The Dream: How I Learned the Risks and Rewards of Entrepreneurship and Made Millions

by Gurbaksh Chahal

  “You need to be careful out there,” she said, addressing us all. “People won’t understand that we are Sikhs. They will want to hurt you.” Taj and I had already cut our hair and gotten rid of the turbans, so this was directed mostly at my father. But she wanted all of us to exercise caution.

  In the days ahead, with the press making constant references to the Islamic terrorists, things got even worse. The average person can’t be expected to tell the difference among Buddhism, Sikhism, and Islam, and our physical appearance worked against us. We had suddenly become the enemy.

  One night, after a spate of violent attacks against innocent men—a gas station owner, a clerk at a 7-Eleven, etc.—the family watched a special on one of the networks. Several reporters went to great lengths to explain the differences between Arabs and Indians, between Sikhs and Muslims, and urged people not to let the situation get out of hand. This was not a religious war, they pointed out. Islam was not the enemy.

  But nobody was listening. I remember running to the market with my father, to pick up a few things for dinner, and finding people turning to stare at him. They stared with undisguised hostility, teeming with hatred. I was so upset that by the time we reached the checkout line I was literally shaking, and my father could see I was on the verge of exploding. “Say nothing,” he told me in Punjabi. “You will only make it worse.”

  On the drive home, I was still seething. “I don’t know why you put up with it,” I told him.

  “Because only the ignorant ones look at me like that and call me names,” he replied. “And I am not going to waste my time trying to educate ignorant people. I am different and I am not afraid to be different.”

  Those words were a revelation to me. My father was right. I was different and I had to learn to embrace my difference. My looks, my culture, my faith—these differences had made me who I was and were shaping the man I hoped to become. Others might not know who I was, but I did—and that was enough for me.

  4 From Bollywood

  to BlueLithium

  Toward the end of 2001, I was having dinner with my friend Troy at Dave & Buster’s, a popular restaurant/arcade, when I noticed a pretty blonde at the bar. I kept looking over at her, and Troy kept urging me to get up and say hello. She had a friend with her, but her friend was busy talking to a guy, and the blonde seemed a little lonely. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to approach her.

  “What’s the worst that could happen?” Troy said.

  “She tells me to get lost.”

  “So what? There isn’t a guy in the world who hasn’t been told to get lost a dozen times in his life.”

  “I can’t do it.”

  “G, you’ve told me yourself that ‘Every success has its failures.’ You’re not going to get anywhere without trying.”

  He had a point. I took a sip of vodka, took a deep breath, and marched over, and in the course of the next few minutes I managed to stumble my way through every platitude in the book. “Hey, how you doing? What’s your name? You alone? You come here often?” Somehow, probably because she was a little hammered, we managed to have a three-minute conversation, at the end of which she actually gave me her phone number. I returned to the table, walking on air. I couldn’t believe it had worked.

  With Troy Baloca at the Click Agents offices.

  “Wait two days, then call and ask her out,” Troy suggested.

  Two days later, I called, and we agreed to meet for dinner the next night, at Dave & Buster’s, familiar ground. On the way over to her house I went into a panic. I called Troy and told him I had no idea what we were going to talk about. “What are the top ten questions for making conversation with a girl?” I asked.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “No, man! I’m serious. I need help.”

  “Ask her what she does for a living. What she does for fun. If she likes traveling. If she has hobbies. What her family’s like.”

  “You’re going too fast!” I said.

  “What? You’re writing this down?”

  “I was trying.”

  “Jesus. Then what? You’re going to palm your little crib sheet and steal looks at it at the dinner table?”

  He had a point. “Okay. I get it. I’ll try to remember. What else?”

  “Just be interested in her. People love it when you’re interested in them.”

  It wasn’t a great night. I was too interested. When she said she liked going to the beach, I said, “That’s great! I like beaches too.” And when she said she enjoyed yoga, I said I’d been interested in yoga my whole life—that, as an Indian, yoga was in my blood.

  Whenever I asked her a question, she was kind enough to answer it, but I was so focused on preparing the next question that I wasn’t listening, and sometimes I asked the same question twice. And when I ran out of things to ask, the silence felt interminable.

  “How’s that burger tasting?”

  As things continued to deteriorate, I got so nervous that my hands shook when I reached for my glass. She was kind enough to pretend not to notice.

  After dinner, I walked her to her car and said good-bye. “Call me,” she said, but it was clear she didn’t mean it.

  I phoned Troy on my way home and gave him a blow by blow. “I’m a total loser,” I said.

  “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad,” he said.

  “It was. Trust me.”

  “Maybe you’re wrong, G. Give her a call in a couple of days and see what happens.”

  I called her two days later, in the middle of the day, knowing she’d be at work—I didn’t have the guts to actually talk to her—and left a message. “Hey. It’s Gurbaksh. Give me a call some time. If you want.”

  She never called, and I remember thinking that dating was a lot tougher than it looked. It had been easier to start a company than to take a woman to dinner. Then again, I was new to this. I’d never had a relationship with a woman. I didn’t even know what a relationship was supposed to be. I hadn’t gone to the senior prom; I left high school years two short of graduation. But even if I had stayed in school, I’m not sure I would have found a girl who was willing to go with me.

  Several weeks later, still recovering, I was at an Indian restaurant with my brother, in Fremont, when I noticed two Indian girls at a nearby table, nearing the end of dinner. One got a call on her cell phone and a moment later she left in a hurry, but the friend stayed behind to finish her meal. “I think I’m going to go talk to that girl,” I told my brother. He glanced over at her and said nothing. He didn’t have much experience with women either. I took a deep breath, got to my feet, and went over and introduced myself.

  Three days later, I was sitting across from her at a small, corner table at an Italian restaurant. We had a very nice time at dinner and started seeing each other regularly, and before long I understood what all the fuss was about. Women were great! Everything I had heard, and more! Now I knew what happened off-screen, after the Bollywood directors cut from those near-kisses to the wild, musical numbers. Suddenly the musical numbers actually made sense.

  Unfortunately, the relationship didn’t last. It was mostly me. I worked five and six days a week, and I was constantly flying to and from Los Angeles. Despite my problems with the brass at ValueClick, I was still determined to make good things happen. I tried to explain this to her, but she didn’t seem to understand, and eventually we went our separate ways.

  This business of living was certainly confusing.

  That February, 2002, I finally decided to leave ValueClick. I told Sam that I was tired of trying to make myself heard and that the last couple of years had been a real disappointment for me. “I’m heavily invested in this company, and I’ve been trying desperately to make things happen, but nobody is really interested in what I have to say and nobody seems to give a damn about making this a more successful place.”

  Sam argued with me. He said I was impatient—that things didn’t always move as quickly as one liked—and he asked me to stick around for another six m
onths.

  “What for?” I said. “You don’t need me. I’m absolutely useless to you. I walk into the office every morning and wonder why I’m there.”

  “We need you, G,” he said. “You are critical to the success of this operation.” Really? That was news to me. “This company doesn’t seem particularly interested in success,” I told Sam. “And it’s not from lack of trying on my part.”

  “Give us two months,” he said. “Things will change.”

  Two months later, with no changes having been made, I was gone. The following week, I cashed out a portion of my shares, drove over to the Lexus dealership, and bought an SUV RX400 and a GS400 sedan. “I need these delivered tonight,” I said. “Is that doable?”

  “Yes sir,” came the reply. “Absolutely.”

  I stopped by the dealership that evening and the two cars followed me to my parents’ home. Both vehicles had been decked out with red ribbons, just like in the television commercials. We pulled up and I rang the bell and asked my parents to step outside. “These are for you,” I said, gesturing like a game-show host.

  They looked at the vehicles. Back at me. At the vehicles again. It wasn’t computing.

  “For us?” my father said.

  “Yes. For you. For being such great parents.”

  My mother couldn’t believe it. She shook her head from side to side, visibly disturbed. “But, Gurbaksh, we can’t accept this. You need to save your money for a rainy day.”

  “I think I can cover a few rainy days,” I replied.

  “But you don’t even have a job,” my father protested.

  “Dad, please. Take the cars for a spin.”

  Almost reluctantly, they got into their respective vehicles and drove to the end of the block and back. Both of them were grinning when they got out. “It is the best car I have ever driven,” my father said. And I’m sure it was. In our family, whenever we saw a Lexus, we would point it out. Lexus, to us, was the epitome of perfection.

  “How much will this be costing you each month?” my mother asked.

  “Mom,” I said, “I paid cash.”

  “Gurbaksh,” she said. “How is this possible?”

  A few months later, I contacted the title company that held the mortgage on their house. It was a thirty-year mortgage, and they had twenty-eight years to go, but their anniversary was coming up, and I wanted to surprise them. Within forty-eight hours, I had wired the money to the bank, and my parents suddenly owned their home.

  “This we definitely cannot accept!” my father said.

  “Too late!” I said.

  “But you are going to spend all your money on us,” my mother protested. “You need to be more careful. We are doing fine. Really.”

  And the fact is, they were doing fine—my father was well satisfied at the post office, and my mother enjoyed working as a nurse—but I wanted more for them. I wanted them to have the life they had dreamed of having when they left India for America.

  Certainly, it was a little awkward for them, having me shower them with presents. But it gave me pleasure. It made me feel great, actually. And one of the lessons I took from the experience is that giving—genuine giving, giving from the heart—is way more satisfying than receiving. I would look into their eyes and I could see that they felt it was too much, but I could also see how much it meant to them. And beyond the emotional component, of course, was the simple fact that it made their lives easier. In addition, they no longer had to worry about Taj and Kamal, both of whom had become wealthy as a result of the merger. As for Nirmal, she was off in Utah with her husband, awaiting the birth of her second child, and her life seemed in order too.

  Still, when all is said and done, money does change things, and it was no different for us. My success had a huge effect on family dynamics. I had made good in America, was living the dream that had eluded my father, and in some ways I began to usurp his role as the Chahal patriarch. I was the youngest, but I had become the one everyone turned to for answers, and it was quite the transition. As the youngest child, no one had ever asked for my opinion. In fact, on many occasions I was told, specifically, that my opinion counted for nothing. Now they wanted my opinion on almost everything. Should grandmother have surgery? What kind of carpeting will look best in the master bedroom? Are we going to get the family together for the summer this year? I was consulted on decisions large and small, and I quite enjoyed it. It gave me something to do. After all, I was unemployed, with a full year left on my noncompete agreement, and I had so much leisure time on my hands that it was driving me crazy.

  It was during this extended period of unemployment that I woke up in my Fremont apartment one morning and realized, perhaps for the first time, that I was really rich. I decided to do something crazy and spectacular for myself, so I bought a Lamborghini. As a kid, I had been a big fan of those Hot Wheels cars, which my parents used to find, on sale, at Toys R Us, and my very favorite was the Lamborghini, with the scissor doors that opened upward. Now that I had money, I thought it would be cool to own the real thing.

  There were no Lamborghini dealerships in San Jose, and I didn’t feel like driving to Palo Alto, so I went onto eBay Motors and found one online. It was a silky gray Diablo GT Roadster Millennium Edition, only ten of which had ever been made, and it cost me $240,000, plus a little more to have it shipped to Fremont in a truck. The night before it arrived, I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t stop thinking about my new car. I was going to have my very own Lamborghini. A real Lamborghini, not the Hot Wheels version! Whenever I managed to drift off for an hour or two, I would dream about my new car, and when I jumped out of bed in the morning I immediately called the truck driver. “Are you still on schedule?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “I’ll be there right around two o’clock.”

  An hour later I called again. “No delays?” I asked.

  “No delays.”

  “Any bad weather ahead?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “So you’ll be here at two o’clock?”

  “That’s what I told you an hour ago, and nothing has changed.”

  Sure enough, he showed up right at two, and I ran outside to greet him, as excited as a ten-year-old. He was a little surprised to see I was so young, but he went about his business, quietly and efficiently, and at long last the car was sitting on the street in front of the apartment complex, gleaming. I noticed several people on the far sidewalk standing and staring, and I must admit, somewhat shamefully, that I was filled with pride. A Lamborghini isn’t something you see every day, certainly not in this neighborhood, and mine was a real knockout.

  “Wow,” I said. I couldn’t believe it. I approached the car tentatively and opened the door. I studied the interior and inhaled that new car smell. The car smelled expensive and powerful. Then I noticed an extra pedal next to the brake. “What’s that?” I asked the truck driver.

  “What?”

  “That pedal next to the brake?”

  “That’s what they call a ‘clutch,’” he said.

  “Clutch? Don’t tell me that. That’s not possible. I don’t know how to drive a car with a clutch. I can only drive an automatic.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, pal.”

  By this time, I had signed for the car, and he was ready to leave, but I begged him to help me out, and I offered him $200 to spend an hour with me and teach me how to use the clutch.

  “I can’t teach you in an hour,” he said.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m a fast learner.”

  He agreed, somewhat reluctantly, and he got behind the wheel and we began tooling around the neighborhood. He showed me how it was done: You engage the clutch, shift into the next highest gear, release the clutch, and give it some gas.

  As I watched, I found myself remembering my very first driving lesson, back when I was sixteen. My sister Kamal had a small, secondhand car, which got her to and from Kaiser Permanente, where she worked as a nurse, and one day I asked her if she would t
each me how to drive. She took me to a quiet, residential neighborhood and let me get behind the wheel. “That’s the gas. The pedal to the left is the brake. This is where you put the car into gear. Put it in D for drive.”

  I started moving, but she immediately went into a panic and gave me an earful in a glass-shattering voice: “Watch out! Do this! Do that! Slow down!”

  About a minute into it, I pulled over and told her to take the wheel. “I can’t drive with you screaming at me,” I said.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, calming down. “This is my motherly side. And you’re my little brother. And I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “Forget it. I don’t want you to teach me anymore.”

  We swapped places and rode home in silence.

  The following week I approached my father and asked for his help, and the next day he took me out in his car. I got behind the wheel and took a few careful turns around the neighborhood, and in a matter of minutes he was directing me onto the freeway. It was an incredible rush. I was doing fifty, sixty miles an hour, and cars were whizzing past me. “Oh my God,” I said. “I’m driving!”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” he joked.

  “This is amazing!”

  “If you want to teach someone to swim, the trick is to throw him into the water,” he said.

  Over the course of the next two weeks, he took me driving a few more times. I kept improving, but I couldn’t parallel park to save my life, and I can’t parallel park to this day. That was my downfall when I went to take my driving test in San Jose—that damn parallel parking. But a week later I tried again, at the DMV in Gilroy, because I’d heard that they usually didn’t ask you to do any parallel parking, which turned out to be the case. I actually passed the driving test. I was stunned. For the next few days, I kept taking my wallet out of my pocket to admire my learner’s permit.

  Now here I was, just a few years later, getting behind the wheel of my very own Lamborghini, learning how to use a clutch with the help of a very accommodating stranger. By the end of the hour, I could drive a stick shift. I felt like a total badass.