The Sensory Deception

by Ransom Stephens

  “If we choose to invest in your company,” the bald man said, “we have some conditions. Series A funding is for development and prototyping. Series B funding will be contingent on evaluation of those results.”

  “Yes,” Bupin said with a toothy smile. “Entertainment products require hype and buzz. You have the one chance to make first impression. Maybe you have one too many horses in this rodeo.”

  Farley had no idea what he was talking about.

  “This road map, your destinations are upside down. This horse may not float. You have VR helmet and gloves first, you call it a beta release, followed by the complete product, the arcade with bathtubs. This approach will dilute hype, reduce marketing opportunity, drown buzz, dull sting. You have in this thick document a development road map, not a product road map. Do you understand why your dog will have trouble hunting in this rodeo?”

  Farley felt as if this eccentric man were speaking a different language. He appealed to Gloria. She rolled her eyes.

  “Let me translate,” Gloria said. “Bupin, stop me if I’m wrong. You recommend that we do one full launch for Moby-Dick, our strongest product, featuring the VirtExReality Arcades. Then, on the heels of that buzz, release the take-home version consisting of the VirtExReality helmet and gloves. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, this is what I said.” Bupin nodded his head, more of a bobble than a nod, really. “You should have your first rodeo before your second. Was I unclear?”

  Farley shifted his attention back to Gloria. She’d said something that he had been hoping to hear since the day they met. She’d come close before, but this was the first time she’d said “we.” That “we” would change the road map.

  The woman said, “Product production in twelve months and launch in eighteen.”

  Farley nodded. He had to give something, but he also understood the nature of negotiation. “No problem reworking the road map, but core technology has to be developed. We can’t complete the product in less than twenty-four months.”

  “There is another modification,” McKay said. “Since we are essentially buying forty-nine percent interest in your company, we require the right to license your intellectual property.”

  “No,” Farley said. “We will not yield the right to license our ideas to other developers.”

  McKay shook his head behind steepled fingers and was about to speak when Bupin said, “You will change your mind. Your ceiling will grow higher.” He smiled, as though he were the VC version of a grandfather. “You push harder. Hire people. You do in twelve months instead of eighteen.”

  Farley left his statement on the table and maintained his slightly aggressive pose, but he could feel his dreams emerging from the womb of doubt.

  McKay stood, made a point of looking at his watch, and said, “Excellent. We’re down to working out details. Thank you for coming in.” He walked around the table to the door, looking every inch the executive late for his tee time. He stopped behind Farley and gripped his shoulder. Farley pasted a submissive grin on his face and looked up at the man. McKay’s grip tightened and the two men made eye contact.

  “Twelve months,” McKay said, “and you’ll change your mind on licensing.”

  PART 2

  Saying these words made Gloria feel like a fairy godmother: “I have the Series A contract. Congratulations, your first-round funding has been granted.”

  “Thank you, Gloria,” Farley said in his measured way. “You are a VC goddess.” He put his right arm around Chopper’s neck and high-fived Ringo with his left. Then he said, “We will live up to your expectations. What are the strings?”

  During the meeting at Sand Hill Ventures, Farley’s eyes had been shards of blue ice, so clear that Gloria believed she could see the calculations scrolling across his mind. Now, in the warmth of friends and home, they’d returned to that rich ocean blue. Through her VC career, Gloria had balanced her clients’ egos against romantic conflicts of interest by feigning ignorance of their flirtations—which, coming from engineers, tended to lack sophistication. Her first instinct was to insist that this approach would work now, too. But then something came to mind that caused her to pull her eyes away from Farley’s, a fleeting thought that she wanted to embrace.

  She looked down and took a few seconds. She had spent a lot of time with Farley in the last few weeks. There had been ample opportunity to flirt, and she might have been guilty of it, but Farley wasn’t. She looked back up. He was still watching her, his face square and open, anticipating her analysis and advice. This is when that fleeting thought crystallized: Farley’s open admiration and respect might convey attraction, but he had never flirted.

  Gloria had come to Santa Cruz early that morning. Farley had been waiting for her, reading a zoology journal on the porch. She’d expected him to zero in on the terms as every other would-be entrepreneur had. Instead he gave her a friendly hug and then walked her around the porch to watch the sun burn away the morning fog. Seagulls cried, cars drove by, and waves crashed. She saw Chopper down on the bluff smoking.

  As the blue sky emerged, Farley told her about his grandfather. “He was the only parent I ever knew—my folks died when I was six, and Grandma died before I was born. He taught me how to sail and told me that once I had that, I could wing the rest. They called him Captain—the other fishermen, his girlfriends, even the mayor, and me, too. I always called him Captain.

  “When I stand here, right here between the ocean and land, I get this feeling, sort of spiritual, a primordial understanding of how it all fits together.” She looked up at him, a smile tugging at her lips. “No, listen, it’s more than a metaphor: the Captain told me that this ecosystem we call Earth is an ongoing act of affection that brings about life. Picture planet Earth. This great blue-and-green sphere. Envision how water surrounds the land. How the ocean in all its forms—rivers, lakes, and streams—caresses Earth, and how Earth provides nutrients and matter to the sea. Have you ever seen how beaches erode in winter and recover in spring? Winter storms wash the sand from the beaches into the depths. Those same storms put snow on the mountains and rain in lakes and then, in spring, it all washes out to sea, taking along sand and dirt and organic matter. The sand reaccumulates on the beaches and the nutrition feeds the oceans.”

  His unkempt beard framed his smile.

  She looked out from the deck over Monterey Bay, along the cliffs and beaches far below.

  “The Captain, my grandfather, I think he took it literally; he used to say that life is the offspring of Mother Earth and Father Sea. He told me that raindrops are ocean kisses, that hurricanes and thunderstorms express their passion, and that the fog—well, the fog is a gentle embrace.”

  He shrugged, and she thought he looked almost embarrassed.

  “Do you believe it?” she asked.

  “What’s not to believe? Earth and Sea generate life; how we interpret their interaction is up to us. I might not take it as literally as the Captain did, but yes, I think there is room in the ecosystem for love.”

  Then he led her inside and called Ringo and Chopper to the office.

  The four of them now stood in the southwest corner of the house. The office included a windowed octagonal tower that jutted straight up over the bluff like a lighthouse.

  “The schedule is reduced to twelve months,” Gloria said. “Since you’re academics, McKay asked me to be your business consultant. I’ll show you how to do quarterly reports, branding, that sort of thing. They also moved the VirtExReality Arcade launch up to fourteen months. It means you have to be ready for product production in one year and delivery two months later. It’s tight, but Sand Hill Ventures has contract manufacturing contacts in the Midwest that can deliver—if you can.”

  “McKay is challenging us, right?” Chopper said. “He wants pressure on the academics because he thinks we’ve never worked to a schedule.”

  Gloria nodded.

  “What if the schedule slips?”

  “Okay, I’m not supposed to tell you this
.” Gloria felt a wave of intimacy with this team, this band. “They expect the schedule to slip. They reviewed the development effort with some pretty awesome engineers, and they think your original twenty-four-month schedule was ambitious. When you fall behind, they’ll insist you license your technology to other companies. Look, they want to disrupt the video game industry, and they don’t have much confidence in the applications that we pitched.”

  Chopper said, “We’ll beat the schedule.”

  Farley looked at Ringo, who shrugged.

  “We’re too National Geographic, not Disney enough?” Farley asked.

  “Yes, sir.” Gloria smiled. “The good news is that you impressed them enough that they didn’t put licensing in the contract. But don’t think it’s not on the table—they’re betting that you’ll miss the schedule and give them leverage.”

  “Leverage.” Chopper spit the word out. He pointed his index finger at her like a weapon. “Did you tell them that we’ll cave in to the almighty dollar? Did you ‘leverage’ us?” He emphasized every syllable in the word.

  “No,” Gloria said. “Listen to me, Romeo”—Farley and Ringo both elbowed Chopper at the slight of his given name—“when you sign this document, my career will be ‘leveraged’ on your success.”

  Ringo said, “Point to Glo, Chopper.”

  Chopper turned and stared at Farley for a second as though reading the text of his face.

  Chopper’s expression relaxed and he said, “All right, all right. Don’t worry, Gloria, we’ll deliver the goods.”

  The way he said it was warm and playful, but Gloria detected something else in his countenance. It was something shifty, but not malevolent. She couldn’t nail it down.

  Farley said, “Show us where to sign.”

  She handed him a pen and indicated the locations on the contract where each man should initial or sign.

  Then she saw what it was. Chopper wasn’t paying any attention to her. Even when he’d spoken to her, even when he’d looked her directly in her eyes. Chopper only paid genuine attention to Farley. To all others, even Ringo, it was as though Chopper were acting a role designed to impress Farley. The weirdest thing about it, and something obvious to her, was that Farley was utterly unaware of it. She wondered if Ringo noticed.

  Gloria pulled three legal-size files out of her briefcase and handed one to each man. Ringo flopped onto a worn chair and started reading. Chopper tossed his on the desk and stood next to Farley. Farley opened the file and saw the forms with all the numbers filled in for the first time. He said, “You did it.”

  As Gloria leaned closer so she could show Farley the budget page, he put his arm around her. It was the sort of congratulatory, appreciative gesture that parents use to impart self-esteem in children, and coaches use to build loyalty in teams. She knew this from business school, but that didn’t make it any less effective.

  He pulled a sheet of paper from his back pocket, unfolded it, and compared the numbers with those on the budget page. Then he stood up straight and spoke with resonance: “We have ten million dollars—enough to build a VR system and maybe enough for a prototype, but not enough to pay ourselves minimum wage.” He smiled.

  Ringo said, “Okay, what was I going to do with all that money Intel has been paying me, anyway? Besides, I don’t really like to sleep.”

  Gloria reached into her briefcase and handed each of them a small box: business cards. She also took out a bottle of champagne and handed it to Farley.

  “Chopper,” Farley said.

  It seemed like he was going to continue speaking, but Chopper interrupted him. “I’ll put it on a shelf over the door to the lab. We’ll know when to celebrate.”

  Farley said, “And away we go.”

  The garage became Ringo’s kingdom. His lab included a hardware-design bench with cables, oscilloscopes, network and spectrum analyzers, and transducers and sensors; a data acquisition, or DAQ, area with wireless routers and satellite transmitters and receivers; and a software development space based on a car-length rack of blade-computing servers capable of mixing and rendering five-sense virtual reality in real time. To the side of the server rack sat five used stainless steel, hourglass-shaped sensory deprivation chambers. All this gear represented an outlay of more than eight million dollars, which had already put them over budget.

  The garage door was locked down and reinforced. A month in, Farley built a cooling and ventilation system based on ocean breezes, fans, and a dehumidifier. They’d considered air conditioning but were already tired of resetting circuit breakers.

  The family room became a conference area, complete with full-size whiteboard and overhead projector. The living room and adjacent bathroom became Chopper’s chemistry lab with the addition of a makeshift hooded vent. Discussion of the legality of the configuration was avoided. The dining room table became a bench for Farley and Chopper to test and debug Ringo’s transducer, sensor, and DAQ inventions. Gloria used the Captain’s office for accounting and operations. The only areas unscathed were the kitchen and upstairs bedrooms, which became a dormitory for three men who worked hundred-hour weeks.

  The lines of responsibility blurred in the way of start-ups. When someone needed help, everyone helped. The centerpiece of the VR system was the central transducer processing chip and associated electronics and software—Ringo’s baby, so he needed the most support.

  Farley submitted proposals for zoological studies of bull sperm whale behavior to the Pacific Whale Foundation and Greenpeace. The proposals included recording behavioral data and data sharing with the conservation societies, plus payment of a royalty on sales of the Moby-Dick app. He would have liked to submit to research organizations, but they required co-patent and copyright agreements that would have violated Sand Hill Venture’s policy. Since the conservation groups stood to gain financially and politically, it felt like a lock.

  Gloria’s role as business consultant evolved into that of business manager, though she preferred “chief operating officer.” She commuted to Santa Cruz from her Cupertino apartment seven days a week and usually arrived as the sun rose. When she was early, she would join Chopper on the bluff. She would try to sneak up behind him, and he always let loose an annoyed but tolerant and smoky sigh and then scooted over to make room for her. Sometimes at the end of a long day, she’d fall asleep at the desk or on the couch, so they put a futon in the office for her. When she woke up, she’d tread into the living room and Ringo would pour her a cup of “caffeinate,” which is how he referred to his collection of high-octane coffees, and hassle her for being the soundest sleeper on earth.

  The different layers of intimacy with each of these men—the immediate presence of Farley in everything they did, Ringo’s laughter from the garage, and smoking barches with Chopper on the bluff—gave her a sense of family. She did a lot for them in the way of care and maintenance but drew the line at tidying up after them. After she sat on a damp wet suit, she posted household rules on the whiteboard. Farley obeyed them without comment, Ringo pretended to be afraid of the dishwasher, and Chopper ignored them completely.

  The typical day started with a meeting in the family room over Ringo’s caffeinate and oatmeal. Farley ran the meetings by looking at each person in turn and asking, “What have you got?” The gazed-upon would give a short status report, Farley would put the report in perspective by commenting on how it fit in the overall project schedule, and then he would move on to the next person. His summaries were always positive, but never so positive that each person couldn’t hear the clock ticking down on the deadline. When a milestone was completed he’d tug his beard in a slow nodding motion that conveyed satisfaction and affection. When someone was still stuck on the same problem they’d had the day before, he’d brush it off with a confident reference to some other problem that the person had conquered in the past, but an hour later he’d be seated at that person’s side determining what was needed to move forward.

  Two months into development, software lagged hardwar
e.

  “We need a programmer,” Ringo said.

  Farley turned to Gloria, who said, “A full-time hire? No way.”

  “How about an intern or a grad student?” Farley asked.

  “Maybe,” Ringo said. “I need someone to code up simple bits and pieces I’ve already designed. I need time to concentrate on algorithm development.”

  “I can do it,” Gloria said.

  Ringo rolled his eyes and Chopper snickered. Farley said, “You think?”

  “They made me take a C programming class at Stanford. I was pretty good…”

  Farley turned to Ringo and said, “If you define the pointers and do the memory allocation for her, it’s worth a try.”

  “All right,” Ringo said. “I guess.” A week later, Gloria was cranking out some impressive C code.

  They stayed on schedule, meeting every milestone for the first six months. The Soaring Eagle VR featured extensive interactive capabilities so that users could fly over a dozen possible terrains and hunt for small animals and snakes. You just had to catch them before the system crashed.

  At the nine-month point, the transducer processing chip was debugged and ready for production at a Silicon Valley foundry. A month later, the helmet design was complete. Ringo switched his focus to building the prototype while Farley and Chopper went to work on the jumpsuit and converting the old sensory deprivation chambers into new VirtExReality chambers.

  The schedule slipped by weeks, but not months. Gloria said that the VCs would tolerate it. Meanwhile, she knocked out the promotion milestones and determined the best zip codes in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco for VirtExReality Arcades. The demographics had to be high in first adopters of technology, and she wanted areas with plenty of tourism to keep the word spreading. She finally decided on the East Village in New York, Union Square in San Francisco, Michigan Avenue in Chicago, and smack between Venice Beach and Santa Monica in Los Angeles. None of these sat on discount real estate.