“Ren and I will run all the stress tests,” I say. Then I turn to Marco, “Tell us what inspired you to start Obit.ly,” hoping that he’ll tell some kind of creepy story about keeping his mother’s corpse locked in the attic.
Marco looks down at his shoes and then up at the ceiling. “My mother passed away when I was very young. And my family—my father and my grandparents—thought it would be better not to tell me the truth until I was older. I can understand where they were coming from—it wasn’t a pleasant story—she took her own life. But I’ve always been haunted by those years of secrecy.” He clears his throat. I can’t help feeling a surge of sympathy for Marco; it’s impossible not to be moved by a grown man standing up in front of a roomful of strangers to talk about his mother’s death.
Craig is shaking his head. “This is mind-blowing.”
“And there’s more,” Marco says. “I think the world is going to have a different relationship to death in the next ten, twenty years.”
I perk up. Here comes the crazy.
“Climate change is going to create events that wipe out large portions of the human population. Pandemics, natural disasters. Our sense of safety is going to collapse around us. Obit.ly is about confronting that inevitability, about using tech to help us prepare for what’s to come.”
I look around the room to see where this last statement has landed. Rupert looks a little worried, but no more than usual. Craig is practically drooling with excitement.
“Thank you, Marco,” Cyrus says. “That was illuminating.” He shepherds Marco out of the room, telling him, “We’re going to talk and get back to you later today.” After closing the door with a swoosh, he says to us, “Well, I think you can all see that Marco’s product is revolutionary. He’s built it all himself, the team is basically just him and a CFO and a marketing person. They’ve taken almost no funding to date and are ready to beta-launch in twelve weeks.”
“How much does he want?” Craig’s voice is faint and breathy, and the screen has gone blank.
“Craig?” Jules says. “Is your video working?”
“Yeah, but I’ve switched to my treadmill desk, so I’m gonna keep it to voice for now,” he says, panting. “How much does the guy want?”
“He wants ten, but I can probably get him down to six or seven maybe a mix of cash and shares.”
“I don’t think we should pay more than five,” Rupert says. “He hasn’t even got off the starting block. No users, no data.”
“But the tech is solid. Asha, did you want to speak to that?”
“It’s good,” I admit. “Relatively bug-free, although I’d want to stress-test it a little because there’s so much sensitive information going through the system.”
“So there are no major problems with the tech,” Cyrus underlines.
“That was kind of a crazy story about his mom, wasn’t it?” I say.
Craig tells everyone it’s great when founders are motivated by personal events.
“In this case, personal tragedy,” I add. “You don’t think that’s a red flag?”
“Asha’s right,” Gaby says. “Maybe we need to get a little more confidence around Marco, whether he can build a leadership team as the company scales.”
Cyrus tells everyone he’s going to recommend a full integration with WAI.
The screen blinks and Craig appears, a towel around his neck. The San Fernando Valley is a blur behind him. “I love it,” he says. “It’s just what we need, it’s taking things to the next level.”
“What do you mean by full integration?” Rupert asks.
“We leverage our customer base to get people to sign up for Obit.ly’s service. It’s the same sign-in, same platform, just an add-on to what we offer,” Cyrus explains.
“Only for when you’re dead,” Craig says. “It’s genius.”
Cyrus tells everyone it was my idea. “It wasn’t even on my radar. Being in the same space means the integration can be quicker. We’ll have to build up the team, of course. I think I probably need to spend a couple million in year one. Gaby has modeled it.”
“I don’t know,” Rupert counters. “I’m imagining all the ways this can go wrong, and there are many.”
I can see Cyrus getting irritated. “Such as?”
“Well, for one thing, the system mistaking a very much alive person for a dead one. Imagine waking up to your own obituary.”
Cyrus turns to me. “Asha, what are the chances of that happening?”
I want to say yes, there is a chance of that happening, not least because it’s the first time Rupert has ever agreed with me. But I can’t lie. “Not high,” I say. “There’s a verification process that’s pretty watertight. I do have other concerns, though—”
“Let’s move on, and we can address those in diligence,” Cyrus interrupts.
“I want to hear what Asha’s concerns are,” Rupert says.
Cyrus sits up in his chair, tents his fingers, and gets a scary Zen face on.
“It’s okay,” I say. “I don’t want to waste too much time if there’s consensus on this.”
“This is our go/no-go moment,” Rupert says. “So let’s put everything on the table.”
I blurt it out. “I think Marco is crazy.”
Craig’s screen pixelates, then comes back into focus. “You’re all crazy,” he says, laughing. “That’s why I gave you so much fucking money.”
Gaby clears his throat. “I think what Asha’s trying to say here is that it’s been a little difficult to disambiguate Marco’s passion from what can sometimes appear to be mania.”
“CEOs are all the same,” Craig says. “Rupert, you’ve met your share of loonies, haven’t you?”
Rupert is on the fence, I can tell. He has the same gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he wants to back me up. But I also know that in the VC jungle, Rupert is a zebra and Craig is a lion. Even if he has reservations, he’s going to defer to the big cat. “I sure have,” he says. “You founders are pretty much all the same.”
“If you’re not an assassin, you can’t do your job. So unless there’s anything else, Asha, I say we put our weight behind Cyrus.”
I should stop here, but I can’t. I address myself to Cyrus. “We are walking into a minefield here, and I really don’t think you’ve weighed the risks.”
“I’ve done my homework, Asha.”
“I’m sorry, Cy, but I don’t think you have.” I turn to the others. “None of you mind that Marco is a potential hazard?”
“No, we don’t mind, Asha,” Craig says, as if he’s just added a lemon to his voice. “In fact, it’s what I want in my CEOs. I want madness, I want ambition, I want fuck-itness. I told you when we first met—were you even listening?—that I want you guys to KILL EVERYONE.” He’s rubbing his palm against his forehead, and then suddenly, his video feed goes dark. “I gotta go,” he says. “I need a gong bath. Let’s just vote.”
“All in favor of merging Obit.ly onto the WAI platform, raise your hand,” Cyrus says. Cyrus, Rupert, and Jules all raise their hands.
“I’m in,” Craig says.
“All against?”
Gaby and I raise our hands.
Cyrus instructs Eve to take note of the vote. “The motion passes four to two.”
* * *
When the meeting ends, Cyrus is out of there in an instant. I figure he’s going to go upstairs, blow off some steam, and then read me the riot act later. I find Destiny and ask her what the hell a gong bath is.
“You’ve never heard of one?” She laughs. “You lie down in a room and someone plays gongs for you so you can relax.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Not a joke. A real thing that people do. To whom do you owe the pleasure of this revelation?”
I tell her about Craig, about Obit.ly and Marco.
“Oh, honey,” she soothes. “I see a bruise forming on the left side of your face. Did you get hit by a swinging dick?”
“Not funny.”
“Look, I agree with you—Marco’s totally insane. But he’s a lot like Cyrus. Single-minded determination. You’d be smart to bring him on board.”
“I’m worried he’ll put something volatile into the code and we won’t know until it’s too late.”
“I don’t think he’ll get past you, will he?”
She’s right. I can take Marco. “Probably not.” I turn to her. “But I have a bad feeling. Anyway, enough about me—you ready to hit the road?”