Learning Curve

by Michael S. Malone

  Virgil was obviously not going to be the first to speak, so Dan finally said, “How’s the hunting look this year?”

  “Good,” said Mason. “They’re predicting a late snow, and this summer’s drought means the big bucks will be coming down from the high country early looking for food. They’re saying a lot of white tail and mulies. Haven’t heard any predictions yet about elk.”

  Dan didn’t know what else to say, but the conversation offered a welcome respite from the debate going on in his head. “Ever thought of hunting in Africa?” he asked.

  “Oh, hell yeah. I’d love to. But that takes a fair amount of coin. More’n I got.”

  “What would you hunt if you could?”

  “Well, lemme think. I guess maybe one of those curly-horned kudu. And a cape buffalo—though I expect Mary might object to me doing that. Too dangerous. Oh yeah, and I like to get me one of those black sables. They’re something else.”

  “I thought sables were like weasels. Or minks.”

  “Wrong kind,” said Virgil. “These are like horses, with big old curving horns.”

  “Huh. Never knew that. So no Africa.”

  “Not anytime soon, that’s for sure. But you know, they got these ranches in Africa that have a lot of African antelope on them. I may just drive down there one of these days.”

  “Well,” said Dan, “I’m not a hunter, but I may just join you. Sounds like a good time.”

  Virgil glanced over at his passenger and then back at the road. “It was that that bad, huh? I’m sorry, Dan. That’s tough.”

  “Bad? Yeah. But tough? No. Surprisingly easy. Too damn easy. All I have to do is go along.”

  The jet was waiting on the runway, where they’d left it the day before. The powered chain link gate squealed open and the truck started out on the tarmac. As if on cue, the attendant appeared at the plane’s door. She nodded as if clicking off a mental checklist, then disappeared back inside. By the time Dan climbed out onto the runway, the jet’s rotors were already turning.

  “Take care,” said Dan, reaching out to shake Virgil’s hand. “I don’t know how long it’ll be before I get back here. Give my love to Mary.”

  “I will,” he said. “And good luck to you, Dan. I know you’ll do the right thing. You always do.”

  I wish, thought Dan as he climbed the steps.

  “Welcome, Mr. Crowen,” said the attendant, looking as beautiful and fresh as always. This time her demeanor was more irritating than thrilling. “I understand from Mrs. Mason,” she said, “that you didn’t have any breakfast. So I took the liberty of preparing some coffee, bagels, and fruit. I’ll serve it after we take off.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And,” said the attendant, making a gesture with her arm like a model presenting this year’s new car, “I don’t believe you’ve met Ms. Lisa Holmes.” She stepped back to reveal a young woman sitting at a table covered with documents. The woman looked up and with a slight arch of her eyebrows, offered him a small smile. She was very slim, with short blonde hair tucked behind her ears. Not quite beautiful, she was striking, with a straight nose and a jaw line so sharp that it might have been cut with a laser. Overall, she looked young, smart, and formidable.

  Just great, Dan thought, an intellectual joust. What I really need right now is time to think.

  But to his relief and surprise, Ms. Holmes focused more on the paperwork in front of her than on her fellow traveler. In fact, for the first hour of the flight, other than a little small talk about the weather beneath them and their favorite type of bagel—she liked sesame, he poppy seed—Holmes left him largely alone.

  In the end, it was Dan, weary and anxious from waiting for the other shoe to finally drop, who spoke first. “Aren’t you supposed to be convincing me to accept Cosmo’s plan?”

  Lisa Holmes looked up from her papers. “I assume that you’ve already made your decision, Mr. Crowen. If you’ve decided to go along with the plan, I’m here to brief you on its planned execution—so you can speak thoughtfully about it with the shareholders and the media this afternoon.” She looked at him with steady, unblinking eyes. After a few seconds, she went back to her papers.

  Dan turned and looked out the window. They had crossed the Great Basin and, as near as he could tell, they were just crossing the corner of Oregon. There: there was Crater Lake below them, with Mt. Shasta looming just ahead. Dan knew that he’d made up his mind moments after Validator dropped the bomb on him. The decision wasn’t the problem—that would follow logically from the premises and an interlinking chain of consequences. It was the premises themselves that caused the problems. That’s where the misjudgements were made. The prejudices. The compromises to honor and ethics. Long before he had left the ranch, Dan had already made his decision. He just hadn’t yet figured out how to make it without despising himself.

  It was as they passed over the great summit of Shasta, which rose with a two-mile-high white finger pointing up at him, that Dan turned back from the window to the young woman. “We had better begin,” he said flatly, “before we run out of time.”

  v. 1.5

  Back in his office, Dan tried and failed to call both his wife (who was at her Junior League fashion show luncheon and had turned off her cell phone) and Tony D. (who was playing in the annual Validator sales force golf tournament and had done the same). Three hours later, he found himself sitting in the first row of the annual shareholders’ meeting. As usual, Cosmo had arrived late, and they’d had no time to speak to each other. Dan absently joined the general applause as Cosmo took the podium.

  As Validator took the applause from the happy shareholders—all of them pleased with the success of the company’s stock over the previous months—he looked down and swept his eyes across the first row. When he spotted Dan, his eyes stopped. No expression. No tiny smile of satisfaction. Not even a brief nod. Just a brief glance—and then the eyes moved on, measuring the accolade.

  It was a standard Cosmo Validator speech—equal parts wit, hard data, bullshit, bravado, and unaffected warmth for all of the people who had taken a stake in his dream. If Dan hadn’t known Cosmo better, he might even have convinced himself that the old legend had somehow changed his mind and abandoned the new plan. But he had no illusions: he’d seen Validator act like it was just one more day of many… until the very second he fired an employee or informed wife number three that he wanted a divorce.

  And so Dan waited. His chair, though well-padded, seemed to grind into his shoulders, the small of his back, and the backs of his knees. He stared at a small light patch on the carpet where a square had been replaced. He assumed that anyone who looked at him would merely see the CEO, deep in concentration about the future of the company. And, of course, they would be right.

  He felt the butterflies rising in his stomach. It was not a new sensation. How many times had he felt just like this before a speech or announcement? A thousand? Was this time really that different? It’s supposed to be, he told himself, but after all the years, and all the compromises, victories and defeats he’d survived, what was one more—however it turned out? All that was really left to him was a kind of fatalism: to see it through, make the best of the situation, and deal with the consequences. Luckily, he had become very good at dealing with consequences—whoever named it ‘chief executive officer’ obviously had never held the job.

  A slight shift in Cosmo’s tone snapped Dan out of his reverie. He glanced up at the screen. It showed revenue and earning projections for the next quarter. Here we go.

  “As you can see, folks,” Cosmo told the audience, “while our business remains strong, the overall industry is undergoing a structural transformation. Margins will soon be squeezed from both directions—from our big but fading competitors who will have to cut prices to remain competitive, and by a new generation of competitors who will pursue alternative channels such a
s the Internet to pursue our customers…”

  Dan tried not to frown or smile; it all sounded so reasonable.

  “…for that reason, after extensive consideration, Dan Crowen and I have concluded that this company must move away from our current business model of discrete packaging and pricing sold by a field sales force towards a new ‘web services’ model in which our product family will be leased by customers and delivered through the Web. To that end, Dan and I have determined that we will be eliminating our sales force over the next two quarters…”

  There was an audible rumble in the audience. Cosmo raised a hand. “I understand your concern, ladies and gentlemen, but this decision is the product of months of research and debate. It has been ratified at the very top of this company. I personally asked Dan—and thank you, Dan,” he smiled and nodded towards Dan but made no attempt to catch his eye—“if I could make this announcement so that you can see that I am one hundred percent behind this plan.”

  Cosmo paused. His voice dropped to his best intimate tone. “Folks, I’ve always done my best to take care of… our… investment in Validator Software. And I intend to keep doing so as long as I’m still standing.

  “There’s a new world emerging, folks, and we have to be prepared to meet it. And that is going to require some changes. You’ve just seen the first of them. So please, be patient. Bear with us. We’ve been through tough times before—far worse than this. The ride is going to get a bit bumpy over the next couple years, but I promise we’ll come out the other side stronger, and more prosperous, than ever.”

  There was applause. At first it was nervous and tentative, but it slowly grew. Dan wanted desperately to turn around and both gauge the magnitude of the enthusiasm and see who still sat on their hands.

  The opportunity came: He glanced up to see Cosmo smiling at him, gesturing for him to come up on stage. Dan literally leapt at the chance, bounding up the four steps in two strides and all but trotting over to the chairman. They shook hands, put on confident smiles and turned to face the shareholders, reporters, and photographers.

  Even as he maintained his cheerful countenance, Dan surveyed the crowd. The small-scale shareholders, few of whom understood the implications of the announcement, were applauding wildly. The few institutional investors—there was Morgan Bank over there, next to Calpers—had already stopped their formal clapping and were now looking on with curiosity and talking amongst themselves.

  Further back were the reporters. The print people and the bloggers were already typing on their laptops, talking into their cell phones, or collaring passing employees for quotes. The two TV teams—one from local television, the other from Fox Business—were busy filming B-roll of the two executives on stage as their two reporters scouted for stand-up interviews. The speed with which these reporters were racing about suggested that they too understood the magnitude of the story in their hands. So much for Dan’s quiet prayer that the story would be missed, or at least buried on a busy news day.

  With a feeling of dread, he finally lowered his eyes to the figures in the front row. His executive team was still seated, looking straight ahead. Their faces expressed a look that combined confusion, anger… and, increasingly, betrayal. None of them were looking at Validator; all of them were staring at Dan. He owned it now.

  Cosmo turned, grinned, and shook Dan’s hand one more time. Cameras flashed. Cosmo winked—the eye away from the audience—and said, “Good to see you, Dan. I’ll be in touch.” Then he was gone, trailing clouds of glory, shareholders, handlers, and reporters.

  v. 1.6

  Ten minutes later, Dan sat in his office. The door was closed, and Donna had been told to leave it that way. The telephone had already rung four times. There were twenty-eight new emails, which Dan ignored, along with a seemingly endless run of instant messages and tweets. He turned his back on the screen.

  He heard Tony D. long before he saw him. He was surprised how quickly his VP of Sales had heard the news and driven in from the golf course. Maybe he’d heard it on the radio on the way. Well, Dan thought, better sooner than later. He composed himself.

  “Donna, I don’t give a fuck!” he heard Tony D. shout. “I’m going in there.”

  The door flung open. Tony D. burst in, still in his knit shirt and green slacks, his face red and twisted with anger. He didn’t even pause to close the door behind him. He obviously didn’t care who heard what he was going to say.

  “Tony…”

  “Fuck you, Dan. Just fuck you, you backstabbing son of a bitch.” Tony jabbed a finger towards Dan’s face. “Twelve years, you ratfucker. Twelve fucking years of loyalty to you, and this is what I get. Fuck you. FUCK YOU. I made this company. I made you. And you fire my whole fucking team? You fire me?” He slammed his hand on Dan’s desk. One of the Cross pens bounced out of its stand.

  “I’m sorry, Tony.”

  “Fuck you, Dan. You lying piece of shit. You know what pisses me off most? You fucking planned this. It’d be chicken shit enough if you were some good Nazi following Validator’s orders. But you fucking planned this with him. How long ago, Dan? How long?” Tony D.’s voice was vibrating with anger. “You shook my hand yesterday. You let me go out on stage and make promises to my people you knew I couldn’t keep.” Tony D.’s eyes suddenly lost their fire. “You hung me out to dry, Dan. Why would you do that to me?”

  Dan rested his hands on his desk, palms up. “I didn’t have any choice, Tony.”

  Tony D. stared at him, shaking his head slowly. “The fuck you didn’t, Dan. You are the Chief Executive Officer of this company.”

  Dan’s hands became fists. But he composed himself. “Yes, I am. And part of that job is making difficult decisions.”

  “Yeah,” Tony snarled again. “I’m sure it’s especially difficult to make decisions about the future of the sales force without once consulting your vice president of sales.”

  Dan didn’t reply.

  “So that’s it, eh?” Tony slapped his hands on the desk, and pulled himself to his feet. “You know it won’t work, don’t you?”

  “What won’t?”

  “Your new plan. Even if you manage to put a net services program in place—and nobody’s pulled it off yet—it’ll take you at least two years. And you’re going to lay off your sales force now? Are you fucking crazy? What are you going to do for that year in between? Go door-to-door and sell the shit yourself?” Tony D. planted his hands and leaned over the desk until his face was just inches from Dan’s.

  “You’re going to fail, Danny Boy, and everything you’ve accomplished with this company—not to mention your oh-so-perfect reputation—is going to come crashing down on your head. And you know what, asshole? I’m going to be standing there, watching it happen, and laughing my fucking head off.”

  v. 2.0

  Alison Prue sat back in her Breuer chair and tried to look as presidential as was possible with a blue stripe in her blonde hair and her knees as high as her chin. Why, she asked herself, did I ever go for this ‘Icons of Design’ look for the décor? Has anybody ever actually sat on the de Stijl chair?

  They were in eTernity’s Harvey Milk conference room, hard by the Emperor Norton game room, the Allen Ginsburg videoconferencing center. and the Owsley snack room. The walls in the Milk room—it sounds like a kindergarten, Prue thought, which isn’t far from the truth sometimes—were painted matte black, as were the exposed pipes and ductwork above her. It all gets so very damn precious sometimes, she thought. We’re trying too hard not to look like the real company that we’ve become.

  In front of her on a forty-inch plasma display, Tipo—spiked hair, facial piercings, indeterminate gender—was discussing the re-design of eTernity’s home page. Tipo tapped a key and up came Google. “The lesson that Google taught the industry,” he said in an affected lilt, “is the sacredness of the home page. It must remain inviolate, pristine,
untouched, and pure. It is comforting because it is predictable. It is your safe launch pad. It is, as the name suggests, home. The only changes we should make are purely decorative—like transforming the font on Arbor Day, or such like—never functional.”

  He clicked the key again to show a familiar but obsolete image. “ETernity’s home page began with the same underlying philosophy, but…” He clicked again, and the once-simple image filled with images, boxes and text. “We have lost our way. Our home page has become precisely what we set out not to become.”

  Tipo folded his pale arms across his black t-shirt, which bore a white image of Arthur Rimbaud. He pursed his lips with frustration, then said, “What we need now is a return to our First Principles, the philosophy on which…”

  He didn’t have time to finish. In the doorway stood Armstrong Givens. Even after two years, Givens’ gray temples, square jaw, and conservative suit and tie were still a shock in this company of trendy twenty-somethings. “The only gay person in a gay company,” he had once described himself, and Alison ruefully knew it was true.

  “It’s on,” said Givens, his normally languid Southern voice surprisingly sharp. “And you’re not going to believe it.”

  The entire team jumped to its feet and trotted down the hallway, led by Givens and Prue. The Jerry Garcia room was already half-filled with eTernity employees. “I Tivo’d it,” said Armstrong, leading Alison to a seat in the front, “but from what I saw, it’s everything the bloggers have been saying.”

  The room was silent. Even when the image of Cosmo Validator resolved itself through a quick focus, there was none of the usual booing and catcalls. Alison glanced over at Armstrong, who raised his eyebrows.