American Entertainment 1982

A plain black round-neck T-shirt, durable blue jeans and a pair of smoky gray casual sneakers. Tommy, Jason, Holly, Mark, and Susan are wearing the same clothes, leaning against Tommy's house outside the garage. On the front of a classic car covered in fancy graffiti, his eyes are gentle but firm looking directly at the camera.

The photographer of the "Stanford Daily" 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. Its circulation is not high, only about four to five thousand copies. For income, it relies on donations and advertising.

This is a very serious newspaper, not the kind of high school newspaper Tommy saw when he was in Lincoln High School. It only records some interesting things that happened on campus.

The style of this newspaper keeps changing with the graduation of the editor-in-chief. For example, the style of the first two years was like the "Washington Post", and the past two years looked like "USA Today".

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

Although the style changes, there is only one thing that remains the same, that is, the bloody feud between the Stanford Daily and the management of Stanford University, because in 1973, the school tried to take over the newspaper, and after being rejected by the students, it also used outside tactics. As a result, several student editors were taken away by the police.

So, from that year on, Stanford Daily added an unwritten rule, that is: school scandals will always be the first headline of the newspaper.

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

Only the Stanford Daily put the news of national concern on the second page. The front page of the day was "XXX holding a whip: XXX, dean of the School of Geology at Stanford University, went to a ** store to buy a whip. He will teach all students badly" .

It can be said that the management of Stanford University was made trembling by this newspaper, lest they make a small mistake and become a laughingstock. For example, the XXX professor, since 1978, has received students every Christmas. They gave him various leather whips as gifts.

Stanford Daily has a circulation of 4,000 to 5,000, and 2,000 copies are contributed by the administrators and professors of Stanford University. They are simply to observe whether they have done something wrong and made the headlines of the Stanford Daily.

At this moment, the "Stanford Daily"'s interview with Actor Company has nothing to do with the popularity of Tommy and Actor, mainly because Actor Company donated a donation of 500 to the newspaper, and then bought an advertisement space in the newspaper That's why the newspaper arranged for this character interview.

...

Jason sat in his seat, facing the daily reporter who turned on the tape recorder and spread out the shorthand notebook, he said with a smile:

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

"Jason White, besides founding Actor with me, is also a part-time cowherd. Can you put up a call advertisement for him?" Tommy said with a smile while leaning against the wall with his arms folded. One sentence.

Just now, Jason, who claimed to have a gentleman's spirit, ignored the reporter's presence, and greeted Tommy with a series of high-F content.

"Tommy, he's a jerk," Jason told reporters at the end of the interview.

...

"Well, Actor's sense of social responsibility 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 attracted by the two of them The softness shown was instantly overwhelmed, and I couldn't find any reason to refuse." Holly tied her long hair back today, looking more shrewd and capable, without the blond hair hanging down her shoulders in the past:

"It was very difficult in the early days of our establishment, and we didn't know where we could go, but now, we have successfully helped nearly 100 women in Silicon Valley gain work and confidence in life, and there are 1,700 nearby community colleges students are interested in our training program, but due to the number of classrooms and computers, they can only schedule slowly, family and school have taught us to do the right thing, so what is more correct than helping others thing?"

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

...

"I started a skin business in San Jose after graduating from high school. I lived in that kind of place until I was twenty-four years old. I always thought I was lucky." Susan Curtis looked at the reporter calmly:

"But it wasn't until I saw an ad for free training in Pleasure Seeker magazine that I realized that my luck had just begun. I learned OSS, got an A, I went to Symantec as an intern, and now Help the Actor company to give those trainers some correct advice. By the way, I also established the Hope human resources company together with Holly and Mark. I can’t imagine that I became a company partner. How should I put it? Knowledge has changed me Bad fate, but without Tommy, Jason and Holly, I wouldn't have had the chance to gain knowledge, I want to be with them and help more people, I don't know how to say much, but I know, I'm doing the right thing thing."

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

"I am older than him, but I think he is more like my godfather, guiding me, teaching me, correcting my own life, Holly and Jason say he is a jerk? Hahaha~ Yes, he A jerk, but I would never say that about him, if he is a jerk, society has taught him badly, and as Tommy told me, the country is the jerk, not us."

...

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

"Jason's a brutal jerk, Holly's a scheming woman, Susan's a fan of Tommy's, and I, I'm just a shadow, you won't see me most of the time, I'm in the dark Busy collecting data, yes, this is my impression of us, like the Four Horsemen of Actor."

"Tommy? Wasn't my analogy unclear? Needless to say, he's the Actor's king of assholes."

...

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

The reporter flipped through his shorthand: "All four of your colleagues call you an asshole, but you can tell that they like you very much."

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

"No, thanks, Tommy, can you talk about why you came up with the idea of ​​making such a piece of software?"

Tommy lit it and took a breath, then seemed to be lost in memory, and said slowly: "I'm from Warwick, Rhode Island. It's a rural place. My father runs a small shipbreaking yard. Ship dismantling is heavy physical work, but he attaches great importance to his children. I can come here to study because of him. When I was in high school, he wanted to buy me a computer, because it is said that other rich families bought it for their children. He went to a computer store, listened to the salesperson for a long time, and finally walked out empty-handed. He couldn’t afford it, not to mention computers, he couldn’t even afford software. For this, he blamed himself and redoubled his efforts. Working and trying to save enough money, but one time he was too tired and was hit by a ship plank, leaving a scar on his thigh."

"That's when I started thinking about how many people like my dad blamed themselves for not being able to afford a computer. After I majored in computer science, I realized that maybe I didn't have the money to start a hardware company, but at least I could start with software. At the beginning, try to make a cheap 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 partner and I founded Actor, which is to help the poor get back the right to enjoy the convenience and quality brought by technology, which is deprived by high software pricing. Actor cooperates with the Stanford Women's Equality Promotion Association to train those women. Many people have expressed their gratitude to me. Say, Tommy, it's good to know you're a supporter of equal rights for women."

"No, that's not enough. I told them that equal rights in technology is my goal."

The reporter's pen paused for a moment in the sketchbook, and finally came up with the title of this script: "Actor: Birth of a Jerk."

There is only one update tonight, and I will make up for the third update tomorrow to make amends. I wish you all a happy new year~