by Rob Reid
Press coverage and outrage were highest among Iceland’s Scandinavian neighbors, where the service had previously struggled to reach critical mass. Then, in the immediate wake of the scandal, Norway and Finland ironically became the first countries in which Phluttr’s usage exceeded that of Facebook. In a typical explanation of this paradox, Oslo graphic designer Kirstin Sørensen said, “The Iceland thing made everyone hate them because the end of that press release was just so awful. But after seeing them everywhere in the news, my friends all downloaded the app out of a kind of angry curiosity, and now we’re addicted.”
Some analysts question whether Phluttr can maintain its torrid growth in the face of increasing privacy-related criticisms. But the company has had striking success in several relevant legal face-offs, including a recent resounding court victory in the European Union, where privacy regulations are among the world’s strongest. This triumph is believed to have fueled investor enthusiasm for the financing round.
Following Pugwash’s suggestion, Mitchell has been researching Phluttr and its recent financing online for about an hour when Kuba enters his office. “Oh. My. God,” he says softly—his rough equivalent of a screaming fit. He’s waving his laptop like a Depression-era newsboy shouting Extra, extra! A press release lights up its screen.
“Is that Phluttr’s release about…Norway, is it?” Mitchell guesses. He’s been meaning to look it up himself.
“Iceland,” Kuba says, holding out the computer.
“You realize you’re about to physically hand me a digital article,” Mitchell points out, “and how very odd that is. Are you sure you don’t just want to print it and fax it to me?”
“I want to see your reaction to this in person. Especially the last paragraph. I’ve already seen Danna’s reaction. Well—heard it, anyway. So did you.”
“Is that what that was?” Mitchell was really buried in his research but faintly recalls some distant screaming.
Kuba nods and points at the screen.
PHLUTTR HAILS GOVERNMENT BAN FROM ICELAND’S UGLY, DESOLATE, AND BACKWARD SHORES
Phoundr High-Fives Groveling Underlings, Announces Three Days of Feasting and Ritual Sacrifice at All Company Shrines
OUAGADOUGO, BURKINA FASO: In a courageous move hailed by a diverse coalition of autocrats, clitoredectomists, and other groups partial to the nation’s daringly un-European views on free speech and transparency, Iceland’s Data Protection Authority has moved to insulate the country’s sparse population of trolls, babes, and draft dodgers from the Phluttr Social Operating System™ by banning its use on their remote and irrelevant volcanic dump.
In what can best be described as a childish meltdown, Phluttr’s Phoundr claimed that he “never wanted any stupid traffic from stupid Iceland anyway,” before throwing a sippy cup at a scrum of local reporters clad in traditional sled-dog pelts in Iceland’s unpronounceable and misspelled capital of Reykjavik. He was then led off by corporate handlers for his naptime, and company spokeswoman Justine Sacco took over the meeting.
“We’re bitterly disappointed, obviously,” Sacco stated over the room’s noisy undercurrent of grunting, slurps, and flatulence (all great compliments in Icelandic culture, Phluttr representatives were assured). “Iceland’s population has exceeded that of Chandler, Arizona, for several years now, and it’s approaching that of Henderson, Nevada, so this is really devastating from a growth standpoint. That said, it’s some consolation that we just neutered a similar regulatory challenge in the European Union last week. Not that Paris or Berlin can hold a candle to Reykjavik or your second-largest city, whose name I forget, but which has a population of 17,304.”
Iceland’s ruling will have no impact on Phluttr’s bulletproof legal status in the European Union, as the country is on the tiny list of regional nations that don’t merit EU affiliation. This proud fellowship includes Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and, of course, Azerbaijan.
ABOUT PHLUTTR: The world’s first Social Operating System™, Phluttr is an integrated suite of mobile apps, websites, and, for our backward Icelandic friends, “fax” machines that enable and empower all manner of social interactions. Its users plan, flirt, denounce, hype, plead, insult, and gossip with, to, and about one another using their choice of identity-verified, anonymous, or pseudonymous channels. While the company releases no metrics, various public sources estimate that it has 300 million users in over two hundred countries. Phluttr is a secretive satanic order, as evidenced by demonic symbols hidden in its logo; as well as a CIA front, as proven by the failure of bloggers as nosey and self-important as Robert Scoble and Michael Arrington to dig up the address or tax ID number of precisely one of its countless investors.
ABOUT ICELAND: Iceland is a former leper colony situated on a pile of rock and puffin dung somewhere near the North Pole. It gained independence in 1944, when its traditional back-and-forth proprietors, Denmark and Norway, finally ended a centuries-long game of “not it” by jointly disavowing any further responsibility for the crabby and pointless wasteland. For most of its history, the country’s principal export was Viking semen. But this market dried up, if you will, when Iceland’s seafaring dominance waned at the end of the Age of Global Rape—a centuries-long era whose passage is still mourned by local bards in interminable, tuneless sea shanties. Speaking of which, Iceland’s main export these days is Bjork, a pretentious and untalented singer known mainly for her debut album, which peaked at #61 in 1993; and for wearing a swan-shaped dress that one time. The country is also appreciated by certain “hobbyists” for the beauty and promiscuity of its womenfolk, most of whom can be found in California’s San Fernando Valley pursuing careers in filmed entertainment. The national bird is the Glass Heel, and the national footwear is the Biting Midgefly. Or rather, vice versa.
Some punk scenes are so hostile to mainstream norms that everyone ends up dressed and coiffed identically in the name of nonconformity. Some campuses are so devoted to tolerance and diversity that no one dares to voice thoughts that clash with the narrow ultraorthodoxy that this devotion dictates. In tech, the ironies arise from rigidly specified codes of carefree informality. Dress standards can get so fanatically laid-back that ties are ripped from the necks of hapless visitors, scissored in two, and mounted on trophy walls that herald the company’s militant easygoingness. Certain CEOs haughtily refuse any beer poured in a glass as an affront to their folksy habit of unpretentiously drinking straight from the bottle. And half of the local plutocrats seem to think the thinnest egalitarian window-dressing will give them Guevara-grade lefty auras. Thus all the flat anti-hierarchies seeking to offset the founder’s awkward membership in the top 0.001 percent by having him sit amidst the rabble at a desk protected by neither walls nor doors. You know, just like a regular schlub! And did you know the receptionist has stock options? Yeah—options. The receptionist! Just like the boss! Who sometimes flies commercial, has no title whatsoever on his card, and doesn’t even have an office!
At Phluttr, the Phoundr’s cube blows the workers-and-peasants vibe on many levels. Let’s start with the fact that it’s a cubicle at all, in a company that seats almost everyone in wide-open bullpens.* Then you have the cube’s proportions, which are nothing short of pharaonic. Its foyer (there’s really no other word for it) is dominated by a steampunk horse with Pegasus wings made from chain saws, carburetors, and sewing machines. Yank a pull cord, then engines roar, wings flap, and rumors of an econ major deep in the Phoundr’s past asphyxiate in a cloud of Geek cred. Ikea tags hang ostentatiously from most of the setup’s furniture, establishing a complete lack of pretense, while a bust of Seneca (the Phoundr’s favorite filosopher—and Iroquois tribe!) signals a rich inner life. Countless other humble-brags punctuate the cube’s beige mini walls (yes, he’s wearing a tux with DiCaprio in that shot—but he’s also zanily rockin’ Bermuda shorts!).
Not that the Phoundr ever actually sits here. He has enough sensitive conversations that doing business in an unenclosed space would be madness. So like ma
ny a monarch in an open-plan kingdom, he annexes a suitably private conference room for days or weeks at a stretch when it suits him (which is whenever he’s in the office—and often, when he’s not).
After a requisite tour of his official residence, Mitchell, Danna, and Kuba are ushered to this conference room. There, a grown man in a hoodie, vintage Gama-Go T-shirt and Yeezy Boosts bounds to his feet, his handshaking arm jutting toward Mitchell like a prow. “Mitchell? Tony Jepson. I’ve known your cousin for years! Total prick.” He takes in the rest of the group. “And it’s ‘Tony,’ got that? Or better yet, ‘Jepson.’ Not ‘Phoundr,’ please! That hits me like a knitting needle to the ear.” He mimes the gruesome self-infliction of this injury. “I mean, if you call me anything but Phoundr on the outside, you’re fired, obviously. But within these walls, it’s Tony. Or better yet, Jepson!” He turns back to Mitchell. “That is, unless your cousin’s here. He calls me Phoundr no matter what. It’s always ‘Phh! Phhh! Phhhhh!’ ” he says, chipmunking his cheeks in honor of Pugwash’s incipient obesity.
“Exactly,” Danna says, warming instantly—a first in Mitchell’s experience. Where’d that paranoid shell go? “You can hear the fucking Ph when he says it!”
“You mean the phhhucking Phh,” Jepson parries, and they both laugh merrily—astounding Mitchell, who could’ve sworn that Danna loathed everything this guy stands for. But that was before she fell under the barrage of his animal charisma. Drinking in the dazzle of Danna in high animation, Jepson now pivots his handshaking prow toward her and really pours it on. “Forgive me, but I didn’t get past the founder bios on the company write-up, because we had a bit of a fire drill this morning. You are…?”
“Danna. Danna Hernandez.” She almost seems flustered.
“Danna. Got it. And you must be joining Justine’s group.”
This sucks all of the jolly oxygen right out of the room. “Justine,” Danna says icily.
Jepson nods. “Yup. Justine.”
“As in…Sacco?”
“Yup. Justine Sacco.”
“As in, your…head of PR?”
“Uh-huh.” With that, Jepson tunes out, his attention seized by his iPhone.
Danna continues to address him—or his forehead, really, as he’s hunched and locked onto that phone. “Are you suggesting that any woman in tech has to be a…PR flack? Like, by definition?”
You can almost see the diversity training kick in as Jepson snaps to attention. “No, no, of course not! Women do everything in this industry. Up to and including leading! I mean, you’ve got Sheryl over at Facebook. Meg at eBay. And of course, Marissa ran Yahoo for all those years. And…and you! You’re what, then? Human Resources?”
Oh, that does it. Mitchell squares up. “She’s a coding designer,” he says tartly. “And a coding developer for that matter! She’s checked in more code than most of my engineers.”
Jepson gives Danna a look of utter bafflement. “Wait. You code your…designs?” Only Mitchell can tell, but this puts Danna right on the brink of detonation.
“Yep,” she answers levelly.
“Like in…Photoshop or something?”
Ka-booom! “Whoa,” she blares. “And I mean—whoa! You literally don’t know the first thing about front-end design, do you, biztard?”
“Not really, no.” Jepson gives a shrug of zany helplessness. Then, “But…I do know that you’re a master at programming in Java and Swift, Danna. Python, too. And you’ve logged some pretty good JavaScript.” He starts pacing the room like a college lecturer, looking at no one in particular while ticking off her detailed credentials on his fingers. “Very little Ruby because you saw through it before most people. Which is impressive because you must’ve been in high school at the time. These days, you’re all about full-stack Web development. You’re inexplicably smart about nonrelational data storage and even know a thing or three about Erlang. All told, you’re a damn good developer. Which isn’t exciting by itself because I have lots of good developers here. But do you know how many good developers I have whose UI work has gotten ten thousand Likes on Dribbble?”
He now stops dead and points at her. “As of this morning, precisely one.” He stops pointing. “Which is a very small number. But that’s fine because this is the industry’s entire supply! Because you, Danna Hernandez, are unique in this regard.” He now fixes her with a gaze of boundless seriousness. “Your coding chops are amazing, and your design sense is nothing short of sublime. I’ve never quite seen that overlap in one person before. So I know exactly who you are, Ms. Hernandez. I’m in awe of your work. And you’re half the reason why I bought your company.” With this, Mitchell marvels as Danna blushes for the first time in his presence.
Jepson turns to Kuba. “You’re the other half, Mr. Stanislaw. My CTO is blown away by Animotion. We’re gonna do some amazing things together.” He turns again. “And you’re the third half, Mitchell. So no, fractions just aren’t my thing. You recruited some amazing and wildly marketable talent. Talent so loyal, they stayed on a sinking ship with you for months! So there’s clearly some lightning in your bottle. And your reward is the toughest job: being my right-hand attendant, lieutenant, scribe, and confidant. The usual tenure in this gig is three months. Then, you either graduate or flunk out. Tarek here’s a graduate.” He points at the younger of two guys seated in the far corner of the conference room whom Mitchell had barely noticed until now. Thirtysomething and perhaps Middle Eastern, he looks oddly familiar. The other guy just looks oddly. Towering, wiry, blue-eyed, and stern, with some bright red wisps clinging to his pate, he’s not someone you’d forget. He’s also scribbling like a court stenographer.
“Tarek was an acquihired founder like you. He turned out to be so awesome, I made him co-head of one of Phluttr’s biggest projects! But that’s rare. I usually look to guys like you and him to start something new. You’re entrepreneurs, after all! And we’ve got an incubator full of amazing technology right in SoMa. So, hang out there. A lot. Then come up with a great product idea, sell me on it, and you stay. Otherwise? Yerrrrrrr outtahere!” He mimes a caffeine-addled ump calling a third strike. “You’ve got ninety days.” He touches his Apple Watch as if starting a timer while giving Mitchell the humorless glare of a duelist hurling down a gauntlet.
Then, “Gotta hop, kids, ’cause there’s lots to do! Danna, Kuba? Tarek’ll take you to your new desks. And Mitchell? Stick around. It’s Pitch Day, and you’ll be my backup and wingman. Oh—and two more things, for all of you.” He lofts his phone. “I want Phluttr 4.9.6 on everyone’s device! It’s pre-alpha, it’s rickety as hell, it’ll crash your gear and drive you nuts, and if it’s not on your phone by lunchtime, I will know. We eat our own dog food here. All of us! And the entire company’ll use this horror show of a release ’til we ID and kill all of its bugs. And second?” He hoists two fingers. “Until further notice, I want your internal correspondence written in Poof! All of it.” Poof! is a popular Phluttr messaging service. The instant a Poof! message is read by its recipient, it’s permanently deleted—from the Poof! apps and platform, from all proxy servers, and from both the sending and the receiving device’s RAM. It’s wildly popular with sexting teens, social libertarians, and anyone remotely connected to the drug market—which is to say, much of the tech-forward world.
“Poof!, really?” Kuba says. “What if we need to archive something?”
“Memorize it,” Jepson snaps. “We’re being investigated. Again! This time by the FTC, and it ain’t pretty. Privacy stuff, as usual. But they’re talking about possible criminal charges! It’s total bullshit, but we have to be careful. So with any internal message—” He bunches his fingers together, then bursts them apart. “Poof!”
HOT YOUNG NETGRRRL MINION AMBUSHES, INTERVIEWS “PHOUNDR”
I’m pretty sure the whole one-name thing started with musicians, like Cher and Liberace. Later you got Sting, Bono, Madonna, Bjork, Prince, Beyoncé, Rihanna, and so forth. Somewhere in there, models got in on the fun (Iman, Gisell
e), as well as artists (Banksy!) and even athletes (Renaldo). My point is, it takes a certain kind of arrogance to ask the world to call you by just one name. And then, a certain kind of mojo to pull it off.
And now we have the first known human to get the world to call him by his job title (and no, “Der Führer” doesn’t count, because everyone knew that asshole’s real name). I’m speaking, of course, of The Phoundr; the fortysomething, khaki-wearing Ken doll running the out-of-nowhere smash hit social network Phluttr (and yes, he has a real name; and yes, Virginia, so does Bono; but while you can Google them all you want, your smug mentions of Paul Hewson or Tony Jepson will only confuse people, so why bother?).
The Phoundr is not what you’d call media-shy. But nor is he available on demand to indie bloggers like NetGrrrl. So when I came across a fascinating rumor I wanted to validate (see below!), landing an interview took some Grrrilla Tactics (a phrase that’s exactly as insufferable as Phluttr Phoundr; but I used it ironically, see? And yes, I’ll stop with that now). A certain henchwoman of mine happened across him at The Battery last Tuesday. Being cute, built, and born in the nineties, she had no trouble Phriending him. Since Phluttr constantly blabs all user locations to Phriends, she was able to alert me when an AutoPost placed him at a highly vulnerable location (a certain Starbucks with famously interminable lines). Whereupon I had a second minion (one who answers to the same rough description as the first) ambuscade his yuppie ass!
So yeah, that’s not me in the interview video, as that would’ve torpedoed my anonymous blogger mystique (what—you never noticed that nobody signs this shit? Nor even a whiff of mystiqueyness in these pages? Screw you, gentle reader)! But my wing girl followed my cunning instructions perfectly. They were: feign giggly admiration; lob puffball questions; then, once established as a harmless nincompoop, hit those awkward notes! Video is below, and is recommended for its nervous pauses and priceless body language. But below that is a transcript for you speed readers and search engine bots.