After On

by Rob Reid

  “Exactly!” Kuba said.

  “No, not exactly,” the CEO corrected. “But, kind of. If by that, you mean dating. Or sex, or rumors.”

  Pugwash shrugged and nodded amiably, thoroughly enjoying the shloosh of the wine flowing down his larynx.

  “What else?” Mitchell asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe…what’s happening tonight? Which teachers suck? Answers to the homework, what’s on TV?”

  “Exactly!” This time Mitchell and Kuba said it in unison.

  Mitchell felt an adrenaline rush normally reserved for key plays on the field. “CentroStat,” he said grandly, “will be like a combination of passing notes in class…writing stuff on the bathroom wall…and a yearbook!”

  “But it’s a yearbook that comes out every day,” Kuba added.

  “Exactly,” Mitchell said. “You have pictures of people and of life, like in a yearbook. You can write on each other’s page, like in a yearbook. You can swap private notes, like in class. And you can write things for the whole school to see, like on a bathroom wall.”

  “And you announce things,” Kuba said. “That’s really important.”

  “Right!” Mitchell said. “We’ll have this feature, we’ll call it a ‘Shout.’ The idea is, everyone has this sort of…inbox. And if you Shout something, it goes to the inbox of everyone who’s connected to you. And no one else. It’s like email—but more public.”

  “Or like blogging—but more private,” Kuba added. “And we’ll start it in schools. That’s really important.”

  “Exactly,” Mitchell said. “If five of the right kids get this in any given school, the whole school will sign up within days! And then you go from school to school to school. Because everyone has friends at other schools! Me and Kuba could get all of Westport in a week. Then a week later, the Westport kids together’ll get it into a dozen schools. Then the week after that, it’s in, like a hundred schools!”

  “A hundred and forty-four,” Kuba corrected.

  The guys went on to more or less describe Facebook, circa ten years hence. Whereupon, Pugwash yawned mightily. It was sort of a triple yawn. For one thing, he was exhausted. For another, red wine kind of deadened him. But above all, these kids needed to understand how epically last-month their idea was. “Sounds like Friendster, but for high schoolers,” he said. “You could pitch it to the VCs as ‘Friendster without money.’ ” He chuckled at this, then added, “Mo-ney,” pinkie to lips, in a remarkably good Dr. Evil impersonation. Then, more Margaux.

  “What-ster?” Mitchell felt like a refugee watching a long-awaited UN convoy abruptly ditch his camp, abandoning him to a lifetime of squalor and interminable dominoes games. It took weeks to come up with this startup idea! Would there ever be another…?

  “Friendster,” Pugwash said between chomps of whitefish. “It’s in pre-alpha, but we’ve all been using it.”

  Mitchell and Kuba exchanged a hopeless glance. We was left undefined but surely included Pugwash’s besties in Google’s founder’s suite.

  “And what is Friendster?” Kuba asked.

  “Exactly what you described. But way better. Jonathan Abrams’s building it. Bit of an asswipe, but he’s not stupid.”

  Dammit! Mitchell thought. Given Pugwash’s pathological stinginess with praise, Abrams was no doubt a universally adored genius.

  “But,” Kuba said, prodded by the survivalist urge that saw his ancestors through centuries of Polish history, “does Friendster have the…school angle?” He was convinced the zombie instinct of students everywhere to follow one another’s lead, up to and beyond the edge of the proverbial bridge, would be CentroStat’s secret sauce.

  “Nnnnn-ope,” Pugwash said. Then another Margaux swig. “And that’s one of about a thousand reasons why it’s better,” he added nonsensically.

  The boys exchanged a look that hauled them from denial (Kuba) and despair (Mitchell) to that terminal state of acceptance in moments. “Sure, Pugwash can be difficult,” it said. “But, he’s family. And, he’s smart! And he’s an adult, with credit cards and a 2-Way Pager. And he’s practically a founder of Google! So if he says CentroStat is doomed, it’s doomed.” Which meant they’d just dodged a big, nasty bullet. That of taking on the unvanquishable Friendster!

  Except.

  Friendster engineering was shitty on a scale not previously known to man, and it swiftly neutered the company. The greatest business opportunity of the decade then slid right into—and then, right through—the fingers of a skeezy LA marketing and spyware firm that was peddling a dumbed-down eyesore of a Friendster knockoff called MySpace. Kuba and his Bulgarian comrades could’ve easily run circles around the engineers who’d soon clot the halls at either of those crap companies. Whereupon, Facebook engineering would have run circles around them!

  But.

  Towering leads in markets defined by network effects are almost impossible to blow. And though Friendster and MySpace would somehow finagle this history-defying feat, Kuba and Mitchell would not have—even under attack by a company as capable as Facebook. Because in addition to competent-enough engineering, Mitchell would’ve quickly blossomed into a world-class media charmer—a key weapon in any tech arsenal. They would’ve then quickly hired an adult CEO, allowing Mitchell to charm the media full-time. And so, it’s within a rounding error of the truth to say the boys were on the cusp of becoming their generation’s most prominent entrepreneurs (and, at an offensively early age) when fucking Pugwash butted in!

  “But how can you know that?” you cry. “Has reality been cloned? With innumerable what-if experiments run from that very instant in 2002? Revealing how tiny changes in initial conditions would alter the present day?”

  Well, well, well. How very funny you should ask those precise questions! But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, smarty-pants. For now, let’s just say I’m confident that absent this nudge from Pugwash, the boys would have spent the next several years working frenetically on CentroStat (albeit under a much better name). And our world would now look very different. But of course, he nudged. Then the boys budged. And if Mark Zuckerberg knew the whole truth, his firstborn might well be named Pugwash.

  And for all that, Pugwash wasn’t quite done with these two! “The Turing thing,” he faintly slurred over dessert. “Now that’s a good use of your time. You’re students. You should be doing academic stuff! Pure research.” This led Kuba—who was plenty excited about coding a mimicry of human presence to begin with—to stage a rapid and total recovery from the CentroStat letdown. A project with Pugwash’s blessing would have the transitive blessing of Google founder and fellow Slavic émigré Sergey Brin! And perhaps (who knew??), maybe even his mentorship one day! When he shyly mumbled something about this possibility, Pugwash (who, in truth, was the only early Google hire whose name Sergey never quite mastered) didn’t bother to burst his bubble.

  With that, they adjourned. And while he wouldn’t even lay eyes on these kids again for over a decade, Pugwash had just changed their plans and perspectives more than any grown-up other than their parents would throughout their high school years. So thanks, Cuz. Instead of beating Facebook to the punch, Mitchell and Kuba would instead hatch something very, very different. And so much bigger.

  This gem tells the little-known story of ordinary Americans who undermined communism through private interactions with Soviet citizens during the dark decades of the Cold War. For instance, when US business travelers first became renowned for their toilet paper requests in the 50s, shocked chambermaids realized that everyone in America was rich enough to have bowel movements. Stalin executed entire hotel staffs as a precaution, but word got around. A related incident dates to 1980, when an American child brought a shoe box full of chocolates to his Ukrainian cousins. The news that “Keds” were sold in structures larger and sturdier than most Soviet apartments swept the republic, spreading discontent.

  I helped subvert communism myself as a young student, when two youths from the then–Soviet Republic o
f Lithuania visited Harvard to take part in a chess tournament. They roomed with a friend of mine. On each of the three nights of their visit, two of us would arrive in rented uniforms, posing as government “student welfare workers.” The first night we disbursed $500 to their host to cover his incidental expenses (a weekly sinecure enjoyed by all American students, he assured his astonished guests). The second night we brought him a gourmet dinner and did his laundry. On the third night, it was a case of Beaujolais and three trollops from Pine Manor who posed as government-enlisted party girls. The riches that the US appeared to lavish upon lowly students astounded the Lithuanians. One defected immediately (to later become a noted speechwriter for he who we now call “Bush One”). The other co-led his country’s secession from the USSR many years later. I remain proud of this blow that I struck against the Evil Empire, and must say that it beat combat duty.

  A decade and a half-ish on, Mitchell and Kuba are standing by for another momentous powwow with their fremesis. Two days after deciding to sell Giftish.ly to Phluttr during their board meeting, Pugwash has demanded an “urgent conference call with Management”—meaning, Danna’s on hand as well. The three of them are now huddled around Mitchell’s speakerphone, listening to a jumble of clumps, thuds, and background muttering. This is a bad start, even for Pugwash (not that anyone expects much more than a minor update from a narcissist who thinks his every act is press-stopping news). At last, silence reigns on the other side. Then the crunching begins. It’s like a sound-effects guy auditioning for work on a potato chip commercial.

  “Fucking Persuadifi.er,” Mitchell says, not bothering to hit mute.

  Smirking and rolling her eyes, Danna shares his disgust. With the tag line “OWN the ROOM, Alpha!” Persuadifi.er blogs about tactics for dominating the tech world’s treacherous corridors. The site’s “Eat on the Phone” post ran yesterday, and is already its most popular piece since “Always Run Late” blew up last year. These sorts of habits allegedly come naturally to Alpha beings, and cause their lessers to subconsciously realize who’s boss, even in casual encounters. The trick is, enough people now read Persuadifi.er that its latest tactics become widespread overnight. So at this very moment, dozens of pairs of jackasses are no doubt waging escalating duels of high-volume chomping over their iPhone-S-pluses. Ellie compares this sort of thing to the would-be playaz who pepper their pickup attempts with little digs and put-downs aimed at their conquests. A bestseller once claimed that this would somehow unlock a woman’s inner ho, so for a while there, a girl couldn’t hit a bar without getting repeatedly insulted by stampedes of bumbling, tongue-tied losers.

  Finally the crunching pauses. “Shhho,” Pugwash garbles through a bulky mouthful of something, “I’ve shhhhhold you to Phluttr!”

  Widespread shock on the Giftish.ly side. Already?

  Pugwash stops chomping and swallows audibly (while presumably wiping a film of Alpha crumbs from his handset, as the speakerphone roars like a fleeting hurricane). “Your investors are getting every dime back. Only in Phluttr stock! As for employees, they’re getting jobs.” A pause. Then, in the shocked tone of a Honolulu weatherman announcing a blizzard, “Even Mitchell!”

  “Me? A job?” This was most unexpected.

  “That’s awesome!” Danna blurts.

  “Who’s that?” This must be the tenth time Pugwash has asked this on a call.

  “This is the head of Product, Danna Hernandez.” This through gritted teeth.

  “Oh, Dayyyy-na! Right!” Along with advising its readers to feign ignorance about people’s identities, Persuadifi.er promotes the subtle mispronunciation of names in all circumstances.

  “No, it’s not Dana. It’s Danna. Two N’s. It rhymes with Hannah.”

  “Oh—Donna. Got it.”

  “No, not Donna. I said ‘rhymes with Hannah.’ ” She over-enunciates the first “a”; unmistakably saying it like the “a” in “hand.” “That makes it Danna. Not Donna. Got it?”

  “But I pronounce it Hahhhhh-nnah,” Pugwash says, as if opening wide for a tongue depressor. “It’s the biblical pronunciation.”

  “No. The biblical pronunciation is some Hebrew shit you couldn’t wrap your gringo tongue around.”

  “Wrong,” Pugwash insists. “It’s Hahhhhh-nnah. I’m talking about the King James Bible, which is read with British inflections.”

  “King James is a translation,” Danna says, her voice now rising. “Its names are like the English names of foreign cities. They’re approximations. Mispronunciations, actually.”

  “That’s racist. King James is sacred to my people.”

  “Episcopal isn’t a race,” Mitchell reminds his cousin for the umpteen-thousandth time.

  Eventually they get back to the deal. “So how’d it go through so fast?” Kuba marvels.

  “Nothing to it. I just sent an email offering to sell you cheap to the Phoundr.” And the man who inter-mangles “Dana,” “Danna,” and “Donna” somehow conveys the “Ph” and the lack of an “e” with maddening clarity.

  “Can we please just call him the ‘founder’?” Danna all but screams.

  “But he’s the Phhhoundr,” Pugwash says. “And you guys better call him whatever he wants because he’s the new boss. Quite literally to you, Mitchell. Because he’s been looking for a sidekick. Someone to take notes at meetings that aren’t important enough for him to attend, and so forth. And for some stupid reason, he thinks you’re perfect for it.”

  “Seriously?” Mitchell can’t hide his startled excitement. Yes, he disdains Phluttr as much as anyone in this room. But he had fully expected to be fired—and now he’s not only looking at a job, but his Phoundr access may enable him to exert some ongoing influence over Animotion!

  “Anyway,” Pugwash continues. “You’re all expected there tomorrow at 11 A.M. sharp.”

  “Really?” Danna asks. “But don’t these deals take awhile to close?”

  “Not when I introduce a company directly to the Phoundr.”

  “Would you please just say founder!” Danna snaps.

  “Because I was Phluttr’s phirst backer. So now he phhhavors me with phhhast responses whenever I phhhhhloat things his way.” Pugwash then adds, more credibly, “I guess they’re also moving fast because the CTO wants his new engineers yesterday. Anyway. I suggest you do some homework before heading over there tomorrow. I’m sure you know plenty about Phluttr, but there’s been a ton of press since the last round of financing. And you need to be smart about it. To make me look good.”

  “Any specific pieces we should read?” Mitchell asks.

  This is apparently a stumper.

  After several awkward seconds he adds, “Or…not read?” They all gaze at the speakerphone as Pugwash agonizes.

  Eventually, Danna guesses, “Did Persuadifi.er ever run a piece saying you should just hang up the second you’re done with a call?”

  Kuba has already pulled it up. “Yep. Two months back. They claim calls end with an average of ninety-two seconds of wasted time as people say goodbye. It’s harming the economy.”

  “I guess Pugwash has better things to do,” Mitchell says.

  “Certainly more lucrative ones,” Danna says, now looking at the article herself. “There’s a widget where you can type in your income and the number of calls you make in a normal week, and it gives you the dollar value of the time you waste every year by not hanging up on people.” Her keyboard clatters. “My number’s depressingly small. You need to pay me more.” She clicks another link—then frowns, rises, and exits without a word.

  “I guess that’s a sore spot?” Mitchell asks.

  Kuba shakes his head and points at his screen. It’s the headline of another Persuadifi.er post which calculates the annual bonanza to be reaped by walking abruptly out of meetings. Then he’s gone, too.

  PHLUTTR ADDS $1.3 BILLION TO WAR CHEST

  by Ken Hunter

  Phluttr, the controversial mobile social network, has closed $1.3 billion of capital in a funding r
ound that values its equity at $4.15 billion, according to sources close to the company. The investment was led by private equity firm TPG, and includes new investors Google Ventures and Tiger Capital Partners, as well as earlier backers Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Norwest Venture Partners.

  The financing was marked by unusual levels of secrecy, with the company only sharing its metrics and forecasts with investors making in-person visits to its San Francisco headquarters. This feeds the covert aura surrounding Phluttr, which dates back to a mystery connected to the identity of its first large financial backer. Named in regulatory filings as Gray Oak Partners, the firm has no Internet presence and is not known to have made any other investments.

  Numerous inquiries by journalists and online activists have found no physical trace of Gray Oak either, beyond a post office box in the Cook Islands, the notoriously secretive South Pacific tax haven. Gray Oak was joined by angel investor Harold Pugwash, a former Google executive. But an early post about the company in the now-defunct blog Valleywag maintained that Pugwash’s participation was relatively small compared to Gray Oak’s, citing unnamed sources.

  Phluttr plays to its enigmatic image with various stunts. Unmarked black helicopters often hover over PR events, all company phone numbers start with the 666 prefix, and press releases are datelined to such places as Pyongyang, Baghdad, and, most frequently, Langley, Virginia, where the CIA is headquartered. While some view this as proof that the company’s cryptic trappings are just a form of hype, others maintain that the patina of playfulness ingeniously camouflages a truly sinister aspect by hiding it in plain sight.

  In another unorthodox use of the PR ecosystem to grab headlines, Phluttr responded to Iceland’s recent ban of its service over privacy concerns with a press release that did little but ridicule the island nation in terms that were widely viewed as astonishingly crass. This was met with a storm of high-profile denunciations, during which Phluttr’s global usage surged by almost 30 percent, according to Web analytics firm Quantcast.