Intentional Consequences

by Charles Harris

  That evening, Rakesh Jain and his wife were on their way from Austin to New York City in Rakesh’s Embraer business jet. Skies were clear and the flight was smooth.

  Rakesh watched Valerie reading in the seat facing his across the aisle. She was wearing her usual plane outfit of black yoga pants and a cream sweatshirt. Rakesh had on dress blue jeans with an untucked white long-sleeved button-down shirt.

  They would be celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary later this year. They’d met on a blind date. Three months later they were engaged and three months after that, they were married. She’d kept her maiden name for her professional work, which had bothered him a little at the time but seemed perfectly normal in today’s world. With two good kids and two successful careers, they were still happy and together.

  Valerie Williams was blessed with her Parisian mother’s intelligence and sense of style. Tall and slim, with short blonde hair and an impish look, Valerie had a natural elegance and confidence. She was bright, driven and inquisitive. She was also nationally respected for her research and commentary on American democracy.

  Their only formal commitments in New York were on Tuesday, when Rakesh would be in meetings and Valerie would be delivering the keynote address for a special conference on the State of American Democracy at Columbia University. The day before, they would visit old friends on Staten Island. They’d fly home Wednesday afternoon.

  Valerie looked up, smiled and winked with the same playful, sexy glance she’d used since they first met. She turned back to her reading. Rakesh picked up his iPad. At 52, he’d come a long way from the village in India where he grew up. After earning an engineering degree there, he had moved to the United States where he’d received a master’s degree in computer science from Stanford and started on his Ph.D. Eighteen months into the program, he had dropped out to co-found his first company. The rest was history.

  Now a naturalized U.S. citizen, Rakesh was on all the published lists of the richest people in the world, with a net worth most pegged at about $11 billion. With closely cut thinning black hair that made him look bald at a distance, dark brown eyes, a ruddy complexion and an almost-constant smile, he was often mistaken for Microsoft’s brilliant CEO, Satya Nadella. Known for being precise and intense, Rakesh had the eyes of a professional tennis player, constantly tracking, constantly penetrating the mind of the person he was with.

  Powering on the iPad, Rakesh put on his titanium-rimmed eyeglasses and opened an encrypted email from Dan Johnson, the CEO of JPAC, his political analytics company in Austin.

  As usual for Dan, the email was concise:

  “Good news. All our hypotheses for Crystal continue to validate. AI learning on all tools is accelerating as planned. Overall, we are achieving order-of-magnitude speed and accuracy improvements in our ability to determine, craft, apply and disseminate desired messages to specific microtargeted audiences. Our ability to predict electoral reaction to specific content now exceeds 65% across all our socio-economic cross sections, with accuracy for larger groups approaching 80%. The average margin of error is 4.8%. A full update is in the cloud.

  “Look forward to seeing you next week. Suggest we discuss data availability and deployment goals and timing.”

  Rakesh said, “Looks like Dan is continuing to make progress on our new political project.”

  Valerie set her work aside and looked up.

  He continued, “We’re going to meet late this week in Austin. We may be ready to talk about trial deployment.”

  Valerie said, “That’s exciting. Your investment in Dan is paying off.”

  Rakesh said, “He’s a talented guy. One of the best on our entire team. We paid a lot for his company when it was still fresh, but he’s really made our deal make sense.”

  Dan’s dad and Rakesh had co-founded a tech company that gave them in a huge exit just six years after they started it, and only a few months before the Dot Com bubble burst in early 2001. Even with venture investors in the payout waterfall, Dan’s dad and Rakesh shared $450 million of proceeds. Rakesh’s share provided the capital he needed to jumpstart his present company, now one of the leading cloud-based service providers in the world, with special expertise in using artificial intelligence to analyze exceptionally large and undefined databases.

  Dan was just graduating from high school when the deal closed. When he was in the master’s program at CMU, he became interested in how the internet could be used to assess and influence consumer buying and political decisions. His timing was good. Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook in his Harvard dorm room in 2004 and by 2007, when Apple released its first iPhone, Facebook had 50 million users. It doubled that number just one year later when, coincidentally, Barrack Obama was running for President. By then, Dan was working as a system and database architect for the analytics company that was hired by the Obama campaign.

  Obama was the first presidential candidate to understand the importance of social media in a national election. Obama’s team realized internet marketing and fund raising offered important advantages, but no one really knew what to do, how to do it or how to test the impact on voters. For Dan, this was the experience and education of a lifetime. It was an opportunity to play at the intersection of politics, technology and social media, and have impact to boot. Two months after Obama was sworn in for his first term, Dan quit his job and started his own political analytics company.

  His first phone call was to his dad, who was still flush from selling the company he had co-founded with Rakesh. Dan’s dad offered Dan whatever initial funding he needed if he could convince Rakesh to invest.

  Two months later, Rakesh and Dan’s dad were equal investors in Dan’s new company, Johnson Political Analytics Consultants, which became known as JPAC. Two years after that, Rakesh’s company acquired 80% of JPAC for $100 million, plus a $50 million post-closing earnout contingent on Dan remaining active in the business.

  Valerie said, “Dan is smart, but I adore his wife. Eva’s every bit as sharp as he is, although he’d never admit it. Besides being talented and gorgeous, she’s a lot of fun. I’ve enjoyed getting to know her. We haven’t had dinner with them in a while. We should get together when we get back to Austin.”

  Rakesh said, “We should. I want to hear how her tech company is doing.”

  Valerie said, “Are you still thinking about running for office?”

  “Not a chance,” Rakesh said. “As I said after the 2018 mid-terms, I’m over that. As much as I’d like to think I could do a fabulous job, I’d never be elected. I’m way too candid. Plus, I have no intention of letting anyone drag my name and my family’s name through the mud of fake news. Besides, as a naturalized U.S. citizen, I’d never be able to run for president. I couldn’t handle being part of Congress in today’s climate.

  “The only motivations for me to run for any office would be ego and stupidity. After Trump, it’s going to be a while before any wealthy businesspeople will be able to run for national office and win, especially with the Democrats adding class warfare to its menu of identity politics. I can be far more effective working as a private citizen. Give Bloomberg credit. He looked hard and stood down twice. Tom Steyer’s just wasting his money.”

  Valerie said, “What do really care about?”

  “I care about preserving democracy in America. I’m very frustrated at where our country is today. I’m willing to win, lose or compromise on a lot of issues if I believe the system still works. I don’t think people respect that system as they once did. Rather than valuing the structure and controls in the Constitution, people today are attacking the very things that have kept America together.”

  Valerie said, “A lot of people don’t understand what the Constitution says and why it says it.

  Rakesh said, “Looking back on the Trump disaster, I’ve never understood why he can’t show better respect for the rule of law and our democratic ideals. His unbridled ego and need to win any fight just overpower his common sense. I don’t believe he’s consciou
sly out to destroy those things. I just don’t think he realizes how fragile they are.”

  “So, do you want to donate money to candidates or issues, maybe set up a SuperPAC?”

  “No, I’d like to build a national consensus that reinforces the things we believe in as Americans, the things that help us assimilate this boiling pot into one country. As Howard Schultz, the former CEO of Starbucks, said the other day, we need to stop focusing on what divides us and start focusing on what brings us together. I’d like to create a coalition that can rekindle our spirits and reset our horizons, regardless of whether we’re Blue or Red. We need to repaint America.”

  Valerie said, “Those are good ideas. Have you shared them with any of your business colleagues?”

  “I’ve had conversations with senior executives at a few companies. I’m going to talk with my friend Bill when we have lunch on Tuesday. I agree the concept is good. I’m just not sure I could gain enough support to pull it off. We should talk some more on the flight back to Austin.”

  Chapter 4

  As Rakesh and Valerie were winging their way to New York, David Bernbach sat in the paneled library of his lavish estate outside Westport, Connecticut. Wearing jeans and a white cotton sweater, he’d been there for a couple of hours, watching darkness slowly descend on the white-capped waves rolling across a wind-swept Long Island Sound.

  The walls of books surrounding him were broken only by a huge stone fireplace and windows overlooking the Sound. With its oak beams and oriental carpets, the quiet, elegant setting conveyed the wealth, taste and knowledge the privileged class expected to enjoy. It was a proper venue for an elite New England capitalist contemplating the future of democracy in America.

  Educated at Harvard College and Harvard Business School, Bernbach was one of Wall Street’s most successful activist investors. His strategy was simple. He targeted public companies under stress, amassed holdings of just under ten percent of the stock and then convinced management to make the changes needed to increase shareholder returns. Famous for being aggressive and tenacious, his execution was impeccable. Just knowing Bernbach was an investor in a company typically drove up its faltering stock price. Like most activist investors, he always met personally with the management of a target company to discuss how they might work together to improve performance. Regardless of how the conversations started, after a few rounds they often turned to removing the very company executives who were participating in the discussions.

  Bernbach came from a line of successful Ivy League bankers and financiers on his father’s side. After an international career with the original Bank of America, his father had moved to Beijing in the early eighties to become an adviser to Deng Xiaoping during the transformational years that launched China toward a market economy. Bernbach inherited many of his father’s relationships in China as well as his profound respect for China’s remarkable rise. Bernbach was a dedicated capitalist, but he valued results, wherever they came from.

  Like many powerful investors, Bernbach was a factor in American politics. He was well known for his early backing of Barack Obama in 2008 and his unyielding support for Hilary Clinton in 2016. He brought the same tenacity and aggressive tactics to national politics he brought to his activist investing.

  When Hilary Clinton lost to Donald Trump, Bernbach was outraged. Unlike some, he blamed Hillary for the loss rather than the Russians. Like many, he quickly focused on how to extract revenge against Trump. But that was 2016. Today, he was worried about 2020 and beyond.

  Sitting in an old Windsor chair at the antique oak conference table, Bernbach looked at the five columns he had written earlier on his legal pad:

  China…Special Ops…PaprW8…Media… Finance.

  Picking up his pen, he added Lee and Jason Chen under the China column.

  Under Special Ops, he wrote Billings and then (Franks), going back and inserting a question mark after Franks’ name.

  Under PaprW8, he entered Ward, China Tech (Jason Chen) and JPAC.

  Putting the pen down, he took a sip of hot green tea from his insulated metal mug. Under Media, he wrote Sentinel Observer – Social and Print. After thinking, he added PaprW8 and Dan Johnson.

  Under Finance, he wrote Super PAC - Issues only and Private Funds.

  He stood and stretched, then walked to the center window and looked out onto the Sound, watching a well-lit Hatteras motor yacht make its way to port in the dimming light.

  Sitting back at the table, he paused, then wrote: Maintain Silos – Need to Know across the page below the five columns and underlined it.

  A couple of lines below, he wrote: 2020 + 2024 = Single Party Rule.

  Under that, he added: Elites: Ensure Our Influence.

  As Bernbach read back through his notes, his attention was interrupted by a text from Fred Billings, the man whose name he had just added to the page. Billings was the 82-year old founder and retired CEO of one of the largest independent chemical companies in North America. Like Bernbach, Billings was a significant contributor to Democratic candidates and issues. As the legal pad notes suggested, he was also a key participant in Bernbach’s plans for 2020.

  Although Bernbach seldom interrupted his thinking time, he looked at the message: “You should read this soon.” The accompanying link pointed to a blogpost at www.usdemocracymatters.com. Bernbach touched the link to the site. It was a post written by Professor Valerie Williams. Bernbach had never met her, but he had met her billionaire husband, Rakesh Jain, at industry events over the years.

  With a few presses on his iPhone’s screen, he activated the Air Play link and displayed the blog on a massive flat screen above the fireplace. He paced as he read the post, which said:

  Russia did want Trump to win, but not for the reasons the Democrats and the liberal press claimed. Long before 2016, Putin created a program of discrediting democracies across the western world. He saw three benefits. First, it would reduce democracy’s reputation as a superior form of government to socialism and totalitarianism. Second, it would destabilize individual democracies, making them less efficient and effective rivals for economic and political success across the globe. Third, by weakening democratic citizens’ trust in their government and leaders, it would reduce their government’s ability to rally its citizens in a time of crisis to survive. When the people fail to believe their leaders, trust falters, the government will be slow to react, and the people will be reluctant to support difficult measures.

  In addition to these global benefits, the 2016 presidential election in the U.S. presented a special opportunity if Trump could win. A victory by Trump would shock the Democratic Party and its press and other elites. Unable to concede legitimate victory by such a crude political outlier, they would react with bitterness and revenge, rallying the resistance to make it impractical for Trump to govern effectively. Together with Trump’s government inexperience, ego and impulsiveness on top of Obama’s naive desire to kill American exceptionalism, this would make American foreign policy an inconsistent shadow of its former self, creating huge opportunities for Russia to sow doubt among America’s allies and replace it on the world stage. A Trump win would also fuel new levels of fear and hatred across the Democrats’ political base and motivate the newly empowered Trump base to react more aggressively, rekindling fears of white supremacy. Together, all of this would accelerate Americans’ loss of trust and faith in their government, their traditional social institutions and their leaders and elites.

  Putin knew what Hitler knew. When the masses lose trust in their institutions, they will look to replace them with other institutions. Envy and hate are far greater motivators for the public than encouragement and accomplishment. When trust falters at the same time hate grows, the people are most susceptible to radical change.

  Putin didn’t need Trump as a patsy or an ally. He viewed him as a propitious factor in accelerating America’s decline.

  Within days after Trump was elected, the Democrats and the liberal press raised the alarm ab
out the dangers totalitarianism and identity politics would create in America. Of course, as the months went by, it became clear they were referring to totalitarianism of the right and identity politics among whites, especially white males. Unfortunately for America, the country was slow to recognize totalitarianism can pose fatal threats to democracy from the left or the right, and identity politics can divide and defeat a great nation, regardless of the identity groups involved.

  We will never know whether Russia’s efforts made a difference in the 2016 presidential election. We do know those efforts will go down in history as the most cost-effective investment in foreign policy ever made by any government anywhere—not because they made a difference in Trump becoming President, but because they made a difference in Americans’ faith in their democracy and set America up for radical change in its system of government in 2020 and 2024.

  Although this story has not yet been embraced by the American press, other countries have noted the success of Putin’s initiatives in weakening American democracy. China should concern us most.

  Why should China’s interest in Putin’s success concern Americans? China leads the world in hacking against the United States. If there is one thing China knows how to do, and today there are many, copying and enhancing ideas and technology created by others is at the top of the list. Russian interference with American democracy is just one more opportunity for China to copy and leverage. China is close to parity with the United States in artificial intelligence, which can be a powerful tool in manipulating social media and popular opinion. China leads the United States in using technology to control the masses. Regardless of the outcome of Trump’s trade fight, China is the only country in the world that can threaten the United States’ global economic leadership. China even more than Russia would benefit from the decline or failure of American democracy.

  While the Democrats are still trying to dredge up some better evidence of collusion or financial dealing between Trump and Russia, America would do well to look at the greater danger to its democracy coming from China. As the French learned with the Maginot Line, wars are not won or lost on the last conflict’s technology. In today’s world, neither are elections.