Jude

by Jeff Nesbit

  Curiously, though, the list of billionaires who refused to entertain the notion of the Giving Pledge was nearly as interesting as the list of more than 100 billionaires who had agreed to it. Some opposed it on their own moral grounds—they preferred to control their assets even beyond the grave, if necessary. Still others opposed it purely on the principle that they’d worked hard to build up their wealth and had no intention of simply giving it away to others who had no idea how to spend it. And there were a few, of course, who simply didn’t care—about philanthropy, doing good, or even creating a decent public image for themselves through charitable efforts.

  The organizers of the Giving Pledge held secret meetings in cities such as New York and Paris to recruit other billionaires into the campaign. Singen and Jude went to one of these meetings, and the idea was born there.

  “What about a Spending Pledge?” Jude had asked me shortly after he and Singen had returned from this secret meeting.

  “A what?” I said, distracted.

  I had recently taken my job at The New York Times, and it had been a very long day. Jude had called me almost immediately after his plane had landed at JFK. We met at the entrance to Central Park South and were now walking along the east side of the park as the sun set behind the buildings on the west.

  “A pledge by these billionaires to pool their money, not just give it away,” he said as we walked along. I could tell Jude was excited by the idea. I hadn’t heard enthusiasm in his voice about an idea like this in ages. “Isis thinks it’s utterly brilliant, and that it might work. Singen is all for it as well.”

  “What do you mean—pool their money?” I asked. “How would that work, exactly?”

  “Most of the people at this meeting I just came back from are … well, constitutionally incapable of giving away their money to charity. It seems like a waste of hard-earned wealth to them. Nearly all have had miserable experiences with the nonprofit world—with the lack of strategic direction, the small-mindedness and aimlessness of it all. They’re used to getting results, both with their wealth and with their businesses. Charity seems … pointless to them.”

  “I can understand that. It’s one of the reasons I don’t run around in the nonprofit world myself. I prefer working.”

  Jude laughed. He never would understand why I kept up the charade of writing for a living when I didn’t have to. “So here’s the idea. Why not ask people to spend their money, not just give it away? If the point is to do some good with it—to make a difference in the world—then they should do that. Do some good with it. Spend it on something rather than simply give it away.”

  It made sense. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had operated a bit like that for years. It funded research, like a corporation, and developed vaccines. It wasn’t really a charity—it ran more like a business, with goals like eradicating polio or malaria. It operated so much like a company that it had actually displaced some of the work done by other companies in the global public health space.

  But virtually no other philanthropy operated like the Gates Foundation. No one had ever even tried … which is why Jude’s idea wasn’t totally insane.

  “But how would it work, exactly?” I prodded. “I have a tough time seeing all of these folks working together. It isn’t exactly in their nature or DNA to collaborate together on common goals. They’re all pretty individualistic.”

  That’s when I saw it—the fire in his eyes. Jude knew this was a big idea, the kind that could take the world by storm and shake it to its very foundation. And he wanted to be the person who did the shaking. Atlas may have shrugged once. Jude wanted to pick that world back up and carry it forward on his own shoulders.

  “It will be a collection of individuals who can achieve more together than they ever could apart,” he said. “Isis has already begun to put together the list of all the big ideas that just need capital behind them. Kids still die every three seconds from easily preventable diseases, for instance. So that goes right at the top of our list. We need a permanent renewable energy source that’s cheaper than anything now available. We need a new way to grow food efficiently before we run out of arable land. A single billionaire couldn’t possibly solve those equations alone—not even us. But together, across all of the different networks and industries that we’d be in a position to draw from if we pooled our wealth together as part of a Spending Pledge, that’s a completely different story. A collection of individuals who control the world’s wealth can achieve together what individuals alone have no hope of accomplishing apart.”

  It was an interesting concept—global economic development masquerading as philanthropy. Something only Jude could create.

  “So … what, then? The funds are used to build enterprises, start new businesses that address unmet needs? That sort of thing?”

  “Sure, why not? Every one of these billionaires is used to building things, creating things. It’s why they’re so uneasy about giving away their wealth. They’d be infinitely more comfortable using it to actually build and create things that solve big problems. Jobs would be created. Communities would be helped. Economies of scale would be achieved. A new, better, global financial empire would rise from the dustbin of global economic decay. And it wouldn’t rely on individual charitable efforts. The power of the many, fueled by a vast network of wealth, would change everything.”

  My brother’s eyes practically smoldered with excitement.

  “And I’ll bet you have a name for this already, don’t you?” I said.

  We both stepped to the side of the road as a horse and carriage clacked past us.

  “Somehow the Spending Pledge doesn’t quite work, I don’t think,” I said.

  “I do have a name, or rather Isis came up with one,” Jude replied. “We’ll simply call it the Good Earth campaign. I can raise the profile for it just by talking about it with the media worldwide.”

  “While you’re still running the Fed?”

  “I could, I suppose.” Jude shrugged. “It’s just me talking. Who’s going to stop me from doing that? It’s what I’m good at, after all.”

  “But you’re not going to do that, are you?”

  I knew Jude better than anyone. I’d seen it in his eyes, heard it in his voice when he spoke about the world’s monetary systems at public meetings. He’d had enough. He’d mastered the wealth of nations. He’d learned everything that he possibly could. There was no reason for him to remain as chairman of the Federal Reserve any longer.

  “I’m going to resign from the Fed—next week, in fact,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact. “I’ve already let the White House know. They weren’t happy. I’ll let the board of governors know later this week. They won’t be pleased, either—at least, the ones with no interest in jockeying to succeed me.”

  “And pursue this campaign and nothing else?” I asked. Somehow, I doubted that was all Jude had on his mind.

  “I believe we can raise a trillion dollars—or two or three trillion dollars—for the Good Earth campaign. It would be the largest, single collection of wealth dedicated to doing good for the planet—ever. With that kind of money pledged, virtually nothing is beyond reach. Nothing at all.”

  Billionaire publisher Malcolm Forbes—who threw lavish parties on private yachts for movie stars like Elizabeth Taylor, and collected vast collections of art, antique model boats, toy soldiers, and ancient manuscripts—once famously said, “He who dies with the most toys wins.” But Jude had outgrown any compulsive need to acquire toys and trinkets years earlier. He was now vastly more interested in other types of acquisitions. I also knew he had no interest in keeping score after he died. He was much more interested in keeping score while he was very much alive.

  “But you have something else in mind, don’t you?” I asked him. “Something you want to do before you get there?”

  “I do. It’s actually something I should have dealt with before now,” J
ude said mysteriously. “The Good Earth campaign will follow later, once I’ve gotten my house in order.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I could have stayed at Fortress forever. It was unlike anything I’d expected, and it took my breath away. Everywhere I walked with Kayla and Lee Gentry and Dr. Simons was a new wonder. I’d never seen or experienced anything like it in my life.

  I knew, from firsthand experience, that there were very few places on earth where you could learn simply for the sake of learning—with no rules or governance or expectations. Research had goals and aims and milestones and final reports. Academia had rules and bureaucracy and systems. Think tanks faced the constant necessity of replenishing their source of funding. Fortress had none of these constraints, largely thanks to Dr. Simons’s view of philanthropy.

  What further delighted me was the rather unexpected and pleasant discovery that religious learning also knew no bounds whatsoever at Fortress. Yes, there were Christian believers and learners. But there were also Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and Muslims. And they all talked to each other—regularly and politely.

  “Fortress demands nothing,” he told me, “except intellectual curiosity and a willingness to take risks without fear of failure. I’ve always been happy to maintain the overhead. I feel like it is the least I can do, given the riches that the world has bestowed on me in my lifetime. All you have to do is open your mind while you’re here.”

  Plato’s Academy must have been like this, once—a great learning center where critical thinking was encouraged simply for the sake of benefitting others in the community as opposed to creating intellectual property.

  I’d been expecting hate, paranoia, isolation, and fear here at the center of the American Redoubt. What I found—at least in this one particular corner of the Redoubt—was a largely stress-free community of very smart professionals in a variety of technological fields who were committed to just one thing—interactive, open-source creation of software and hardware technology tools that advanced knowledge.

  It turned out that Fortress was actually a place of retreat and respite in the narrowest of terms. People were invited to spend sabbaticals at Fortress. But once they were on campus, they could remain as long as they liked. Some had signed up for a year and had remained well beyond their sabbatical. Others took every opportunity to fly back and forth from Fortress when they could. Still others found ways to live and work from Fortress remotely. But all of them had one common goal—interactive knowledge creation with no restraints or borders.

  Dr. Simons had built the core of Fortress, initially, as his home. When Kayla and Lee had shown up, they’d built a second residence alongside it. As others joined them, they continued to push the perimeter of Fortress outward.

  Dr. Simons freely spent his own wealth to help those who needed it and freely built pieces of critical infrastructure necessary to support both the community of learning as well as the interconnected digital links to the rest of the world. Fortress was clearly going to be Dr. Simons’s living legacy.

  “But does any of it actually benefit people?” I asked Kayla on one of the many walks we took together through the campus. I learned something new on every walk. Part of the Fortress campus, for instance, was an open amphitheater where someone interesting gave a lecture every morning. Another part was a book corner under an awning where authors talked about works they’d created. Still another part of the campus was an effort to digitally recreate the library of great works that had once perished at Alexandria. And yet another part of the campus was an open gymnasium where some sort of game or contest was always underway. The list of possibilities appeared endless. There seemed to be no intellectual limits on campus.

  “I mean, this is all well and good,” I continued. “I’ve certainly enjoyed my stay here. It’s a bit like an intellectual spa or academic resort. But the things that are created here, like Fortress itself—does it do any good? Is learning with no promise of immediate financial or personal reward actually good for anything?”

  Kayla nodded. The question apparently wasn’t a new one for her or the community of learners. “People have been debating the merits or drawbacks of open-source creation for years now,” she said. “It’s very difficult to make money or build businesses around open-source knowledge that is freely available to the world. At least, that’s what they teach you in business school. And there’s some truth to that.

  “Fortress has taken that concept to its extreme—and tested the limits of its usefulness. And while we’ve all certainly taken some winding roads into one dead end or another, we’ve also learned something quite valuable—that a community dedicated to learning and growing without intellectual borders eventually sorts itself out into a process that creates something capable of achieving greatness.

  “I can tell you that when I first started working on Fortress as a new language, I was obsessed with creating something that would build value for a company. That was my goal. I thought Fortress would replace the first computer language. I thought it would serve a very useful business function and make me wealthy in the process. But the company where I worked changed direction, and Fortress became irrelevant to its business mission. The language existed, but there was no one to speak it—until I came here.

  “That’s when everything changed for me. I discovered that there were others who wanted to speak the language with me and turn it into something that would, in fact, be useful. Fortress became a living, breathing thing then. And, yes, it became useful for people.

  “Fortress, for instance, has spawned nearly one hundred new, incredibly powerful software and web companies in education, medical, and other fields. And we have literally dozens of other similar stories from the physical campus—people who come here, learn from the community, and then go back to the world from here armed with new knowledge that makes progress in commercial fields.

  “But there is one simple reason I know that Fortress, all by itself, is now quite valuable. The National Security Agency has tried to acquire it from us now on at least five separate occasions. They’ve approached Dr. Simons three times, and me on two other occasions at high-end computing workshops in Palo Alto and Boston. We’ve tried to decline NSA’s requests each time by explaining that it isn’t really a discreet, standalone system—that it’s more properly a living, growing, interactive computing language the Fortress programming community keeps adding to almost daily. NSA either doesn’t believe that or refuses to.

  “NSA seems to see something in Fortress that they are simply unable to buy, build, steal, or re-create, so they keep taking a run at us to acquire it for themselves. All of their needle-in-the-haystack data-mining systems built by Palantir and efforts like PRISM don’t seem to compare to what Fortress is now capable of, apparently. I know that I’ll keep saying no to their request, and I assume Dr. Simons will as well—if only because we don’t actually own it. Fortress belongs to the community. So, yes, I would say that this sort of grand experiment in learning without borders is useful to people.”

  There was still one task I’d been reluctant to try from the moment I’d arrived, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to try it even now. Kayla and Lee hadn’t pressed me on it. But Dr. Simons had. He’d been insistent, in fact.

  I hadn’t actually asked Fortress a question—on any subject—that was useful or relevant to me personally. I’d watched Kayla give demonstrations on various subjects, from sports to business to pop culture. Lee and Dr. Simons had given demonstrations on its ability to create intuitive links to many interesting intellectual pursuits and conversations as well.

  But none of it was relevant to me, personally. And I didn’t know if I wanted to test myself—or what I knew—against Fortress.

  I had never spoken of anything I knew about Jude to another soul on the planet. I’d never granted a single interview to a reporter. I’d never breathed a word of anything behind the scenes about the globe-trotting, game-changing, world-
dominating Jude Asher who had taken his Good Earth campaign and created a vast, new, global financial empire that remade the world as we knew it almost overnight.

  I’d also never voiced another of my secret suspicions to a soul, either. And I was, even now, a bit afraid of seeking an answer to this other secret fear that I harbored—one that had shattered the relationship with my brother two years earlier.

  “So will you give it a try?” Kayla asked me at the end of our walk. “Before you leave, will you try Fortress and see what it’s like yourself? Surely there’s a question you’d like to ask it, one that has nagged at you for a bit?”

  I laughed nervously. “It’s a bit like the Oracle at Delphi, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, except this oracle happens to know what it’s talking about,” Kayla said. “Fortress may not be able to predict the future, but it certainly has an educated opinion about it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Jude’s sudden resignation as chairman of the Federal Reserve had shocked the world. The New York Stock Exchange stumbled badly after the announcement. Traders incorrectly assumed there was some type of institutional trouble ahead for the central banking system and reacted badly to the news. Blue-chip stocks lost nearly 10 percent of their value across the board.

  It never occurred to them that Jude was simply bored with the job and ready for his next challenge.

  When Jude resumed control of our company, he did so with a vengeance. In fact, he came back with such force, I decided to do something that had been unthinkable to me until then. I resigned from the board of Asher Enterprises. I took my private shares of stock with me, put them off to the side, and promptly forgot about them or what they were even worth.

  Jude took my declaration of independence in stride. But the truth was that he didn’t need me. He now had Singen and Isis advising him, along with a whole slew of additional regents of all shades and stripes. I’d been deadweight for years, I’d told him. There was no earthly reason I needed to remain a part of Asher Enterprises. He and I both knew that the driving force and engine was Jude—not me.