Kill Process (27 page)

“A computer. It’s like a typewriter that connects to a television.”

“I know what a computer is, honey. I’ve seen them at work. Why do you want one?”

I launch into a mile-a-minute explanation of bulletin board systems and DDial. At some point I become aware I’m still wearing yellow rubber gloves, and take them off. “So I’d also need a modem to be able to dial these BBSes.”

“How much does it cost?”

“Six hundred and fifty dollars.” I’m asking for more than twice what we pay in rent.

“I’m sorry, honey, that’s out of the question.” She shakes her head and walks out of the bathroom.

I run after her. “Please, mom. Can I borrow the money and pay you back? I can earn it.”

“I don’t have that kind of money.”

“I’ll get a job. I’ll babysit or work at the grocery store. You don’t understand. I really want this.”

She reaches up and runs her fingers through my hair. “I see you do, but there’s no way we can afford it. You know that. Plus you have to be sixteen to work.”

“Not to babysit.”

“You hate babysitting. You sat the Serrano kids once and came home crying.”

I loathe watching their bratty kids, but I’d do almost anything to afford that computer.

“Fine, I’ll save up the money on my own.” I cross my arms, and then give up and run off to my room. Even if I babysit several nights a week, and spend absolutely nothing, it’s going to take me most of a year to save the money.

My mother follows me to my doorway. “Come sit with me at the table and show me how much everything costs.”

In the end, it takes three months of babysitting almost every night to save up a quarter of the money. My mom buys day-old bread and dented cans, and somehow scrimps up most of the rest. The night before my sixteenth birthday, we count up what’s in the jar and we’re still short.

There’s a heated argument by phone with my uncle, and the next thing I know, my mom’s taking the subway to my uncle’s house, and returns later that night with the rest of the money.

The next morning, a Saturday, we take the bus together the computer store, and carry the box back home between us. Sitting on the bus on the way home, the box clutched tight in my lap, I’m nearly bursting with excitement.

Having my own computer, I spend most of every night online. I type up my school assignments so my mom thinks there’s some educational value. Soon I have dozens of new friends. Most I never meet, yet from behind the safety of the screen, I share my hopes and dreams with them. Others I do hang out with, and Ruger, dragon, and BTS become regular companions on adventures around the city.

For some reason, my best friend since first grade, Emily, never quite approves of my new computer friends. As I spend more time with them, both online and in endless meet-ups and parties, Emily and I gradually grow apart. During my second year of college, I’ll be back home during a holiday break, and realize I haven’t seen her since before I left for school. When I think back to when I last saw her, I realize we never said goodbye.

O
N
T
UESDAY
,
I receive a text message from Owen, the angel I pitched to last week.

“Have time to meet again?”

“Sure, when?” I reply.

“Tomorrow morning at 11”

“Let me check my calendar.”

I’m busy then, with a phone call set up to pitch to another VC. I call Mat for advice, and he urges me to reschedule the other call and meet with Owen instead.

I go to his office this time, in a building along the park blocks near Portland State University. I peek around the small suite of rooms curiously as one of the employees walks me over to Owen’s office. The windows overlook the park outside, where a group of college students sit on the grass, having what appears to be a serious discussion.

“Thanks for coming, Angie,” Owen says. He shakes properly, touching his right elbow to mine. “This is Stella, my legal counsel, and Todd, my business manager.”

Whoa. I thought maybe Owen wanted to learn more, but this is another step up.

Stella greets me with a warm smile, and Todd waves one hand at me.

I repeat my dog and pony show, glad to show our progress with the new selective sharing feature.

Todd comes and leans over to look at my laptop, placing one hand on my shoulder. I freeze mid-sentence, my vision narrows, and I try desperately to remember what to do.

“Angie?” Owen says.

Todd’s hand is gone, though I’m still frozen in time. Owen could be a thousand feet away. I’m having a panic attack. At an investor meeting, no less. I’m going to screw it up.

Then I remember my therapist’s advice. The feeling of being in danger is a symptom, like having spots in my vision. It’s not truly reality, not even useful to me now. I’m afraid. It’s okay to be afraid. I can be afraid and still function, like I could have a toothache and still do what needs to be done, even if I’m uncomfortable and in pain. Panic will not kill me. Todd’s hand will not kill me. Todd is not trying to hit me or control me.

I can breathe. I take a few deep breaths. I concentrate, move my pinky, then the rest of my fingers, then my arm. The worst is over.

I swallow and say what Charlotte told me to say in this situation. “I’m sorry. I was totally lost there for a second. What were we talking about?” Act like it was no big deal, Charlotte said.

Todd repeats his question, and the meeting goes on like nothing happened.

We had an hour planned, but it’s going on two when Stella grills me on intellectual property.

“You’re sure there’s no non-compete with Tomo that can affect you?”

“None. I never signed one.”

She shakes her head in disbelief. “I know they have them for other employees.”

I shrug. “Maybe it was after my time.”

“Some of this is based on published open protocols,” Stella says, looking at Owen. “IndieWeb. It’s going to be hard to lock it up.”

“The point is not to lock it up,” I say. “We want it to be open. The more participants the better.”

“Open is good,” Todd says. “You want contributions. On the other hand, you don’t want to be so open that Tomo comes along, replaces your role in the ecosystem, and you disappear.”

“We’re the accounting backbone in the system. We track which components are involved in which interactions, and credit them with fractional payments. Without us in that role, nobody can process payments. That’s our control point.”

“That’s a powerful place to be,” Stella says. “Although alternative app stores have sprung up on mobile OSes. If anyone can find a way to insert themselves into your system, and substitute themselves in that role, they’ll do it.”

A vague ache spreads from the back of my head. I wish I could walk into these meetings and understand what people want. Technical discussions are so much easier. Do they want to invest or don’t they?

“Don’t worry,” Owen says, catching my expression. “I’m investing. There are still major challenges for you to figure out, though. That’s why, in addition to these terms . . .” He withdraws a sheet of paper from a folder and hands it to me. “I want a seat on your board. I can help you solve these problems.”

I look over the term sheet. Enough money for four months, including our growth in headcount and the hardware Igloo needs.

“You’ll want your lawyers to look this over,” Stella says.

I clear my throat and try not to sound like I’m desperate. “Once we sign, how long until we receive money?”

“We can cut you a good faith check immediately to cover any short-term expenses, and you’d get the balance once we’ve concluded the legal restructuring.”

Holy shit. I won’t need to refi my condo. We can hire Kevin. The company can keep going. Someone believes in us!

Six months later

I
SCAN MY
badge at the door and step into the office with my bag slung over my shoulder and a coffee in my hand. The door pushes open in both directions, a two-thousand dollar extra the building management company was happy to tack on to our move-in cost. It seems expensive to make a door open two ways, but after an entire career of juggling my coffee cup and badge every time I enter an office building, I’ve earned it.

The lights are already on, so I’m not the first one here. It’s mostly an open floor plan, with conference rooms and a handful of offices, including mine, around the edges, so it takes only a second to spot Igloo in her corner. All these months later, Igloo’s real name still escapes me. Our finance guy must know her real name.

I’m shocked to see Igloo in this early. She routinely works late hours. On top of that, she uses a conference room as practice space for her band, so most days she has two or three hours of practice after she finishes work.

I set down my coffee and wander over. “What’s got you up so early?”

“Early?” Igloo’s voice cracks, though she doesn’t look up from her screen or take her hands off her keyboard.

Uh oh. “It’s a little after seven.”

“Oh shit, seven already?” Igloo glances up at me, her eyes bloodshot. “Microfinance transactions and service records. I’m post-processing the log data to figure out which components are credited for each view. I have to tie the aggregation back to the original records in case of audit or if the service wants detailed usage metrics.”

“This is related to Kindred?” Our new name for the chatbot, which now has two personalities: Jake and Ada.

“Yeah, I found discrepancies between Kindred’s built-in usage metrics and the aggregated service records, and there was no way to correlate them.”

I nod, only half grokking, and look around. “You’ve been here all night?”

“I guess. We had band practice until two, and I figured I’d work a few hours before bed.”

I remember having that kind of energy. Must be nice to be young. “Go home and get some sleep.”

“There’s no point now. The new hire arrives at ten. I’ll just grab breakfast.”

Igloo turns back to her screen, grabs a box of Lucky Charms from her desk, and shoves a handful into her mouth.

“Are you
sure—”
I cut myself off before I can comment on her food choice. It doesn’t matter because she’s not listening to me, anyway. I’m not her mother, even if I feel that way. Of our twenty-one employees, seventeen are in their twenties, and I constantly remind myself not to parent them.

Overall, I’m proud of the employees. Fifteen are women, more than 70 percent. That’s probably a record for a tech startup. A part of me wants to hire only women, but my conversation with Emily haunts me. With each new position, I wonder if I’d accidentally miss the best person for the position by excluding men. In the end, we have a good balance. Thanks to my ongoing therapy with Charlotte, I’ve never had a day in the office when I’ve been uncomfortable or had to check where the nearest door was.

Every employee is on board with Tapestry’s mission, not only to build a credible competitor to Tomo, but to fundamentally change the power relationship between companies and users.

*     *     *

The new employee is Keith. We hired him away from a late-stage Portland startup that’s having an IPO in six months. “We spend all our time chasing the next buck,” he told Amber and I during lunch a few weeks ago. “I want to actually build new stuff.”

Igloo shows him around the office and gets him set up with a desk and a laptop. They finish in time for our staff meeting. We’re crowded into the second biggest conference room, because the big one is full of band equipment. With the brand new employees, we’re cramped in here, and I can barely hear myself think.

“Igloo, you’ve got to move the band into a different office.”

Igloo’s leaning back in a chair in the corner, eyes closed, her trademark white hoodie pulled over her head. Apparently she’s finally succumbed to sleep.

“I’ll send her an email,” Amber says.

I nod and grasp my stump in my hand. “Let’s start, people,” I yell.

Everyone quiets down.

“A key part of our strategy is to build a social network that encompasses multiple companies. We can’t build it all ourselves. If we did, we’d end up replicating Tomo, which doesn’t differentiate us in the eyes of the user, and doesn’t prevent the accumulation of power that comes with monolithic tech giants. We need partner companies to build diverse services and flesh out Tapestry.”

“Indie partners,” Igloo yells out without opening her eyes.

Figures she was faking.

“Yes to indie partners. Definitely we want indies on board. The more the merrier. We also need a few big players to give us distribution, and we finally have one of those. We signed a business relationship deal on Friday with CompEx.”

Igloo, who was part of the technical evaluation of CompEx, and knows about the deal, boos from the back of the room.

I raise my eyebrows at Amber, and she grabs her phone. As I continue, I see Igloo pick up her phone, and she nods at me. I don’t know if Amber texted “be quiet” or “humor the old lady,” but as long as Igloo lets me finish this presentation, I’ll be happy.

“CompEx will implement a Tapestry storage service, single-sign-on, and a PC reader app. The out-of-box-experience for new CompEx tablets and PCs will include Tapestry signup. They’re taking a small ownership stake in the company, and it’ll give us several months of cash in the bank. That will tide us over until we close our VC funding.”

There are cheers from the room, although Igloo and Amber are quiet. I thought I was maniacal about the power relationships between companies and their customers, but Igloo and Amber can’t tolerate getting in bed with what they see as a dominant corporation.

“Igloo doesn’t like that we’re dealing with a big company, but in this case, it’s a good deal. CompEx has stayed free of social media. They have no big partnerships. As the number three PC manufacturer and number four mobile phone manufacturer, they’re eager to make something happen, and they see us as the path to be a serious player in social media. I’m fine with taking their cash to do that, especially since they’re also on the hook to give us those services. Any questions?”