Jules is in a perpetual state of nervous excitement. He uses a standing desk so he can type things into his computer while bouncing on his heels. Instead of using Slack, he likes to shout across the room whenever he wants to tell us something. He kicks off every day with an all-hands meeting in which he leads us in singing “WAI is the word” to the tune of Grease. Everyone on the team adores him.
Cyrus, on the other hand, is disciplined and reserved. He takes the 7:13 train in every morning; I have to shower the night before and skip breakfast to keep up with him. He wears his signature white linen shirts and ankle-length trousers and barricades himself behind a desk and works intently, hardly ever looking up from his screen or the piles of books open in front of him. Whereas Jules is everyone’s best friend, Cyrus inspires more of a hushed reverence from the team, starting with Rupert and Gaby right down to the intern who is going to run our socials, a woman called Gina whose college thesis was titled A New Media of the Social: Networks of Power in the Era of Post-truth.
* * *
We did not meet Rupert at the speed-dating event. Instead, Cyrus joined something called Venture Shorts, where people post two-minute Instagram stories of themselves and their ideas, then get anonymous invitations from VCs to come and pitch. Cyrus’s video was one long iPhone shot of him looking deep into the camera and telling the story of how he came to believe that ritual was the central act of human life, and how, thus far, all of our technological innovations had ignored this fact. “We imagined,” he said, “that we could supplant the role of meaning with other things—with advancement, with speed, with pixels and processors. But we cannot deny our essential humanity, our souls, if you want to call them that, which yearn not just for the superficial connection of social media, the followers and the followed, the influencers and the influenced, the likes and the dislikes, but for the deeper connections, enabling us to ask the questions we have pondered for millennia. Why are we here? What is our purpose? And how can we come together in our inquiry as communities of belief, human-made groups of people who commit ancient and modern acts that frame the pivotal moments of our brief time on earth, our births, our marriages, our deaths? We at WAI believe that community is about shared beliefs, whatever those may be, and that technology can help us to strengthen those ties, rather than leaving us atomized by the pull of technological progress.”
Cyrus’s pitch received two bids: one from a small family office run by the errant son of a Texan oil magnate, and another from Rupert. No question where we chose to get our money from, even though the magnate, Ed Junior Jr., promised us more money on better terms. No, we chose Rupert, who, after a bit of negotiation with our new lawyer, agreed to 25 percent equity and wired the money to our bank account exactly six weeks after Cyrus posted his video.
Jules now talks about time in terms of runway, “runway” being the amount of time we have until our money runs out. “We have twelve months of runway,” he keeps repeating. That’s six months to launch the product and six months to make it financially viable. He wants me to hurry up and hire someone to help me design the platform, but I haven’t found the right person yet. The people who roll up are too young and look like they haven’t left their parents’ basement for the duration of their short lives. I complain endlessly to Destiny and Li Ann, but I’m feeling the pressure now, because even I’m not fast enough to get the code written in time for our launch, not without help.
* * *
One day, after four brain-numbing interviews, a man in a Mohawk shows up and introduces himself as Ren. His English is imperfect but his portfolio is stunning, and soon we are talking about the beta launch, about attach rates and UX and UI. “When can you start?” I ask, and he says, “After lunch?” I stick out my hand and take deep satisfaction in saying “You’re hired!”
“You can’t do that,” Jules tells me later. “Did you log the interview on HireMonkey?”
“What’s HireMonkey?”
“Our API. Where have you been? I did a whole workshop on it last week.”
“I’ve given Ren all the passwords and set him up next to me.” I point to my new best friend, who has headphones on and is already deep in the system.
Jules sighs. “Rupert likes process, you know that.”
“I like process too. And if you want the platform to come out on time, you’re going to stop sending me toddlers with laptops. If I smell another adolescent whose idea of showering is waving his pits around between wanks, I’m going to tell Rupert he can have his platform in six years, not six months.”