“So let’s do updates first. Who wants to start?”
“I’ll start,” Jon said. “We’re pushing ahead to open the new version up to the public by December first—just a couple of issues we need to resolve before then.”
“Like what?” Mack asked.
“Well, the most important one is figuring out how to replicate what we’re doing now without saving user data,” Jon said matter-of-factly.
“Wait a second,” Mack said. “We’re saving user data?”
Jon glanced around the room. “Um, yeah, that’s been part of the current beta since the beginning. There’s just no way to get our predictive algorithms nailed down if we don’t have access to the historical data.”
“Are people opting in on this? I was just under the impression that nothing was being stored.” He was trying to keep his voice calm, but this was a potentially major issue. He’d been confidently stating for weeks now that TakeOff was able to do what it did without storing user data. He’d even made a point of saying it to Gramercy. And now Jon was telling him that they were, in fact, storing the data? How was this possible? How had he missed that?
“Yeah, there’s an opt-in,” Jon said. “Anyway, that’s what we’re working on now. It’s kind of a thornier issue than we’d anticipated, but we should be ready by December first.”
“Okay,” Mack said. There was no reason to belabor the point, especially not in public. But now he wanted to move on. No more surprises. “Actually, instead of general updates, I want to hear about what your department is doing to take us to the next level. And how are the rest of us going to be inspired by it?”
“Great question, man,” Jason said. Everyone else nodded in agreement—except for Isabel.
“Isabel, let’s start with you,” Mack said. There was no way she was ready to go into detail on what her department was doing, let alone discuss any good ideas she had up her sleeve. Let’s see how it feels when I treat you like everyone else.
For the first time in the whole meeting, she actually made eye contact with him. He raised an eyebrow as if to say, I’m not kidding. Everyone turned to Isabel expectantly, and maybe it was his imagination, but he could swear he felt the mood in the room shift. She looked away from him and across the table at Brandon. “We have several exciting initiatives planned in marketing and engagement.” He had never heard her speak so formally. “We are currently partnering with Birchbox to offer a special work-pick-me-up box—”
“Seriously, Isabel, that’s all you can come up with?” he said, interrupting her. He was vaguely aware of the potential minefield he was stepping into by publicly confronting her—surely she had deleted those texts?—but he didn’t care; certainly Isabel had as much to lose as he did. “A partnership that you didn’t even sell? That deal came through sales, right, Oliver?” Oliver nodded without making eye contact. “I asked for new ideas. I asked for innovation. I asked for—” He didn’t get to finish the last part of the speech because Isabel abruptly stood up, said, “Excuse me,” and ran out of the room.
Everyone else sat for a few seconds, people glancing at each other, at Mack. Waiting. “Well, I guess I’ll need to look somewhere else for inspiration,” Mack said, and he laughed. The rest of the room laughed with him. Then all of their phones trilled and vibrated at the exact same time. Mack’s was on the table in front of him, facing up, and he saw that it was a TakeOff notification: Hello, friend. Don’t forget: random acts of kindness are the kindest act you can do for yourself. He waved the phone in front of the group. “Did everyone just get this random-acts-of-kindness notification?” They all looked at their phones and nodded. Mack frowned. “We need to avoid the exact same timing—these have to feel more personalized. Brandon, let’s discuss.” Brandon nodded.
After the meeting, Jason lingered. “Mack, question.” Without waiting for Mack to respond, he continued: “I hope I’m not overstepping here—I know Isabel has been with you for a long time, but…” He hesitated. Mack hoped his face was blank. “But do you think she’s really equipped for the job you have her in? It’s just that I’ve seen this type of emotional behavior before, and it’s never good. It’s like I was saying earlier about Casper…sometimes when you have people who have been there from the beginning, it’s hard to recognize that the company has evolved and they haven’t. And we’re only going to be under more scrutiny going forward. You don’t want those kinds of loose cannons in positions where they can really embarrass the company.”
There was no way Jason could know about him and Isabel, and yet Mack still felt like he had been caught doing something wrong. He also felt what he knew was an irrational need to defend her, even though he had just humiliated her. Breathe.
“Totally,” he said. “That’s an excellent insight. Thanks, man.” He smiled. “Sometimes I still can’t believe that now we can hire people with your perspective and experience. And let me just reiterate that you. Are. Valued.”
“Well, thanks,” Jason said. “It’s funny—when I was thinking about whether I wanted to take this job, I had so many people tell me I’d love working for you, and I believed them but I also had to see it for myself, you know? And now that I have, I can honestly say that these past few weeks have been the most inspiring and rewarding of my entire career.”
“Now let’s make sure that the rest of them are too.” They fist-bumped as Mack said this, and Mack left the conference room considerably more cheerful than he’d been when he’d entered it. Isabel being immature aside, he had managed to convince a roomful of his most senior managers that the loss of Casper—probably one of the most important people at the company, and someone who was going to be tough as hell to replace—wasn’t such a big deal.