Chapter 35
I barely slept that night. Even knowing I needed all the energy I could muster in the morning, I just couldn’t fall asleep with everything running through my head.
Instead of sheer anger—well, other than toward Edwin Hunt—I just felt a massive amount of confusion.
Where did I really stand with not just Claire but Layla?
Why was I allowing myself, again, to sleep with a business associate I really should not have?
Why did I believe I could have mixed business and pleasure and not have it be an issue?
Why was I such a fucking moron?
Why did I keep repeating the same mistakes?
The only difference—probably not the only, but the only one I could think of—was that I was now in control of my own career destiny.
Whereas before, what I had done with Layla was subject to the whims of John Burnson and Craig Taylor, what I did with Claire was subject to, well, my whims. Morgan’s maybe a bit, but not to the extent that I feared any reprisal.
Still, this bore really poorly for my ability to separate the two. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt now, but if it happened with a much larger company, or it came out many years later that I had slept with Claire and I’d have to resign…
Sadly, in this day and age, I had to assume it would come out, and when it did, it would not remain regulated to the sidelines. Someone would pick it up, public pressure would ensue, and then I’d have to save face or resign in some ugly fashion.
In short, what I had just done ensured there was no winning—and definitely very little sleeping on this particular night.
When the alarm went off at 4 a.m., the first thing I thought was how badly I wanted the warmth of my bed to stay where it was.
Outside the sheets, nothing but cold, miserable air awaited.
I had to drag myself out, but the whole ride to JFK Airport felt like a struggle just to stay awake.
No one would do anything to me given it was New York City, but damnit, I didn’t want to have to even think about it.
At least the plane ride afforded me over four hours of sleep, and unlike many people, I actually could fall asleep on the plane without any trouble.
It was a good thing, too, because given the intensity of what was to come with Virtual Realty, I would need as much sleep and as little dependency on caffeine and energy drinks as possible… even though that was coming as well.
Sure enough, seated in the far back of the plane—and for once, I felt reasonably confident no one was trailing me, because who the hell would want to wake up so goddamn early?
—I passed out before the wheels had even lifted up.
I dreamed of being back with Claire and, interestingly enough, having a threesome with her and Layla.
The fuck that meant, I had no idea, but dreams on a plane were sporadic enough and choppy enough I didn’t have to psychoanalyze the whole thing.
That, and as soon as I landed, I had blistering number of messages from Morgan, all revolving around the same thing—Andrew and Virtual Realty intended to make a decision by Monday at noon when they had a conference call with their early investors.
Which meant that whatever last second pitches I had to make, I had better make them strong over the course of the day.
There was no time for reflection. It was make or break time for MCH—either we’d get our early star, our early championship, and use that to catapult to greatness, or we would lose, news would leak to Edwin Hunt, and we’d both be fucked.
Suddenly, the precariousness of the position seemed much, much more tenuous. This wasn’t just a nice catch to have—it was an essential catch for the survival of MCH and our respective positions in our careers.
I practically hurdled out of the plane, in as quick a rush as I could to head over to Virtual Realty.
En route in an Uber, Morgan advised me he had booked a hotel one block down from the headquarters, but I knew I wasn’t likely to spend more than an hour or two there, especially if negotiations went into the night.
He also advised that Andrew had agreed to meet with me at noon by the office and promised me privacy.
Morgan’s note did not carry the greatest sense of confidence in it. I could sense his nerves starting to fray, and this wasn’t just about the deal but preventing Morgan from having the breakdown of all breakdowns. I had to do this not just for me, but for my brother.
We had to do this. We had to beat Edwin Hunt, consequences and fallout be damned.
As soon as I got there, I tried to steady both my breathing and the knock that I gave.
I’m not sure how obvious it was that I was flustered and a little bit desperate, but given that Andrew answered the door in gym shorts and a t-shirt, he probably didn’t care the slightest bit that I was sweaty and and a little bit fast of mouth.
“Chance, welcome back,” he said.
He, too, looked a little tired, although not nearly to the same extent everyone in New York did. No matter what transpired in the next 24 hours, he would have a lot more money in his bank account than he did today. But we would have very different outcomes depending on what went down for us.
Must be nice. Maybe I’ll start one of these companies and make Edwin come begging to invest in us if we can’t win this bid.
“Thanks, bud,” I said, trying to keep conversation casual between two hotshots in their 20s. “How are things going for you?”
“Well, you know, usual, sales are never quite what we want them to be, but they’re coming along bit by bit.”
Exactly what I figured. He’s not quite there, but that’s where we can help. I can use that as a tool to negotiate.
“Oh, sorry to hear that. How far off are you?”
“About 20 percent, but still profitable.”
Maybe it was because he was a man and Claire was a woman, or maybe it was because Andrew seemed so willing to volunteer the information, but I felt absolutely no guilt about prying negotiating information out of him in comparison to Claire.
Granted, I also wasn’t trying to sleep with Andrew, but even ignoring the romance, one volunteered the information, the other knew how to selectively distribute it.
Nevertheless, even with this nugget of information, I began to suspect that I was past the stage of pushing things in our favor.
There was only so far out on a branch Andrew was willing to go for the sake of his friendship with Morgan before he’d wind up with Edwin or some other unexpected investor.
“Well, good news is, we’re here to help fix that,” I said. “Obviously, you know why I’m here, so let me just get to it, shall we?”
“Of course,” he said. “I ordered us some pizza. I have a feeling we might be here a while.”
“Anything to get the deal done, right?”
“Exactly,” Andrew said laughing.
I wasn’t willing to ever rest on my laurels, partly because I could tell Andrew as a people pleaser and partly because the last meeting had gone so well, only for us to hear that Edwin Hunt might have jumped in the lead.
But this was a promising start. Andrew not only wanted to help me feel comfortable, he was willing to acknowledge us getting a deal done.
Signs pointed to us at least getting to a point where I had all the information on the table and could make the executive decision to go down or walk away as opposed to just flailing in the dark.
Over the next few hours, we went into the most mundane of details, from how we would send the money over to what to do if we had to put a stop on any of the checks for any reason. For the most part, all seemed normal and all seemed promising.
But about three hours into the conversation, well after the pizza had arrived, been eaten, and left out to sit after a couple of hours, the most ominous fact came to light.
“I really want to go with you guys,” Andrew said, and the sinking feeling that immediately came up reminded me of any girl who had ever rejected me. “You’re a really nice guy…”
“But…” I said, finishing the thought for him.
“But your father has made an incredible sweet deal.”
Damn. Damnit. The worst possible thing he could have said. Of all the competitors, of course it fucking comes down to Edwin Hunt.
“He said he would do $5 million for 25 percent and offer us mentoring.”
I nearly choked on the last bit of pizza I was having when I heard him say that. Now, the negotiation was no longer about convincing Andrew to sign with us. It was about convincing him that my adoptive father was a manipulative liar.
“Andrew, this is me being as honest as I can be with you,” I said, and I prayed that this work.
“If Edwin Hunt does mentor you, he would be ahead of me and Morgan. If he follows through on what he said, then yes, you should invest with him. I have little doubt—none, actually—that by experience alone, he can teach you more than either of us came.”
Now it’s my turn to give a but.
“But that’s assuming that he ever follows through on that.”
The wide eyes on Andrew’s side suggested that he was not used to manipulative and tricky investors. That told me that while I could convert him, I had to go hard before Papa Hunt took him to town.
“Think of Edwin Hunt’s portfolio. He has an entire company based around all of the companies he invests in. Do you really think he’s going to have the time to mentor you? Do you think he’s going to ever reach out if your stock isn’t catering?”
“I mean… sure, he said he would.”
Oh, Andrew.
“He says a lot of things,” I said.
I decided to try something risky, maybe something not entirely appropriate for business, but something that I hoped would seal the deal.
“I know this as his son, OK, and Morgan does too. Mr. Hunt as a father was rarely there for us, and when he did teach us stuff, he would teach us things like art of the deal, or squashing the opposition to make more money. He didn’t care about our baseball games, he didn’t care about our fights, he didn’t care about anything other than raising us to be walking magnets for cash.
If he did that to his two boys, what makes you think he’s going to do that for you, an entrepreneur from small-town India across the country? ”
Andrew clearly didn’t know how to react to what I had just said. I might as well have told him that ghosts were real and that he had lived in the Matrix his whole life. The poor guy had the genius mind of a programmer but the childlike mind of a five-year-old boy.
“You’re serious?” Andrew said.
“I don’t say this to mock my father,” I said.
“It’s not like if he invests in you guys and you guys take off, we’ll never see that money.
We’re his heirs. But I’m not interested in that.
Don’t get me wrong, we’re investing in this because it provides us a benefit too, but we only benefit if you benefit first. And you’re not going to benefit from having Edwin Hunt as your primary investor. ”
I knew, though, even with everything I was saying, the math still favored Mr. Hunt. I had to bring our deal down—and this was where I had an appreciation for Andrew not being able to keep his mouth shut. It would make our negotiating lives a hell of a lot easier.
“I know we had said $5 million for 30 percent,” I said.
“Let’s change that. We’ll go $5 million for 27 percent.
And we promise to offer at least an hour a week of our time, up to five hours a week of finance and decision making consulting.
If we fail to meet that—and we’ll make sure it’s contractually stated—we’ll let our percent drop to 22 percent.
We’ll just give you shares back, no questions asked, no paperwork, no legalities.
It’ll just go straight to you. That will hold until you go public or until you get completely bought out. ”
I really wanted to become CFO or COO of this company, for how little leadership Andrew actually had, but that felt like too bold of an ask this early in the game. Better, I thought, to put my foot in the door, make Andrew realize over time our value, and then position myself for such a role.
None of it would happen, though, if Andrew didn’t agree to this.
“I just don’t like saying no,” he said. “It’s down to you two but I had about six different capitalists and investors on board. The rest I had to have a colleague reach out to. I felt like a coward, but…”
“We all do at times,” I said, thinking about the many times I wish I had stood up to Edwin Hunt—and how, even now, to a certain extent, I was taking advantage of Andrew’s personality for my own gain.
“But being a coward doesn’t prevent you from having to make a choice.
We’re putting it on paper that we will mentor you.
If you still want to go with Hunt Industries, so be it.
But know, Andrew, that this is the real deal.
This is us putting our stake on the line. That’s not insignificant.”
Outside, the bustle of San Francisco had begun to pick up. The sun was beginning to dip toward the horizon, and soon, the Bay Area would light up into a new kind of night life.
But in here, it just felt like things were getting started.
“OK,” Andrew said. “Give me some time alone. I need to think of some things.”
“Understood,” I said. “I’ll call you in two hours.”
“OK.”
I left and took a stroll to my hotel. I had no idea if what I had just done would work or not, but in telling Andrew what was essentially the unvarnished truth, I had taken a swift bat to my adoptive father’s ideas and smashed them to smithereens.
I would not engage in questionably ethical behavior.
I would not lie and promise the moon when I couldn’t even give or care to give a rock.
I would not act in my own self-interest, at least not to the degree that the other person would suffer.
Instead, I would tell the truth and nothing but the truth. If Andrew told us that he had gone with Hunt Industries, at least I could go down having seen my career perish because of the truth. Morgan would suffer, and I wouldn’t get off scotch-free, but…
It was a nice thought to console myself with.
But given how much was riding on the line with this deal, it wasn’t enough to quell the nerves and anxiety beginning to take over me.