Mack pinged Jason. I’m calling an emergency all-hands, he wrote on Slack. I need to nip this in the bud before it gets too out of control. Before Jason could respond, Mack had sent an email to [email protected], instructing them to meet in the canteen in an hour. He knew he had to speak from the heart or nobody was going to believe him, so—uncharacteristically—he decided not to even think through exactly what he was going to say. Jason finally wrote back: Okay. Whatever you want to do. Not exactly the enthusiastic go-ahead he had been hoping for, but this was an emergency. He had to go with his gut.
Exactly sixty minutes after he’d sent the email, he stood up in front of the team and cleared his throat. He was going to speak without a microphone—it felt more authentic—and he launched right into it, without any kind of preamble. “I know by this point you all have probably seen the story that was written about TakeOff—about me—in TechScene today,” he said. “I’ve never wanted to be anything but transparent with everyone here—you all are the most brilliant, most inspiring, most creative, most hardworking people in tech. And it’s only fair to all of you that you know the truth.” He paused. No one was talking or checking their phones. He had never stood in front of a room of people so rapt. “The truth is that Isabel Taylor and I did have a relationship. I’m sure many of you can relate to falling for someone you work with, and maybe some of you can even relate to falling for Isabel.” The room was silent. “That was a joke, everyone,” he said, and people laughed as though they had been waiting for his permission, and suddenly the mood seemed to lighten. “And yes, we broke up. These things happen. Was I upset? Sure. Wouldn’t you be?” Again, slightly nervous laughter. He breathed in quietly through his nose and out through his mouth. “And I’m just disappointed that her interpretation of events is so wildly different from mine. But I’m prepared to fight this. I owe it to you all, to fight this. I’m not going to take questions right now, but if you have any, please come see me. I’m happy to discuss this more.” He paused again and looked out into the room. These people, everyone looking at him right now with what seemed to be a measure of approval, or at least acceptance—he had gotten them here. He had built this. And no one, least of all Isabel Taylor, was going to take it away from him without a knock-down, drag-out fight. The room was silent for a moment, and then he saw Jason nodding, and then Jason was clapping, and then a few other people started clapping, and soon the whole room was applauding wildly. “Thank you,” he said.
His phone vibrated as he was walking back to his office. He was feeling good. At least his company was still on his side. They believed him, and that was all that mattered right now. He looked at his phone—it was a Slack notification from Jason. Hey, man, I have Teddy Rosen coming up—he wants to chat. Cool to do it in your office?
What the hell, Mack thought. Teddy Rosen was coming up? And why was Jason coordinating the meeting?
A couple minutes later, Jason walked into his office with not only Teddy Rosen but also James Patel. “Nice space,” James said. “Mind if we sit?” He gestured to the couch.
“Uh, no, go ahead,” Mack said. Did his voice really sound hoarse? And…were his palms sweating? His palms were sweating.
“Thanks for meeting with us on such short notice,” James said. “Just…given recent events, we felt it would be best if we, you know, nipped this situation in the bud. Given that we are about to make a substantial investment in your company.” James smiled. Mack nodded. “Jason mentioned you just spoke to the staff—that’s good. But we need you to also make a public apology, own up to what happened and be contrite. It was a lapse in judgment that will never happen again, you apologize, maybe we have you make a donation to some women’s organization. Maybe something that works with girls in tech? My wife can probably help with that. Anyway, in the meantime, we need to reach out to Isabel and offer her a settlement.”
“A settlement?” Mack said. “That seems crazy. Isn’t that just an admission of wrongdoing?”
“We don’t need to admit to the specifics, but if she has the texts, this isn’t going away,” James said. “It’s not a ‘he said, she said’ situation. Your other option is to claim you were hacked, which, frankly, no one is going to believe.”
“Yeah, no. We’re not telling the world my phone got hacked. That would just be embarrassing.” Mack suddenly remembered something. “What if we just went full scorched-earth? Something like this happened at the company my buddy founded and he fought it tooth and nail, and the girl who brought the suit ended up completely regretting it. Like…technically, yes, I think she got a settlement, but this girl was destroyed. She’ll never get another job. Her boyfriend dumped her, I think she moved back home to Minnesota or wherever she was from. And she even admitted after that if she had to do it over, she never would have gone to trial. My buddy was like, we told you! We said this is not going to be good for you to go to trial, there are going to be things that come out that you’re not going to like, and we are not going to hold back. And she said, Bring it on. So they did. And so everything she had texted, emailed, said in front of people was admissible. Her behavior in past relationships was admissible. They got her ex-boyfriend to come on the stand and testify that she’d stalked him after they broke up—it demonstrated a pattern of irrational behavior.” He looked at everyone excitedly. Surely they understood that this was a viable option. “There’s all kinds of shit you can do.”