire and it was immediately stolen from you. That is a suicide level tragedy right there. Thank god it didn't happen.
Bank Worker: "Well, we noticed that you have a significant amount of money in your account, and we wanted to go over some options with you."
Aron: "Oh, I see. Yes, I earned a large sum of money recently."
Bank Worker: "Yes, we saw that. Congratulations, by the way."
"Thank you." Said Aron as he was feeling happy about it. Though he replied calmly.
Bank Worker: "We would like to send you a Black American Bank card, and we need to confirm your address".
Aron: "Okay, that's fine. I can give you my address."
Bank Worker: "Great. Also, we would like to discuss some investment opportunities with you."
"Oh, I see. Well, I'm interested in investing, but I need to learn more about it first." Replied in surprise as he was also thinking about investing his money in order for it to not just remain in his account to just accumulate interest. But still he wasn't fully sure on what to invest, so he might as well meet them and hear their investment plan then decide on his plan based on it.
Bank Worker: "That's completely understandable. We can set up a meeting with one of our investment advisors to go over your options and answer any questions you may have."
Aron: "Okay, sounds good."
Bank Worker: "How about next Wednesday at 2 pm? Can we come to your house or a nearby establishment for a meeting then?"
Aron: "Yes, I can make that work."
Bank Worker: "Great. We'll see you then. And once again, congratulations on your success."
Aron:" Thank you, I appreciate it."
Bank Worker: "Alright, have a great day."
Aron: "You too."
Aron ended the call and chose to calm down a little before he continues with his work lest he end up messing it from excitement.
.....
While he was resting waiting to calm down from his excitement, he fell asleep and dived into his imagined dream as he kept smiling in his day dream.
I wonder what he was dreaming as he was drooling from his mouth with that creepy smile.