A Love Story in San Francisco

'Damn it!' Lucas Watkins cursed in mind. Highstreet Capital, where Lucas worked, was a prestigious venture capital firm in San Francisco. Today is the sixth month after Lucas graduated and officially joined the company, just now his boss James sent him alone to Market Street in San Francisco to meet with an investor named Billy Trust, the agreed time is 10:00 am. Lucas took the meeting seriously and arrived at the Billy Trust office at 9:30 a.m. A slim, blonde secretary showed Lucas around a small conference room. She told him another VC firm was meeting with the directors to report its portfolio and returns. Lucas knew it was their competitor, LoogRiver Capital, or LC. Capital. LC had been getting good returns on their investments lately because they had bet right on the rapid growth of the AI industry, invested some stocks like NVIDIA, TSMC, and ARM. "Lucky them" Lucas thought to himself, Highstreet Capital did the opposite and bought a lot of ore stocks, and pharmaceutical stocks, and then the Covid-19 Epidemic ended, and factories as far away as China had less demand for ore commodities due to lower demand around the world. Highstreet Capital had returned -5% for the most recent year. Lucas knew that this was not ideal, especially with the NASDAQ index is doing so well. He didn't know how to respond to his client's challenge. "Mr. Watkins, come in." The blonde secretary spoke, smiling and leaking a line of bright white teeth. "Thanks, Lucy," Lucas responded, standing up, smoothing out his suit, straightening his tie, and taking a deep breath. This was a lot more nerve-wracking than graduating as the valedictorian of the honors class. Lucas spent fifteen minutes objectively presenting Highstreet Capital's performance over the last year, analyzing the main reasons for the loss, clearly presenting the economic, political, and social environments of the world's major countries to the three directors of the Billy Trust and five or six other analysts, and finally recommending an investment strategy for the future. These analysts love to be out in the limelight at this time, scrambling to question Lucas' judgment about future investments because they instinctively feel that since they made a loss last year, they will make the same mistake this year, and yes, their logic is that irrational, but they are very good at disguising their unreliable guesses in very academic language. They are just trying to look good in front of the directors to appear as if they are not so superfluous. A fair-skinned young man, about five feet six inches tall, with black dreadlocks asked directly, "Lucas, can you explain why you were heavy in the pharmaceutical sector last year? The Covid-19 epidemic is coming to an end, Americans have already paid for it, other countries won't buy Covid19's vaccine anymore, Pfizer and modena, as the main producers of this vaccine, won't be gaining anymore. However, I still find Pfizer stock in the top 10 investment targets of your products, I don't know what special reason your analysts have, they probably need to study and learn again. " "Uh, Pfizer has strong R&D capabilities, they stock a lot of product lines, with a particularly large number on the cancer category, which is a big market now and forward." Lucas reluctantly replied, but in his heart he just wanted to scold the company's analysts severely, they were the ones who screwed up the results, and then they want me to come out and explain. One of the directors on the other side shook his head, obviously not very satisfied with the answer. "Then can you share your company's direction and considerations for future investments?" Another analyst asked. "Erm, Highstreet Capital has decided to consider shared office and cryptocurrency as potential future growth points, you see, since the epidemic, many companies can't afford expensive offices anymore, and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can maintain lower fixed costs by sharing offices; also, cryptocurrency has become one of the world's important One of the means of payment, we have become a major force in the cryptocurrency market by investing in a world class platform." One of Billy Trust's directors frowned after hearing this, but he didn't say anything. Just a quiet "Thank you, Lucas, we appriciate your presentation." Lucas then walked out of the building, and drove back to HIghstreet Capital's office with his recently purchased Toyota Camry. As soon as he stepped into the office, James received a phone call that Billy Trust had decided to redeem 80% of its investment, or $10 million. Although Billy Trust is only a small client within James' management clients, James does not like the frustration of losing, just like everyone. James called Lucas into the room, did not ask what the reason is, just said " Lucas, don't do this again, we don't have many chance. " Lucas didn't know why Billy Trust withdrew the investment, he wanted to call and ask. But his call was denied. He was so depressed. After work, Lucas drove back to the Tenderloin, where a homeless man on the side of the road lay comfortably on the curb drinking a Corona beer from who knows where.The fall weather in San Francisco was pleasant, but Lucas's heart was cold. He wished to go back to the warm cottage with Emma, so that he could cook some macaroni in the evenings to eat and watch Neflix's new show. He attempted to forget about the day's tragedy - he'd caused James to be 10 million short of his size, and he'd learned yesterday from his colleague Alex that James was trying to make a run at the directorship this year. Thinking about it, Lucas parded next to the apartment building and had just turned off the engine. When he opened the door, he heard Emma screaming loudly.