by Rob Reid
“You’ve been nominated!” Monika announces as Mitchell takes a seat beside her…avatar?
“To?”
“To pre-pre alpha-test Cyrano,” Danna informs him.
“We’re setting it loose as your wingman on Tinder today!” Kuba adds.
The table bursts into noisy, sustained applause. This is a cunning tactic to drown out Mitchell’s inevitable protests, which he soon abandons. His attendant embarrassment thrusts him right to the edge of a Falkenberg’s attack! So he smiles bashfully while fighting mightily to keep it at bay, anxious to protect his friends from any guilty feelings. They have no way of knowing how precarious he’s become, after all. He’s told no one about his constantly tingling extremities. Not even Dr. Martha, who he irrationally fears might blab to Ellie, who might tell everyone else, thereby bringing everybody down, when this is his problem, isn’t it?
“But Cyrano still sucks,” he points out.
“Sucks, schmucks,” Danna says. “You’ve been single for years. It’s time we used every tool in the kit to get you a girlfriend!”
More noisy applause muffles Mitchell’s attempted rebuttal. Then, as his limbs almost decohere into rubber, he lets himself see the warmth, even love, in everyone’s eyes—and his embarrassment fades; and with it, the tingling and the looming attack. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about because nobody here would tease him about his love life if they knew how monastic it actually is! He’s easy on the eyes, athletic despite everything, charismatic, and young. And he just sold his startup to a white-hot private company, where he’s now (at least optically) a high-ranking exec. Plenty of women would find this impossibly sexy. So people just assume he’s your basic driven entrepreneur, delaying romantic gratification while laying the foundations for his future family’s security. And probably getting mad Tinder action whenever his appetites demand it!
But alas, this all misses the Falkenberg’s dimension. And even close friends like Kuba, who are aware of his affliction, know nothing about how it robs him of love. Oh—and of sex. The thing is, he brought a lot of baggage to this illness. Most of it’s good, actually; but even good baggage has consequences. His comes from growing up in a two-person family with a wonderful mom he was everything to. From an astonishingly adult romance with an amazing woman throughout college. From his protective, big-brotherly childhood friendship with Kuba. All this and more has brought Mitchell to feel great responsibility for the emotional well-being of the people he loves—and also, the people he loves prospectively. Such as not-yet girlfriends. Women he might one day love as much as he loved his college girlfriend. Loving them as he does (or rather, will, perhaps), he feels a vast onus to protect their feelings. And what kind of man would partner with someone, knowing he’ll one day drag her through his own protracted and agonizing death?
This has colored Mitchell’s life since long before his actual diagnosis because he first intuited that something was deeply wrong with him in his midtwenties, before the attacks really surged. And that was when he…stopped. Stopped flirting. Stopped dating. Stopped loving. It just felt like the right thing to do (or rather, not do). This meant sex went right out the window, too, since he was never the king of the one-night stand. Nor the prince, duke, knight, or lowly manservant thereof. He’s just never been comfortable with such things—not even in an era that exalts empty hookups as some sort of feminist triumph. Sure, affluent young moderns are free and empowered, which makes their couplings “open-market transactions,” in the crass words of a dude he once knew on Wall Street. But NetGrrrl (make that Monika. Monika!) really nailed it in her post about courtship. Much as things have changed in recent years, smutty hookups are so close to the classic male goal line that the few times he’s partaken in one, it’s felt selfish, ickily triumphal, and wrong.
But. It’s been a damn long time, now, hasn’t it? And there are woman out there who enjoy random sex as much as the most loutish, crotch-grabbing investment banker, right? After all, he read certain letters to certain editors as an adolescent! He’s seen certain postings to Craigslist! And they can’t all be written by bored fourteen-year-old boys (…can they?). So perhaps, in the safe confines of this warm, loving circle of friends, it’s maybe—just maybe!—OK to lift his voice, and for once confess that—
“What you really need is a long night of shagging!” Monika pronounces (all but plucking the thought from his frontal lobes), and the rebuttal-drowning applause returns.
“Agreed,” Mitchell finally concedes (to playful cheers). “But Cyrano seriously sucks for now. We did a test run based on my profile on Monday. And did you see the matches that came back?”
“There were some eighty-year-olds on the list,” Kuba admits to the group.
“There was little else!” Mitchell clarifies. “And the come-ons it suggested. Jesus!” Cyrano 0.8’s opening lines are bipolar at best. Just under half are cornball crap along “Roses are red, violets are blue” lines. Others could get him locked up in certain jurisdictions—such as one that offers a 30 percent chance at immortality (yes, really) in exchange for several acts of…ingestion. Or another that positions its imaginary author’s herpes as a state-recognized handicap, which cannot be discriminated against legally. The rest are either non-sequitur weird (“You look Serbian. In a GOOD way!”) or—very rarely—show a glimmer of wit (“On a scale of Burning Man to North Korea, how free are you tonight?”).
“We’ve upgraded the tool for indicating what you’re seeking in a woman,” Kuba says, a bit sheepishly.
“Does it include age now?” Mitchell asks. The last rev didn’t ask about this—nor any other tangible trait! A mistake, obviously, but one grounded in good intentions. Studies show that most people list what they think they’re supposed to want in mates on dating sites rather than what they’re actually after. And so Kuba’s first system asked only indirect questions, from which he hoped to infer unwritten desires. This clearly turned out to be a tad ambitious for the initial release.
“It has age and everything else now,” Monika assures him. “We’re calling it the Wish List. It’s just like ordering a girl off a Chinese menu. You’ll love it!” Though he knows it’s not meant to, this hurts Mitchell’s feelings because it sounds icky, and he never said he wanted that. And the truth is, he’s never had a “type.” He just likes the girls he likes—and his lifetime of crushes probably resembles a cross section of modern female society. Apart from age, duh! And even on that front, he’s never really thought about his upper limit (though it sure as hell isn’t eighty!). Still, type or no type, it sounds like he won’t have a choice about filling out a “wish list” now. So to get back at Monika for hurting his feelings (or is it for making him have a crush on her?) he decides he’ll describe her to a frickin’ T on it. Take that!
“There’s still a somewhat spiritual side to the questionnaire,” Kuba says, as if Mitchell would want to retain anything from the old matching system. “We have something that’s kind of like an essay question. We ask people to just spill about what they’re looking for. This’ll let us test our chops at natural language processing. And it would be a mistake to drop it entirely.”
“Another big improvement,” Danna says, handing him a printout. “The come-ons are getting a lot better.” Mitchell reads it. This morning’s haul included a dozen “wsup”s along with several close derivatives.
He waves this in front of Monika’s digital “face.” “Has Cyrano been reading your blog?”
“No, the system really generated those opening lines,” Kuba insists. “Entirely on its own!”
“You sound…proud of that.”
Kuba just beams.
“You know how…moronic and unoriginal they are?”
“Which means we’re finally getting close to passing the Turing Test!”
“For opening lines, anyway,” Danna says.
Kuba nods. “We haven’t let Cyrano send any messages yet. So obviously, the real challenges will come with engaging in actual conversations.”
Mitchell feigns exasperation. “Well, thanks for telling me—but aren’t I supposed to be calling the shots here?” That sure gets a laugh! Though Mitchell’s officially in charge of the project, Jepson has him so busy, the Cyrano team is largely running itself. Which is fine, while it’s still an unofficial project. The question is, what happens after it’s approved and funded (as now seems almost inevitable)? Mitchell may be unavailable. He’s been doing really solid work for Jepson. And whether it’s from boldness, or an awareness that he may not live to vest his stock, he challenges the guy more than anyone around here (even Beasley), and Jepson actually likes this! He’s now entrusting Mitchell with more and more important work every day, and is losing interest in letting him move on to another job in the company. Mitchell hasn’t been brought in on the company’s deep secrets and remains a bit player in any meeting that includes Beasley, Judy, or Jepson himself. But in daily operational matters, he’s fast becoming an extension of Jepson.
“Anyway,” Danna says. “I’m off to MedNet.”
“To…?” Mitchell asks.
“MedNet. It stands for Meditative Networking. Everyone lies around chanting om for a few minutes. Then they sip chai and swap business cards. When the hour’s up, they ring a gong, and off you go. It’s huge in SoMa. O says it’s the best place to build a professional network because you know everyone there is ethical. Or vegan. Or…something.”
She bolts, then the rest scatter—Tarek to an electric bike club meeting on South Park, and Kuba to a quantum programming symposium taught by one of Ax’s minions (where he hopes to pick up some tricks to expedite tonight’s quantum break-in). Still choking on his top button and tie, Mitchell feels like the lone grown-up in a dorm full of aged and highly active sophomores. He gulps down the rest of his meal, then scoots off to write up a summary of the Commissioner Milford meeting for tonight’s dinner with Judy and Jepson. Oh—and to fill out his Cyrano “wish list,” as requested.
Thanks for checking off all the attributes of the girl of your dreams. We’re almost done! In a few minutes, Cyrano will take off to hunt everywhere on the Net—dating sites, social networks, Craigslist, even blogs—for possible matches!
But before he does this, there’s one final step. Please write a paragraph or ten (however much you want!) riffing on what you’re REALLY looking for. The sky’s the limit, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of! No one will EVER read this but you and Cyrano—that’s our commitment—and Cyrano’s just an algorithm, so this is seriously private stuff!
Based on what you say, and everything Cyrano can learn about the women out there, he’ll feed you a few opening lines that may just work on a couple of them. Read them, maybe edit them a bit, and then—if the spirit moves you—try them out! And may you find love…or WHATEVER ELSE you’re looking for!
Kuba, Danna: if either of you are reading this, screw you and knock it off! Cyrano, if it’s really just you and me, feast your natural language chops on this: I’m sick. And I don’t mean that in the bad-boy, spanky-spanky way that most people probably mean on dating sites. I mean it in the very literal sense, in that I have a really evil terminal disease that’s going to finish me off. And what none of my friends know (or I’m sure they wouldn’t be thinking “girlfriend” right now) is that this could happen in the next year. Because things may have just taken a major turn for the worse with my disease, and after that happens, patients go quickly.
As a result of this, I kind of feel like it wouldn’t be right for me to date. Or, maybe, that I don’t HAVE a right to date! I’m just not into random hookups, and relationships are wrong to foist on anyone else given my condition. But hmm, I’m your Product Manager, Mr. Cyrano, so it only seems right that I give you a fair shot at showing your stuff. So here comes a SERIOUS “wish list” challenge for you!
The thing is this: I do miss sex. So bring me some of that! But it has to be sex without guilt or sorrow. Which means it has to be with a woman who is truly INTO these short-term things. She doesn’t have to be CRAZY into them, or do them all the time (in fact, I’d prefer not). But she should have a somewhat wild history, and a joyous one. Meaning someone who has a true BLAST doing this sort of thing occasionally, and feels great and empowered afterward, not lowly or depressed.
So, that’s for HER conscience. Now here comes the tough part…MINE! I’m sure some women out there would find it romantic IN THEORY to sleep with someone who’s in the process of dying young. I have NO INTEREST in meeting this kind of person! If the roles were reversed, I know the echo of this would haunt ME to some degree forever, and I am NOT going to put that on someone else.
Now, here’s the trick: I’m a lousy liar. So, major life facts—the REALLY BIG ones, like “I may just have a year to live,” just COME OUT when I’m in a deep conversation. You know, the kind of conversations that can lead to first-date sex (in my depressingly limited experience)! That’s just how I’m wired, and we’re not going to change that. So I guess we need to find a Wish List Girl who can get into having sex with a guy she barely exchanges a word with!
Oh, and she has to be really smart. And confident. And happy. And cute. And about my age. HA! good luck with THAT, Cyrano!
Dinner is at The Battery, which is absolutely not tech’s answer to Soho House. Any member will tell you this—before describing a place that sounds remarkably like tech’s answer to Soho House. Jepson’s a Founding Member here, of course, and Judy belongs, too, despite living thousands of miles away. For his part, this is maybe the third time Mitchell’s been invited, and he’s always happy to come here. The place always seems to have just the right amount of Brownian motion. Bustling but rarely too packed, it’s alive, gorgeously laid out and illuminated, and of-the-moment modern, without seeming to try too hard at any of this. He loves its ever-changing art-laden walls, its sometimes-changing décor, and its towering ceilings. The club also has three bars that he knows of (plus perhaps a fourth in a rumored $15,000/night penthouse within the club’s boutique hotel), a fine gym, and an active program of speakers, musicians, wine tastings, and art openings. Oh, and a library (he’s never known why, but Mitchell loves libraries).
Barhopping inside The Battery with Tony Jepson puts the whole experience on…what, steroids? Speed? Meth? Being Jepson’s wingman here is like hanging out at Woodstock with Jimi. Phluttr’s just-closed billion-plus financing is the talk of the Valley—and therefore, of The Battery. Sure, the industry’s seen bigger rounds. But never for a company quite so young. This has pushed the data bloggers and analysts into hyperdrive. Everyone’s poring over Phluttr’s metrics, and however you cut ’em, your eyes just pop! Growth, monetization, NPS, growth, installs, reach, churn, growth, ARR, DAU, LTV, growth, blended CAC, ACV, growth, growth, GROWTH! Everything is off the damned charts. So here at The Battery, luminaries and wannabes alike are drawn to Jepson like freezing stoners to an open flame in the Black Rock Desert. His every tweet, post, and pronouncement gets analyzed like holy writ from Mount Sinai these days. And tonight, he’s the undulating epicenter of crashing fields of fascination, envy, and lust.
Everyone seems to have forgotten how much fun they had despising him during his decade-plus as a patent troll. And this is no small thing! Because even the most rabid techno-atheist will readily believe in a hell whose theology reserves its bottommost circle for patent trolls. Frivolous patent lawsuits poison the well for everyone—and none more than the early-stage entrepreneurs who are the industry’s lionized fountain of youth. Reviled above all are those trolls who originally got rich from tech and are now suing their way to slightly greater wealth by destroying the laissez-faire ways of yesteryear, which helped enrich them in the first place. There are billionaires out there (billionaires!) who struck gold while perched atop the shoulders of prior giants. Gentle giants. Generous giants. Ones who amiably welcomed newbies to build upon their works, in the clear expectation th
at they, in turn, would leave the door open for future generations. Instead, some of this benign ecosystem’s greatest beneficiaries are profiteering by welding the door shut behind them. Kim Philby’s blood-soaked betrayal of his class and nation may have helped define the Cold War. But to certain tech purists, it was a small fart at a Royal Ascot brunch compared to this.
In Jepson’s patent-trolling days, the field’s poster child was Nathan Myhrvold. Myhrvold used his vast winnings from Microsoft to launch a high-budget trolling operation with the thigh-slapping name of Intellectual Ventures. Next to this orcan mass, Jepson was plankton-scale. He had just one patent to his name, and he’d stumbled upon it. Compare that to Myhrvold’s vast and carefully assembled portfolio of lawsuit-ready filings! Still, local ideologues loathed Jepson more, simply because they expected better from one of their own. The Valley had long viewed Microsoft with the schizophrenic mix of awe and contempt that Americans held for Japanese manufacturing in the seventies and eighties. There was awe for its incredible ability to execute, but contempt for its dearth of inventiveness, its appropriation of others’ innovations, and its bullying, underhanded tactics. Certain Bay Area snobs therefore expected nothing better than patent trolling from the likes of Myhrvold. But as a local lad, Jepson lacked that hall pass—and boy, was he loathed.
He helped his cause somewhat by owning, even rocking his odious image as a sort of playful penance. He attended costume parties dressed as a troll. He funded a lavish troll-themed art car at Burning Man. He even briefly portrayed himself in a YouTube comedy in which he stole candy from tots, sold his mom’s jewels on eBay, and sued orphans. The show was popular and occasionally almost brilliant. Still, all eyes were perfectly dry when that famous bitcoin hiccup wiped Jepson out. And when a brief local blackout randomly occurred later that week, local wags blamed it on a surge of schadenfreude so massive, its electromagnetic wallop rivaled that of an H-bomb’s EMP. Jepson’s rehabilitation, then, is an improbable marvel. He’s Deng Xiaoping—not merely freed from the gulag but crowned head of state. And now Mitchell, here, is his wingman at a Politburo piss-up!