Learning Curve

by Michael S. Malone

  “Even against old friends?”

  Armstrong turned back and looked Dan in the eyes. “I fought you, didn’t I? And I daresay I won. So, could I be just as ruthless against a sweet little girl who used to bring me cough drops when I had a cold? Oh, fuck yes.”

  Dan gave the tiniest of smiles. “Any possible conflicts? Stock? Options?”

  “Well, happily—or unhappily, depending on your perspective—I liquidated all of my holdings in eTernity buying Robert’s dream house just up the road. Most of the rest I poured down the grease trap here. And what few shares remained I sold off a couple months ago when I realized that eTernity was starting to stumble. Luckily the market hadn’t noticed yet; it still hasn’t. But it will. Do you agree?”

  Dan nodded. “ETernity hasn’t tried to lure you back?”

  “No. But that isn’t surprising. They’re still in that phase where any of the pre-IPO founders are an affront to those who run the company now. But Daniel, you still haven’t given me a good reason to take a job at Validator. If I wanted to spend my time with dinosaurs, I’d rent Jurassic Park.”

  “I’m not talking about Validator proper,” Dan replied. “I’m talking about a little independent side project.”

  Armstrong stared at him for a moment, then clapped his hands and shouted. “A skunkworks! A bloody skunkworks!” The bored hostess looked up, and then went back to her daydreams. Givens chuckled, then grew serious. “Daniel, correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t you currently have a small job running a multi-billion dollar public corporation… ?”

  “True.”

  “…and, entre nous, aren’t we a little too old for that kind of thing?”

  “Well, I am,” said Dan. “But look at you: you’re still a young man.”

  Now Armstrong really laughed.

  “And besides…” Dan raised one eyebrow and pointed at the half-eaten food his plate.

  “Ah, yes.”

  “Robert might even like going home.”

  Armstrong caught Dan’s eye and winked. “I think I may just leave Robert here.”

  v. 8.2

  The iPad, sitting upright in its stand and serving as an alarm clock, clicked its huge display numbers to ‘5:30.’ The image was replaced with a video of Irving Berlin dressed in a doughboy uniform singing “Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning.”

  Alison, swathed in warm sleep, forced herself to sit up. The new penthouse was still dark. Through the windows, the City seemed suspended in sleep, the Bay beyond black and bottomless.

  She reached over and shook the sleeping figure beside her.

  The young man was exotically handsome, his arms covered with tribal tattoos. He was a decade younger than Alison, a barista at a local coffee bar. He groaned and tried to turn over and return to sleep. She shook him again.

  “Jesus. Why are we getting up so early?” he complained.

  “I told you last night. I have an important—thing—at the office.”

  “Okay, so? I’ll lock the place up when I leave.”

  “No,” she said firmly. She climbed out of bed and wrapped herself in a robe. “You leave the place with me. And I lock the door behind us. Now get up. Make some coffee for yourself when you get to work.”

  “Drive me there?” the young man asked plaintively.

  “Sure. Except for, you know, the last block.”

  “You’re the boss,” sighed the naked man. Scratching himself, he headed off for the guest bathroom.

  “Yes, I am,” Alison said under her breath.

  An hour later she was sitting in the boardroom with four of her vice-presidents, each of them thumbing through their respective prepared scripts. In the corner sat Tipo, who now sported a buzz cut and a bow tie. He was armed with a computer and head-set and talking with the organizer of this quarterly call with the stock analysts—now a small army—who followed eTernity. “Okay, thank you,” he said, then turned to the group. “Folks, if you’ll put on your headsets, we’ll begin in one minute.”

  This was Alison’s fifth analyst call—and though she wasn’t yet comfortable with them, she was no longer intimidated. She had learned that there was a kabuki-like quality to the experience. Her job, and that of her lieutenants, was to read from a carefully prepared script—and the analysts’ job was to ask questions that were just probing enough to gain some additional information… but not enough to clue in their competitors or piss off eTernity and risk losing access. The real questions would be asked privately, later. From those conversations, plus a lot of additional research, each analyst would develop an estimate on the health of the company—and a prediction on the future of its stock.

  There was a click in Alison’s ear, and she heard the skillful phrases of welcome from the host of the call. He would guide them through the process, providing clues for each speaker and setting up the subsequent Q&A.

  “I’d like now to introduce the President and Chief Executive Officer of eTernity, Ms. Alison Prue. Ms. Prue… ?”

  Alison was slated to speak twice. Now, at the beginning of the call, and later—after three of her VPs had provided more detail and elaboration on her statement, she was to return and present the company’s financial predictions. On the organizer’s advice, these were saved until last because the callers might drop off and start publishing the news.

  Alison did as she was told. She read the script with as much freshness and brio as she could to make it sound as if she were speaking off the cuff. No one believed that, of course, but they were no doubt relieved not to have to listen to a droning recitation. She then deftly made the introductions and the hand-off to her vice-presidents—and turned off the microphone to her headset.

  The next part of the call would take about twenty-five minutes. She sat back, pulled out her Blackberry, and began searching through any Tweets being posted on the presentation so far. She found one from the analyst from Goldman Sachs. It read: “Evrybdy hot on eTY but v2.0 rumord late If dont hit 38c trouble”

  Alison felt her face flush. She flipped through the pages of the script to her second presentation to confirm her fears. There: 36 cents per share. Shit. And no mention of version 2.0 at all, just more upgrades of 1.0. They’re going to kill us, she realized.

  She stared at the page for a long time. Beside her, COO and VP of marketing Lawrence Kessler was delivering his share of the speech in his lapidary style. The others at the table were following along. Alison took the pen and notepad that had been placed before her on the table and marked the script. No one else noticed.

  It was again time for her to read her part. The other executives, relieved to be done, barely followed along. But when, in the midst of reading the financials, she announced “38 cents per share,” every one of them—and Tipo as well—snapped their heads back, and began to tear through their script. “What the fuck?” Kessler silently mouthed to Court Tanaka, the R&D director across from him. Tanaka shrugged and shook his head in disbelief.

  By the time the question period began, the room was audibly rattled. When one of the questions was addressed to the usually unflappable Kessler, his answer was distracted and rambling. It was even worse with the others, especially CFO Vanesh Jayaram, who now seemed reluctant to speak at all. And it only got worse when, in response to a question about version 2.0 from the analyst at Merrill Lynch, Alison unhesitatingly guaranteed that it would be introduced by the end of the next quarter.

  The instant the phone call was finished, Alison stood, tore off and headset and tossed it on the table. “Gentlemen,” she announced, “you’ve now got your number and your delivery date. Now, meet them. We’re playing for the win.”

  She stormed out of the boardroom, leaving the other executives to stare at each other in disbelief. “What the hell just happened?” Kessler demanded.

  “She changed the numbers on us,” whispered Jayaram. “Ho
w could she do that? Those were real numbers.”

  “How are we going to get two more cents?” asked Robinson Westerfield, the new director of manufacturing.

  “She doesn’t care how,” said Tanaka. “I think she just told us that.”

  “Well, God help us,” said Kessler. “If we don’t hit those numbers the stock market is going to kill us. If we do, it’ll take some fancy bookkeeping. And what if the auditors spot it?”

  “Just pray they don’t,” said Westerfield. “Vanesh, that’s your problem. I’ll be taking the shot if we don’t ship in time. We may end up sending out DOA products for a couple weeks. Good luck with that PR nightmare, Larry.”

  Jayaram rubbed his temples with his fingers. “Why is she doing this?”

  “Maybe she wants to pump the stock to sell some of her shares.”

  “For what? This company is her life.”

  “Then she’s building a war chest to go after Validator for the whole thing.”

  “God, I hate entrepreneurs,” said Larry Kessler.

  v. 9.0

  Dan checked his watch as he walked down the hall. Five minutes late. Shit. He’d let that customer call go too long. Well, he told himself, the board can hardly blame me for tending to business. Donna, who was manning the desk outside the boardroom, jumped to her feet and reached for the handle to one of the big mahogany double doors. “They’ve just started,” she whispered and pulled open the door.

  The board of directors, fourteen well dressed, gray-haired business Alphas representing the usual cross-section of race, gender, and industry sectors were precisely arrayed around the long table. They had all turned to listen to the imposing figure holding forth at the far end.

  “You see,” said Cosmo Validator, “there are times when you need to cull out the old male. They’ve done their job; they’ve bred with all of the females and left their genetic imprint on the next generation. Now you need new blood, otherwise the herd deteriorates.” He put both hands on the polished table. “That’s why sometimes, even when there’s an impressive young male sniffing around, maybe even trophy-quality, you still shoot the old leader.” He looked up into Dan’s eyes. “It’s the responsible thing to do.”

  Then Cosmo smiled and held out his arms. “Well, gentlemen,” he announced, “now that our CEO has arrived, shall we begin our meeting?”

  v. 9.1

  The building was familiar. But it had been years—decades—since Dan had last driven in the Lockheed Business Park. It was one of those backwaters of Silicon Valley, an address that had once been the most exciting place to work on the planet. But the technology—and the type of building needed to house that technology—had moved onto Milpitas, Gilroy, Bangalore, and Shanghai. Now the streets and parking lots were nearly empty, the concrete tilt-up buildings gray and worn. The few remaining businesses were the anonymous also-rans and never-will-be’s.

  As he pulled into the driveway, he counted eleven cars in the parking lot, all huddled near the entrance—most of them Hondas and Toyotas… except for one incongruous Bentley whose unlikely presence made him chuckle.

  As he stepped out of his car, the glass doors opened. Out stepped Armstrong Givens, dressed in jeans and an untucked dress shirt.

  “In mufti, I see,” said Dan as they shook hands.

  “Obviously,” said Armstrong. “But, of course, I’m only kidding myself. The Bentley is a complete giveaway.”

  “Think of it as a motivator,” said Dan. “If they pull this off, they’ll each drive one.”

  “Good lord, don’t tell them that. Wait until they’re done.”

  Dan looked around. “Nice pick. Even I couldn’t imagine you out here.” He studied the building some more. “Do I know this place?”

  Armstrong laughed. “You don’t recognize it? It’s the old Atari headquarters.”

  “Okay, yeah. I remember when I first started working in the Valley, somebody gave me a tour and pointed this place out to me. Don’t think I’ve ever been inside.”

  “Well, this place is like Memory Lane for me. Crazy company, Atari. Especially under Bushnell. We sold a lot of chips to those guys. So did Validator. That’s one reason I picked it, right under Cosmo’s nose. I’m hiding in plain sight.”

  “Atari. Pong. I think that’s the first time I ever heard of Silicon Valley.”

  “Oh, this place fairly drips Valley history.” He turned and pointed. “See that parking lot over there? That’s where Steve Ross’s helicopter touched down. After Warners bought Atari, Ross and his entourage decided that the Valley was too small-time for them to stay in. So they booked a hotel in the City and then took a chopper down here. They landed in the parking lot there, and then a limousine drove them the last 300 feet to the front door.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. It was like the biggest fuck-you imaginable by the Manhattan aristos to the Valley peasants. Ever wonder why you got such a cold shoulder when you came out from New York?”

  Dan laughed. “After all these years. And I thought it was just me.”

  “Now you know. Anyway, we got our revenge. Within ten years, Manhattan was kissing our ass, begging us for money.”

  “Okay, now that part I remember,” said Dan.

  Inside, the building still seemed abandoned. The hallway floors were dirty, there were stains on the walls, and several of the offices they passed looked like they had been sealed in the last century. But one big room was brightly lit, and as they passed, Dan glanced in through the double glass doors to see a vast space filled with low cubicles and busy young men and women sitting at computer screens.

  “Is that the crew?”

  “Yes,” Armstrong said over his shoulder, without breaking stride.

  “Am I going to meet them?”

  “I’d prefer not.”

  “Why not?”

  Armstrong stopped walking. “Because enough of them know who you are by sight, and your presence will only confuse them—and that could lead to crazy ideas like this being a Validator Software project. For now, I want them to keep thinking that I’m just an eccentric millionaire.”

  “Which is, of course, true…”

  “Also, you don’t want to find out later that Asperger’s is contagious. We can talk in my office.”

  They entered a huge room with exposed overhead ductwork and walls painted matte black. A single military surplus gray steel desk sat in the center of the room, with an expensive leather executive chair behind it. The desk and chair were flanked by two antique floor lamps with Tiffany stained glass shades. There were stacks of papers on the floor behind the desk. A rope of bundled cables ran from the computers and phones on the desk across the floor and disappeared into the shadows.

  “Very nice,” said Dan.

  “Isn’t it? Sort of Scarface meets 1984, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Cheery, too. Why did you pick this office?”

  Armstrong dragged a straight-backed steel chair from a dark corner of the room, put it in front of the desk, and gestured for Dan to sit. “A lot of reasons. Because it keeps me mysterious to the troops. Because it ensures absolute privacy. Because I’ve disconnected the smoke detector—and most of all, because I’m tapping into the most powerful juju in Silicon Valley outside of the Packard garage.”

  Dan slumped as far as he could against the rigid seatback. “Oh? Do tell.”

  “You don’t recognize it, Mr. Crowen, because you weren’t here, but in the late 1970s, this was the very epicenter of the electronics world. This was the Game Room, where Nolan Bushnell and his motley crew set up all the prototypes of their new arcade games and invited young gamers to come and play them for free.”

  “I see…”

  “No you don’t. Not yet. Because one of that crew was Steve Jobs, and one of the gamers he invited in was his buddy Steve W
ozniak. So as much as anywhere in the world, this is where Apple began as well.” Armstrong jabbed his forefinger straight down on the desktop. “Right here. Ground zero. This is where both the video game and the personal computer industries begin. We’re talking a trillion dollars a year. I’ll settle for one thousandth of that.”

  Dan laughed. “So, you are invoking the Great Digital Gods? I never knew you were such a superstitious old fool.”

  Armstrong laughed with him. “Well, two out of the three. In fact, when I told the kids out there about this room, they almost crossed themselves and genuflected. Don’t forget, Dan, the insufferable pricks of one generation are the benevolent immortals to the next.” His face suddenly darkened. “And speaking of life and death, how is your career doing these days? Are you still breathing?”

  “Just barely,” said Dan. “I’m on life support. I assume that Validator is already talking to the board without me.”

  “I see.”

  “So, in light of that, are you going to hit our target date? Because I may be down to days, even hours.”

  Armstrong spun away, then rose from his chair and began to pace across the shadowy floor behind his desk. Then he returned, put his fists on the desk, and leaned forward. “Daniel,” he said, “let me ask you something. Are you sure you don’t want to go it alone? You give me the word and in six months I’ll have a finished product without the Validator kernel. You and I have got the dough. And, shit, if we need more, we can get secret meetings with a half-a-dozen venture capitalists today.”