CHAPTER 194: SILICON VALLEY SHOCK.

The forums lit up first.

On Slashdot, Digg, and early message boards:

"There’s this new thing—Facebook. It’s like AIM and LiveJournal had a baby."

"No ads. No spam. You just... talk."

"Wait—you can message someone directly and post on their page? Feels illegal."

"Who’s this Lukas guy? And why does he look like he can bench press my entire dev team?"

On tech IRCs:

"Facebook just hit a million users. How?"

"Yahoo’s hosting it now. Barely."

"Dude, it doesn’t even crash. Who built this backend?"

"Some guy named Roy. Ex-banking security engineer. Real quiet. Real scary."

In college dorms across America, students forgot their Xanga passwords overnight. Blogger accounts gathered dust. They were too busy uploading grainy digital camera shots to their Facebook walls, tagging names, and sharing statuses like

"Hungover. Again."

"Midterms tomorrow, scrolling instead."

"Lukas Martin is God."

Lukas didn’t log in that night.

He didn’t need to.

In a cramped hotel room in New York, where Annie and Bella were already asleep and CNBC interviews waited just hours away, Lukas sat on the windowsill in gym shorts, staring at the skyline.

The hum of the heater, the soft breath of sleep from the girls, the low beep from his pager—

Another server warning. Overload.

He smiled.

Let them come.

Let everyone come.

Back in the Valley, Steve Jobs reportedly raised an eyebrow when his assistant showed him the Facebook homepage.

"This design is ugly," he said.

But then he scrolled. And he kept scrolling.

Mark Cuban called his lawyer.

Reid Hoffman started drafting a social integration idea.

Peter Thiel asked someone if it was too early to invest.

And in a cramped row house in South Korea, a teenager with a laptop opened Facebook for the first time, stared at the interface, and whispered to himself:

"The world just changed."

Back in Philadelphia, Lukas finally logged in.

Ten million users.

Fifteen languages are supported.

Zero dollars spent on marketing.

He messaged Roy with one line:

"Buckle up."

The news wasn’t just viral anymore. It was tectonic.

By sunrise on the West Coast, Facebook was on every major newswire. Reuters. Bloomberg. CNNfn. The front pages glowed with headlines like

"FACEBOOK SURGES PAST 12 MILLION USERS IN 4 DAYS."

"IS THIS THE NEXT BIG THING AFTER EMAIL?"

"FROM PHILLY, WITH CODE: THE SOCIAL EXPLOSION SILICON VALLEY DIDN’T SEE COMING."

It wasn’t just college students anymore. It was office workers, international backpackers, stay-at-home moms, and stock traders. They were all talking. All sharing. All hooked.

The Valley didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or throw money.

At Microsoft Headquarters in Redmond, Bill Gates canceled two meetings and asked for a full audit of Facebook.

"Who owns it?" he asked.

"A guy named Lukas Martin. Twenty-four. No major tech background. Philly-based."

Bill frowned. "What’s his number?"

In Cupertino, Steve Jobs leaned back in his minimalist chair. An iPod prototype buzzed on his desk, but his eyes were locked on an Apple iBook open to Facebook’s login page.

"This..."

He turned to his industrial design team.

"...is the beginning of something."

Jeff Bezos was on a treadmill in Seattle when a junior VP burst into his home gym holding a laptop.

"Sir, you have to see this. Facebook just passed Amazon in daily users."

Bezos stopped mid-stride. "What do they sell?"

"Nothing. Just connection."

"Then that’s everything."

In Palo Alto, venture capitalists were panicking. Some had passed on early whispers. Others were scrambling to find who still had an in.

Reid Hoffman tried texting Henry.

Mark Cuban tried emailing Lukas.

But Lukas didn’t answer.

Down in New York, Lukas was already in motion.

He stood in the penthouse suite of the Langham, sipping burnt hotel coffee, ignoring the ringing phone. Annie and Bella were on the couch, huddled over the TV. CNBC was showing charts. MSNBC was breaking down user stats. The name Facebook was crawling on the bottom of every screen like it had always been there.

Henry barged in with a satellite phone.

"Bill Gates wants to make an offer."

Lukas raised an eyebrow.

"Two times the IPO valuation," Henry said. "Six billion."

Bella dropped her cereal spoon.

Annie stared at Lukas.

Lukas didn’t blink.

"No."

"Lukas—"

"If Bill wants to talk," Lukas said calmly, "he can take a flight to Philly. I’m not selling my future. Not yet."

Henry smiled despite himself. He knew this side of Lukas. The fighter. The visionary.

Back at Microsoft, the phone line went dead.

Bill Gates sat in silence for a moment, then looked to his assistant.

"We’ll circle back. This one’s not done yet."

And in New Bedford, where the mansion’s new furniture still smelled of polish and dreams, and where the servers were humming like sleeping giants, Facebook roared quietly behind every screen. It wasn’t just a website anymore. It was a world.

And Lukas Martin? He had just closed the door on the world’s richest man.

The room was quiet.

No, not silent—the kind of quiet where even the softest breeze feels loud, where the heartbeat becomes thunder in your chest. Lukas stood near the open balcony of the New York penthouse. The city buzzed below, but up here, in this moment, nothing moved except the curtains brushing against the cold glass.

He didn’t touch his phone. Didn’t look at the screens. CNBC was still on in the background, muted now, the ticker showing numbers that meant everything and nothing.

Six billion. That’s what Bill had offered.

But it didn’t matter.

Annie watched him from the plush white couch. Her hair was in a loose bun, her glasses slightly crooked. She hadn’t said a word since Henry walked out with the satellite phone still warm in his hands. Bella sat cross-legged beside her, flipping through one of those architecture magazines she always brought on trips, eyes scanning pages but not really reading.

The world was going mad.

But Lukas Martin had never been calmer.

He turned around slowly, almost like moving too fast would shatter whatever peace was left. His voice, when he spoke, was low.

"It’s happening."

Annie nodded. Bella glanced up.

He took a breath, walked over to the bar counter, and poured himself half a glass of water. The reflection in the glass wasn’t a billionaire or a champion or a tech founder. Just a boy with tired eyes and a mountain to climb.

"What are you going to do?" Bella asked quietly.

Lukas stared into the water.

"I think... nothing."

She blinked. "Nothing?"

He nodded. "For now. Let them panic. Let them wonder what I’ll do next. Let the media run stories. Let investors line up. I’m not selling. I’m not giving interviews. I’m not expanding blindly."

He looked at them, both of them, and the weight in his voice dropped an octave.

"We built something that’s real. People are choosing this. Not because it was forced onto them, but because it lets them talk. See. Feel. That’s power. And power needs patience."

Later that evening, when the city lights began to burn golden, Lukas took a notebook—not a laptop, not a tablet, but an old leather-bound journal. He scribbled in silence.

Scale options

Stable server partners

Organic onboarding

Local team in Tokyo?

What if we never sell ads?

He paused.

Then wrote in all caps:

- NEVER RUSH. NEVER SELL. NEVER STOP.

Henry called again. Lukas didn’t answer.

An email came in from a VC group in Menlo Park. He archived it without opening it.

A package arrived—a gold-plated invitation to a Silicon Valley gala. Lukas slid it under a pile of books.

Instead, he made time.

They went out that night. Annie wore her navy coat, Bella had her camera slung around her shoulder, and Lukas wore his faded hoodie with the torn sleeve. No drivers. No suits. Just them. Like back in the Philly days.

They walked through Times Square like tourists, ate hot dogs that dripped too much mustard, and laughed when Bella almost dropped her Polaroid into a puddle.

Lukas didn’t talk business.

He didn’t need to.

Because in his mind, everything was already in motion.

The code was live.

The people were flooding in.

The storm was coming.

But this? This was the calm.

And Lukas Martin? He had never felt more in control.

The private plane hummed low in the skies above New York before dipping into the evening horizon, casting a golden glow through the cabin windows. Lukas sat quietly, his fingers steepled beneath his chin, watching the orange skyline. There was no elation on his face, no celebratory grin despite what the world was calling him—"The Boy Who Broke the Internet."

He wasn’t thinking about fame. It was not about magazine covers, not about the chaotic frenzy in Silicon Valley, or even the $3 billion valuation the markets had just slapped onto Facebook. He was thinking about expansion. Sustainability. Legacy.

The mansion at New Bedford welcomed him with an eerie stillness. Annie and Bella had flown ahead that morning, and the halls were filled with faint echoes of laughter and the scent of newly finished furniture. Jay met him at the entrance, briefcase in hand, eyes sharp. "Henry’s already prepping the team. Sponsors are coming in like rain."

Lukas gave a short nod, then walked into his office—the core of it all. Three large screens showed analytics. Dot maps flickered with glowing red circles—users logging in from across the globe. Chat rooms buzzing. Message boards are alive. It was no longer just a platform. It was culture in motion.

He still owned 100% of Facebook. A rarity in the tech world. A miracle, some would say. But Lukas didn’t believe in miracles. He believed in positioning.

He pulled up a contact folder. Financial advisors, legal teams, and board structuring experts. He began to draft a memo. He’d sell 10%. Not more. That would inject immediate cash—enough to set up regional headquarters, onboard global engineers, and secure dedicated infrastructure in Asia and Europe.

Lukas called Henry.

"Yeah, boss?"

"Call John Terry tomorrow morning. We’re opening a private share offering. Ten percent only. Valuation starts at three-point-two. Let’s see who bites first."

Henry whistled low. "Understood. Also, Bill Gates’s people left another message. Still asking for a meeting."

Lukas smiled faintly. "Tell them we’ll think about it. But not yet."

The night passed with him writing by hand, sketching product roadmaps, feature expansions, and team builds. Bella walked in with coffee around midnight, finding him surrounded by blueprints.

"You haven’t slept."

"Can’t afford to."

"Lukas, you’ve already won."

He looked up, eyes calm. "No. I just got the ball. Now it’s time to run."

The next morning, Facebook’s backend teams were already briefed. Engineers were flying in from Toronto, Bangalore, and Amsterdam. Yaho’s team was working overtime to stabilize the growing demand. The website’s growth curve was no longer a curve. It was a vertical line.

In the background, the media kept screaming his name. But Lukas stayed where he always was—in the quiet storm, planning three moves ahead.

And that’s where the legacy begins.