I’ll Tell You the Truth (1)
Alex stepped down as promised and handed over control.
Even though the final payment had yet to be made, Cooloud was now effectively in our hands.
I had Syd call the employees together. Excluding people on vacation or working from home, about eighty staff members gathered in one place.
Every one of them looked bewildered.
A few recognized my face and widened their eyes in surprise. I was the same man who had once called Rolf Buchi a fool and been thrown out for it, now back in the company again.
I greeted them first.
“Hello.”
Someone asked me, “Who are you?”
“I’ll introduce myself later. The reason I asked you all to gather is that there are a few important things to announce. First, from this moment on, the two co-CEOs who have been running the company, Rolf Buchi and Alex Preston, are leaving the company.”
“What do you mean?”
The employees couldn’t hide their shock at the news that the two founders and co-CEOs were leaving. Those two had not been mere managers; they were symbols of Cooloud itself. They probably never imagined the day would come when the company would lose them.
I took out the list of people to be dismissed. Existing management often hesitated to cut employees for all kinds of reasons.
But I was different.
Since I had no personal relationship with any of them, I could even fire people who had once been considered pillars of the company.
“Unfortunately, the people I’m about to name will need to leave the company starting now.”
I began reading the list I had prepared in advance to the stunned crowd.
“Anthony Robertson, Scott Jackson, Mark Carter, Misha Kalini, Ryder Fraser, Lauren Hill, Kimberly Plummer...”
One by one, names were called, and with each one a different face went pale. Out of the ninety-three employees, twenty-two were being let go. The people who found themselves unemployed overnight could barely hide their disbelief.
Especially in the finance and sales teams, people were being cut in clusters.
A white man in his early forties shouted, “No, if you fire all of them, who’s supposed to do the work?”
I looked at him and asked, “What’s your name?”
“Marvin Grates.”
“Your position?”
“Head of Finance.”
“Ah. I missed you by mistake too. You’re out as well.”
“...”
He stood there blankly for a moment, then shouted again. “M-Me too? Do you think Cooloud can even function without me?”
“It’ll run just fine, so stop worrying about things that aren’t your problem and pack your things.”
Thinking a company can’t survive without you is a common delusion among office workers.
Well, in the case of a small startup, there was some truth to the idea that the company depended heavily on each individual’s abilities. That was precisely why hiring had to be handled carefully.
I pointed to a woman standing behind him.
“What’s your name?”
The plump Black woman in her mid-thirties, wearing oversized glasses, answered nervously, “Kathy Volard.”
“What do you do here?”
“I’m an accounting assistant, but...”
“Stop doing that job.”
At my words, she burst into tears.
“Oh, God! Please don’t do this to me! I’m raising my son alone. I need this job. Please, think about it again.”
“Starting today, you’re the CFO.”
“...Pardon?”
Not just her, everyone looked as if they’d heard wrong.
After a moment, she came to her senses with a jolt and asked, “M-Me? CFO?”
“Your major was accounting, right?”
“W-Well, yes, but I only graduated from college.”
“If you think you need a master’s or a PhD, get one while you work. Take over the rest of the duties from the other employees, and if there’s something you can’t handle yourself, hire someone or have someone else do it.”
Syd was the textbook engineer type.
He had no interest in anything except doing the work he liked and developing technology. Accounting and finance were barely on his radar.
So someone had to properly support him in that area.
That someone was Kathy Volard.
As Snow Crash’s CFO, she helped Syd run the company well. Thanks to her careful budgeting, Snow Crash was able to keep operating without financial trouble.
That, however, was a story for years later. Right now, there were still many gaps.
“If you don’t know something or need help, contact this person.”
I handed her Edward Benson’s contact information. If anyone could teach her from A to Z, it would be him.
In the quiet, someone cautiously raised a hand and asked, “Then who’s going to run the company from here on?”
“That’s an excellent question.”
I pointed to Syd.
“Syd Lucas here will be the CEO starting today.”
That caused another wave of surprise.
He was too young, probably. Still, if you looked only at experience, he wasn’t really behind the people in this room. And in terms of skill, there was no contest.
When I started applauding first, the employees followed awkwardly and clapped along.
I said to Syd, “Please say a few words to the staff.”
Syd scratched his head and stepped forward. The employees fell silent, waiting to hear what the new CEO would say first.
Then Syd opened his mouth.
“Starting today, I’m changing the company name. I’ve thought this for a long time, but Cooloud is a terrible name.”
A few people nodded as if they agreed.
Syd grinned and said, “The new company name is Snow Crash.”
* * *
After finishing the takeover of Cooloud—no, of the company now called Snow Crash—I met a man at a whiskey bar.
“It’s been a while. Have you been well?”
“Yes. Good to see you.”
He was an Indian American named Ranjin Kumar. The moment I called to ask for a meeting, he had come running.
Looking at me, he said, “I read the article. You’ve done something enormous in the meantime.”
“Like what?”
“It was Continue Capital that exposed the fraud at Thomas Motors, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. It was handled directly by Mr. Lockhart, so I wasn’t involved in the details.”
Until now, Continue Capital had been an unknown investment firm. Now it was famous, and it had money to burn.
In Silicon Valley, wealthy investors were always welcome. Maybe that was why the look in his eyes toward me was completely different from before.
That was the importance of reputation.
I ordered a bottle of single malt whiskey.
“What did you want to talk to me about today?”
When we met before, I had raised questions about Rolf and asked him about Jason Kim’s wife.
Maybe because of that, he seemed to be expecting that I had uncovered something.
“Thanks to you, it was a huge help in acquiring Cooloud.”
His eyes widened at my words.
“You acquired Cooloud?”
“Yes. That’s how it turned out. There should be an announcement soon.”
He asked quickly, “For how much?”
In Silicon Valley, how much a company sold for was a very important matter. It often became the benchmark for valuing other companies.
If that one sold for this much, then this one must be worth that much.
“I don’t know the exact amount either, but you can think of it as us paying a considerable sum to acquire a majority stake.”
“There’s no way Rolf would have sold...”
As if something had just occurred to him, he said, “D-Don’t tell me it was because of what you mentioned back then?”
I made a face as if I had no idea what he meant.
“What did I mention back then?”
“You said you were going to investigate Rolf, didn’t you? Did you meet Jason Kim’s wife?”
I slowly nodded.
“Yes. I did.”
“Did you find out anything?”
“I’m not sure I should even say this...”
As I hesitated, he seemed to be getting thirsty and gulped down his drink.
“It’s fine. Go ahead.”
“Your suspicion was correct, Mr. Kumar.”
“Correct about what?”
He was shocked.
“So Jason helped create Minerva after all? Or did Rolf just copy part of Jason’s program?”
Apparently he hadn’t imagined that the entire program had been stolen.
But reality always went further than imagination.
“Well... you might be better off not hearing the rest.”
As I continued to hesitate, his face flushed as though his whole body was heating up.
“Tell me. I have every right to know.”
“Are you sure you want to hear it?”
“Of course.”
I sighed as if I had no choice.
“Since you’re the one who brought it up, I should at least tell you. What happened was...”
I told him the truth. As he listened, his expression changed from moment to moment.
When I finished, he couldn’t hide his shock.
“I-Is that really true?”
“Yes. All of it.”
“That’s insane! Minerva was created by Jason Kim?”
“Even the program’s name wasn’t Minerva. It was Mimir. Rolf Buchi just stole it and used it to found the company.”
“Do you have proof? It wasn’t just the wife’s word, was it?”
“Of course not. Jason kept all the related materials in the cloud. There were emails between the two of them too.”
“Could I see them?”
I showed him the contents of the emails on my tablet. His eyes moved rapidly as he read them.
“What are you going to do about this?”
“Well. I’m not sure yet.”
He looked puzzled. “You’re not sure?”
After hesitating for a moment, I spoke.
“Rolf Buchi has said dozens of times that he developed Minerva himself. But it turns out he only stole the program from a dead friend. That’s a very serious illegal act, wouldn’t you say?”
He answered as though it were obvious. “It is. For developers, even copying a single line of code is a sensitive issue. Stealing an entire program is unforgivable.”
“Then if this gets out, wouldn’t it become a huge problem? Rolf Buchi would probably go from being Silicon Valley’s innovator and genius developer to a liar condemned by society.”
“Y-Yes, I suppose so.”
“Actually, the reason I asked to meet you today was to discuss this problem with you, Mr. Kumar.”
“Discuss it?”
I said carefully, “What would you think about burying this fact as it is?”
My words left him flustered.
“What did you say?”
“As I mentioned, Continue Capital acquired Cooloud. But if this kind of thing became known, the company’s value could drop significantly. For the investors who put money into Continue Capital, that would naturally be a source of concern. So how would you feel about pretending you don’t know anything about this, Mr. Kumar?”
His eyes flew wide open as he barked back, “You want to ignore the truth just because the company’s value might fall? How could you possibly do that? That isn’t justice!”