Desmond understood that.
“Best of all, you don’t have to pay tax on options when they’re granted, assuming the strike price is near the stock value. They’re worthless until the stock goes up and you exercise them.”
There was more to the contract: a non-disclosure and a non-compete. Wallace walked him through it all.
“Sometimes we see clawback provisions or a buy-sell agreement,” he said. “You don’t have that here. This contract looks pretty good. I’d sign it.”
Desmond thanked the man, and asked him to send him a bill. He wrote out his address at the RV park.
Wallace studied the address and said, “Forget it, Desmond. Just keep me in mind if you start a company or have more substantial legal work.”
Desmond liked that. It meant the lawyer recognized his potential, was willing to bet that Desmond would one day be a bigger fish.
He called xTV back that night and said he could start the next day if they provided more stock and a lower salary. He wanted just enough to live on. They agreed.
Desmond found startup life to his liking. It was strangely similar to working on the rigs: long hours, deadlines, stressed-out people keyed up on coffee and energy drinks, and wild parties at regular intervals. But where his and Orville’s release had taken place in honky-tonk bars, strip clubs, and casinos, the startup parties were thrown at swanky restaurants and hotel ballrooms. Desmond couldn’t imagine the cost. It was perhaps the only thing that worried him about the company.
He wasn’t the only one concerned. The guys in finance were constantly obsessing about their burn rate—the amount of money the company spent every month. The CEO, however, seemed completely unconcerned.
At a hotel ballroom on a Friday night, their visionary founder stood before his employees and guests and announced that xTV had just registered its one millionth user.
Cheers went up.
He paced the stage, microphone in hand.
“We’re democratizing TV. With the video cameras we provide, our users can capture what viewers really want to see: real life. And they can upload that footage directly to the xTV website, where they earn money from it.”
The screen behind him began playing a montage of clips, all muted.
“We’ve got a farmer in South Dakota giving people a look at what that harsh life is like. A teen mom in Atlanta struggling to make ends meet. An artist in Brooklyn selling his paintings in the subway and coffee shops. A singer in Seattle. A fishing competition in Alabama. A drag strip in North Carolina. A firefighter in Chicago.
“This is real life. These are the stories we crave.
“As faster internet speeds become available, more viewers will flock to xTV and our groundbreaking content. Mark my words: one day, cable will be gone. So will satellite. You’ll walk into Circuit City and you’ll buy a TV that’s internet-ready. And you’ll be browsing xTV every night to see what’s on.
“In a few years, we’ll be bigger than Viacom and TimeWarner combined. We are the future of TV. We enable real people to tell their stories. That is our mission.”
Desmond believed every word he said. They all did. Cheers went up again. The champagne flowed, and everyone seemed to be drunk except Desmond.
A few months later, Desmond was invited to a Halloween party one of the programmers was throwing. He was tempted not to go, but the truth was he wanted to do something besides work and sleep for a change. He’d been told that there would be some people from work there, but that it would mostly be college students and recent graduates, like the host.
He considered two options. One, not dressing up; and two, going all out. Both had risks. He took the middle road. He donned the black suit he’d purchased for the job interview and only worn once, and bought a five-dollar dark-haired wig. At OfficeMax, he purchased a plastic ID badge holder with a metal clip. On a sheet of printer paper, he wrote “FBI,” and below it, “FOX MULDER, SPECIAL AGENT.” It looked pretty homemade, but it would get the job done.
The party was at a three-bedroom ’70s ranch home in Palo Alto that four programmers rented. The owners hadn’t done a ton of updates, and the place still had a Brady Bunch vibe: thick, worn carpet—which was orange—modern architecture, an open plan layout with a vaulted ceiling, and large windows and sliding doors that led out to a pool that hadn’t been cleaned since Marcia’s graduation party.
Desmond was glad he had dressed up. Everyone was decked out. The partygoers hadn’t spent a fortune on their ensembles, but it was clear that they had put a lot of time and effort into them. Star Wars and Star Trek characters were well represented. Three sets of Princess Leia buns bobbed around the room. Two Darth Vaders stalked around, looming over small groups silently, their shiny outfits made mostly of black plastic trash bags. There were half a dozen Luke Skywalkers. Data and Worf from Star Trek: The Next Generation scored three outfits each. A lone Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge was drinking a Michelob Light. His visor was a modified hairband, and he was telling a girl that she might as well take her top off, he could see through her clothes with his visor anyway. When he brought the bottle to his lips, she tipped it up and walked away, mumbling, “Bet you didn’t see that coming.”
At the island in the kitchen, a pale white kid wearing a bald cap and a red Star Trek: The Next Generation uniform stood by the blender, overseeing the contents being poured in. When the top went on the device, he pointed and said, “Engage.” He tugged at the bottom of his tunic, turned, and nearly shouted, “You have the bridge, Number One.”
It wasn’t clear whom he was talking to.
One of the Darth Vaders called for a girl dressed as Marge Simpson to grab him a beer.
“I thought you were driving?” she said.