The Anti Social Network Read online

  T. J. arrived at his father’s office thirty minutes early, dressed in a suit and tie. He knew it wasn’t necessary, but he wanted to demonstrate that he was serious—and should be taken seriously.

  He had been up until four o’clock in the morning working on the pitch deck, checking the numbers and making sure that all of the diagrams were properly aligned and up-to-date. He had put a lot of time into it, but the hours had flown by. Whenever he was working in Excel or PowerPoint, he felt like a machine, and he loved it. He knew so many keyboard shortcuts, and he loved how with five little keystrokes he could launch a major data analysis or create a perfectly aligned org chart.

  It was nerdy, he admitted, but there was something gratifying about seeing your ideas communicated in a neat, efficient form that could be presented to investors.

  One of his father’s assistants, Marie, directed him to the bench outside his father’s office, and he flipped through his pitch deck, reviewing his notes.

  T. J. especially liked the last slide. He thought his name above “CEO & President” just felt . . . right. He knew his father would ask how he intended to fill in all the “TBD” slots, and he was prepared: there were several promising candidates for the COO and CFO roles in his fraternity alumni pool. And he felt confident that, via Amelia’s network in the computer science department, they could recruit talented engineers, especially after the nod from TechCrunch.

  T. J. heard Marie’s voice on speakerphone in Ted’s office. “Jay Resnick on line one for you. Can you take it?”

  “Sure thing, patch him through,” Ted said. “Jay! How are you, buddy?” T. J. couldn’t help but listen in.

  “Yeah, it’s been a tough couple of months, but we’ll recover. Lloyd’s hasn’t said no officially, they just want to wait until the press dies down and the investigation is settled. I have confidence we’ll be back at the deal by quarter two of next year . . . Of course I know who found the problem.

  No, if we charged her for hacking they’d discover everything. As it is, they only know about the database . . . Of course I’m going to take her down; I can’t let this go. Listen, can you keep your mouth shut? Okay, good.

  She’s got a new company, thinks she’s going to be a hotshot Silicon Valley Zuckerberg type. Frankly, she probably could; she’s smart as hell. But I’m going to buy the company and destroy it. Won’t ruin my rep, I’m doing it through a shell company. No, I’m putting T. J. in as CEO. Who cares? It’ll give him something to do and me a channel to work through. You want in? Guarantee you’ll lose your money . . . Haha, yeah, okay. Gotta run. See you on the course Saturday? Great.”

  T. J.’s jaw dropped. Had his father really just said what he thought he’d said? He was looking at Doreye just to bring it down? And he was putting T. J. in as CEO because he thought he’d be a perfect puppet for its destruction? Didn’t he care that T. J.’s reputation would be ruined if he was at the helm when Doreye went down? Didn’t he care that Doreye was a good product that could make a lot of money and help a lot of people?

  But T.J. didn’t have time to dwell on it. His father was calling him into the office.

  “Morning, son. You’re looking sharp. I can’t wait to see what you’ve got for me.”

  T. J. forced a smile and began walking Ted through the presentation.

  He covered the basics on the slides but didn’t go into any of the details as he had planned. What was the point? At the end of the presentation, Ted patted him on the shoulder.

  “T. J., this is excellent. I think you’ve got what it takes to be CEO, and after I buy Doreye, it’s the first move I’m making.”

  “That’s great, Dad. Really exciting.”

  “I want us to work closely together on this, but I don’t want the public to perceive any sort of conflict of interest, you know? I’m worried people might get the wrong idea if they see the investor’s son running the business.

  So I’ve set up a shell company, Proximate Investments, which will be the investor of record, so that my name stays out of it. But rest assured, you’ll still have me for anything you need.”

  T. J. nodded blankly at his father. He couldn’t believe how easily his father was lying to his face.

  Chapter 11

  Deal or No Deal

  “Is it true?” Adam stormed into Tom’s office. “Are you going to kick me out?”

  “Of course it isn’t true,” Tom said. “It’s journalism, Adam. They needed something juicy to finish off their piece. Rule number one in press relations: don’t take anything personally.”

  “But why didn’t you bring me to the meeting? I’m the head of business development!”

  “You weren’t here, Adam, and the meeting came immediately. And, frankly, as the head of business development, you ought to recognize that Amelia is our star, and her image and her story will draw people to the product.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that a brilliant female engineer on need-based scholarship at Stanford is a fantastic Cinderella story. You can’t pay for that kind of PR.

  People will latch onto her journey and will want to use the product to support her.”

  “But I’m a need-based scholarship kid at Stanford, too. Why can’t I be the face? Amelia doesn’t want it.”

  Tom looked over the top of his glasses at Adam disapprovingly. “One: that attitude will never make you the face of anything. Being the face can never be the goal. Two: prove yourself first.” They heard the front door slam and T. J. rushed by the office door.

  “Everything okay, T. J.?” Tom called from his desk.

  “Yep. Just fine!” T. J. said.

  Tom’s phone rang and he answered. “Hello?” Adam sat down in the chair across from Tom. He wanted to ask him how, exactly, he could prove himself.

  “Is that so? Just off the article? What’s the offer? Uh-huh. And who’s the investor? Never heard of them. Well, yes, we’d have to review the terms.

  If the investor wants to remain anonymous, he can’t have voting rights.

  Okay, send over the sheet and we’ll take a look. Thanks, Linda.” Tom had a suspicious look on his face as he turned to Adam. “Can you get your sister and meet me in the conference room?”

  Adam stood up quickly, suddenly realizing that the call must have had something to do with Doreye. “Sure.”

  Tom and T. J. joined Adam and Amelia in the conference room. Tom shut the door.

  “Well, guys, I’ve just had a phone call from a lawyer at Winger Partners.

  You’ve gotten your first offer.”

  “Our first offer? You mean someone wants to buy Doreye?” Adam asked excitedly.

  “But we haven’t even launched the product,” Amelia said, cocking her head with suspicion.

  “How much are they offering?” Adam asked, leaning forward in his chair.

  “Eight and a half million,” Tom answered. T. J. clucked his tongue in disgust, but no one noticed.

  “Eight and a half million?” Adam almost shouted.

  “Who is the investor?” Amelia asked.

  “A company called Proximate Investments. It’s a new fund. The individual investors want to remain anonymous—I imagine they’re VCs who are investing as individuals and don’t want to have a conflict with their firms. Linda is sending over the terms.”

  “I can’t believe we’re going to get eight and a half million dollars!” Adam was practically drooling.

  “Well, you have to build in taxes,” Tom said.

  Adam was exuberant. “Who cares? It’s still amazing! Amelia, forget everything I said about the article! This is unbelievable!” Amelia was silent, staring at her hands in her lap. Tom watched her with a concerned face.

  “Well?” Adam said, glancing back and forth between Amelia and Tom.

  “Isn’t it? Isn’t it amazing?” he said.

  Without lifting his gaze from Amelia, Tom said, “I’d like to hear what Amelia’s thinking.”

  Amelia looked up. Her eyes were heavy. She sighed. �
��I know it’s probably a great deal, and God knows it would make Adam’s and my life a lot easier.” She was afraid to look at her brother. She’d already turned down so much money and she knew he wasn’t going to like what she was about to say. “But something about it doesn’t feel right.” She swallowed, glancing back down at her hands. “I mean, we’ve got so much more to do on the programming end and there are so many more things we’ve yet to discover or develop. And I guess we could do that under another owner, but I don’t know . . . it’s just . . . it’s our first company, and I guess I’m kind of attached. I’m not ready to give it away to someone else.” Tom’s mouth had spread into a closed mouth smile. Adam’s eyes were darting back and forth from Tom to Amelia, trying to understand how the hell this could be happening. Eight and a half million and they wanted to turn it down?

  He looked at T. J. for help. “T. J., come on. Weigh on in this, please.

  It’s a killer offer, right?”

  Tom glanced nervously at T. J. He knew how much influence T.J. had over Adam and was worried that whatever was about to come out of his mouth would pit Adam even more firmly against his sister.

  T. J. cleared his throat. “I think Amelia is right. It’s too early to let the company go. You don’t know anything about these investors or their motives. Besides, from a purely monetary perspective, if Doreye is worth eight and a half million today, with Amelia still cracking on more codes and applications, it’ll be worth a whole lot more than that in a year, maybe even in a few months.”

  Tom turned his head slightly in surprised delight. Adam looked down at the table. “Well, yeah, I guess that’s true. I mean, about the increasing value.”

  “Besides,” T. J. said, “you should always keep one offer in your pocket, right? For leverage against the next. Imagine if YouTube or Facebook had settled for their first offers. They’d never have gotten as far as they did.” Amelia looked up at T. J. and smiled. She didn’t love his logic, but she was glad to have his support.

  “So, we’re all okay with telling them no?” Tom looked around the room.

  “It isn’t time,” Amelia said. T. J. and Adam (albeit reluctantly) nodded.

  Tom clapped his hands. “Great. I think it’s the right decision. It also means we all know that this company is at a new level now. You don’t turn down eight and a half million dollars and start sitting on your haunches.

  Things are about to get exciting, guys.”

  “Tom, while we’re all here, maybe we should start talking about next steps for the team. It feels like we might be ready to hire some help for Amelia. I think Adam and I should start focusing on the sales strategy. I put together a deck for how I think we can approach it.” T. J. reached into his satchel and pulled out the pitch deck he’d put together for his father, ripping off the last page with the org chart before sliding it across the table to Tom.

  Tom flipped through the document. “Where’d you get these figures?

  They look really good.”

  T. J. blushed. “I’ve been doing some outside research. I wanted to get a handle on the total market size. I’ve also been researching potential vendor partnerships. If Amelia feels ready, we can start reaching out to vendors to get contracts on board for when the product launches.” Tom looked up from the deck. “Excellent, T. J.” He turned to Amelia.

  “Amelia, do you feel ready to start talking to vendors? And would it be helpful to bring on a developer or two to help you with code?” Amelia was taken aback: this was really happening. Vendors were going to start seeing her product. She was going to have a programming team.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I think that sounds great. I’ll put up a bulletin at Gates to see if I can find any engineers who could work part time with me.”“Great,” Tom said. “Let’s meet again on Friday for a progress report.

  Sound good?”

  Everyone nodded in agreement. “Okay, then, how about some lunch?

  My treat.”

  As they were exiting the conference room, Tom patted T. J. on the back. “Great work, T. J. And good instincts. I’m afraid I underestimated you.”

  Chapter 12

  Dos Cervezas, Por Favor

  At the end of the day, Adam and Amelia biked back to campus, following each other in silence down Sand Hill Road and onto Campus Drive.

  When they got to Amelia’s dorm, Adam stopped and turned to face her.

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  Amelia took a deep breath. “I know.”

  Ever since they had left the conference room she had been dreading this moment. She knew she owed it to him, but the thought of having to defend herself against turning down all that money made her want to cry.

  “Dinner at the Treehouse?”

  “Sounds good.”

  They biked to Stanford’s Student Union and ordered burritos at the Treehouse. Adam ordered two beers. Amelia tried to hide her surprise as he showed his ID and the cashier handed him two Coronas.

  As they walked outside with their food, Amelia whispered, “Since when do you have a fake ID?”

  “T. J. got it for me. Pretty sweet, right?” They sat at a picnic bench, one of a dozen lined up in the outside courtyard of the student union. The courtyard was bustling with other students laughing and drinking pitchers of beer. Amelia took a sip out of the bottle, trying to be casual about it. At this point, she didn’t want to do anything to upset Adam even more. If that meant drinking a beer, so be it.

  Adam unfolded his burrito on the table. “Look,” he said. “There’s a lot that I have to say and—”

  Amelia interrupted him, blurting out, “Adam, I’m sorry, but I just can’t take it. I know how much money it is and I know you think the money will solve all of our problems, but it’s just not going to work out if—”

  Adam touched her hand. “No, no, this doesn’t have anything to do with today. I mean, with selling or not selling.”

  “It doesn’t?” Amelia looked up, holding her breath and looking for confirmation before letting herself feel relieved.

  “No. Not that I don’t want eight and a half million dollars right now, but . . . Well, at the end of the day, I guess I trust your instincts, and Tom’s and T. J.’s as well. It’s not what I would have done, true. But I’m not the only one in this thing, right?”

  Amelia took a sip of her beer, which she surprised herself by actually enjoying. “Oh, that is such good news. Because you know you’re more important than any of it. I mean, we’re more important than any of it.”

  “I know. That’s why I have to tell you what I’m about to tell you,” he said. “I haven’t been honest with you lately and, well, here goes . . . ” He took a deep breath.

  “Remember the first day in the incubator when we got that call from The Family?”

  Amelia nodded.

  “Well, they’ve been calling ever since. And e-mailing. They want you to start embezzling money for them again.”

  “Tough luck,” Amelia said. “We’re done with them.” Adam swallowed. “That’s what we thought, but the thing is . . . they’ve got something against me. And they’re using it as blackmail.” Amelia put down her burrito. “What have they got against you?”

  “After you got caught and went to juvie . . . You know how we had just taken our SATs the week before?”

  Amelia nodded, not sure where this was going.

  “Well, I didn’t do so well.” He looked down. “I did okay—I got an 1880—but you got a 2310. And when you left, I sort of freaked out.

  Because it was awful being away from you and I started worrying. I knew that with a score like that you’d get into an amazing college and probably get a scholarship and I wouldn’t. And I started freaking out that we’d be separated again. So I . . . ” He couldn’t look at her. “I used the Dawsons’

  computer and traced your steps to hack into the SAT website and change my score.”

  He was picking at the corner of his burrito wrapper. “I only increased it to a 2150 and honestly, Am
elia, if I’d had all the SAT prep courses most of the kids here had, you know I would easily have gotten that on my own.

  But . . . somehow the Dawsons found out. And now they’re threatening to tell Stanford I cheated if I don’t get you to start embezzling money.” He sat looking down for what felt like an eternity, waiting for Amelia to say something.

  Amelia took a sip of her beer. She chewed a bite of her burrito. Then she took another sip of her beer. Adam stared at her anxiously.

  “So, how long before they tell?” she finally said.

  “Two weeks.”

  “Tell them I’ll do it,” she said.

  “But Amelia, you can’t! You can’t start embezzling again!”

  “I didn’t say I was going to embezzle money. I said to tell them I would.” She took another sip of her beer. The alcohol was making her feel confident.

  Adam couldn’t believe how calm she seemed. “You’re not mad?” Amelia smiled. “No, I’m not mad. We’ll figure it out. I’m glad you told me. I don’t want us to have secrets.”

  He grinned and picked up his burrito again. “Me either.”

  “So is there anything else?”

  He wiped a bit of salsa off the corner of his mouth. “Well, there is one other little thing. Since we’re not keeping secrets.” Amelia laughed. “What’s that?”

  “I’ve been dating T. J.’s sister, Lisa.” Amelia choked on the beer she was drinking. “You’re what? Are you kidding? Are you crazy?”

  “Amelia, I think I’m in love with her.”

  Chapter 13

  Lights! Camera! Action!

  “Chad and I are going to watch a movie. Any interest?” Shandi asked Patty after Sunday dinner.

  “What are you watching?”

  “Henry and June. It’s about Henry Miller, his marriage to June, and his affair with Anais Nin. It’s a beautiful film, if you haven’t seen it.”

  “Sure. I’ll be right down. I’m just going to throw on some pajamas.” She slipped into a pair of Soffe shorts, slipped off her bra, threw on an oversized sweatshirt, and padded down the stairs. It had been a week and a half since Chad picked her up from jail, and things had been surprisingly un-weird. He hadn’t said anything, or even hinted at it in front of the Hawkins, and she knew she could trust him not to. Plus the fact that they had this little secret now—in addition to their other little secret—made her feel like they were secret pals, separate from the rest of the world.