7. Talia
Talia
After breakfast, Talia headed into the office. The first thing on her calendar was a meeting with the marketing team.
“I think you work harder than I do,” Talia said, smiling as she set down her own laptop and the coffee she’d picked up in the break room.
“Not true,” Erin said, “but I try to.”
“First in—”
“Last out,” Erin finished. “I know, I read that that was your motto in a Palo Alto Weekly interview last year. I’ve adopted it as my own, as well as your other one: ‘Relentless pursuit of constructive criticism.’ I thought it was so brave to open yourself up to constant feedback.”
“How else would I know if I could improve myself or my product?” Talia said. “What’s actually scarier to me than criticism is staying the same. I don’t want Ideal Life to be mediocre. That’s how we help make other people’s lives better, too.”
“One hundred percent,” Erin said, nodding. “Oh, hey, before everyone else arrives, how did Sam like the party last night?”
“I think he enjoyed it. But even if he didn’t, he’d never let it show. He’s the kind of friend who’s always there for you, you know?”
Erin pursed her lips, as if deciding whether or not to say something.
“What?” Talia asked.
“Nothing… I mean, it’s not my place to—”
“I want you to be bold and speak up, Erin. I know that’s in your core personality, because you demonstrated it in spades when you applied for this internship. So don’t be afraid to talk here. There’s a balance to strike, of course, but it’s not good to be hyperaware of hierarchy.”
Erin laughed self-consciously. “Yeah, I guess I don’t normally have trouble speaking up. But this is personal, so… Okay, well, I was going to say that Sam is so great and obviously you two care about each other a lot, and I’m rooting for you.”
Talia shook her head. “Not you, too. I just came from breakfast with my parents, where my mom wouldn’t stop gushing about Sam. She’s been not so subtly trying to get us together for, gosh, seventeen years now? It hasn’t happened yet, though, so it’s not going to.”
“But why not?”
Talia shrugged. “I can’t point to any specific reason why Sam and I stayed only friends or why we didn’t become more. It probably could’ve gone either way, but sometimes life simply does what it’s going to do. And we’re really great as we are, so I’m happy.”
Erin let it go. But a wave of sadness hit Talia as she remembered again that she had no real friends except Sam. There was something a little awful—and lonely—about the fact that it was a summer intern who asked Talia about Sam, rather than one of her old friends from college or grad school.
But Talia couldn’t dwell on this because Lena Tahir, the director of marketing, came into the conference room then, followed by the two others on her team, George Jackson and Henry Carter.
All three of them looked a little hungover from the celebration last night.
Staying out late was rough in your thirties.
“Morning,” Talia said, putting on her CEO mantle again. “Sorry for calling a meeting first thing.”
Lena waved it off. “Totally my fault for having three too many cups of sake. It was so good, though.”
Talia laughed. She could understand lack of restraint like that.
After all, she’d just come from multiple breakfasts.
“Well, I wanted to get the conversation started about what marketing is going to look like over the next few months. There’s going to be a lot more attention on us now that Omni has signed the acquisition papers, and I was wondering if we have plans to ramp things up. ”
“We’ve been brainstorming.” George tapped on his tablet and woke up the projector. A short presentation appeared on the large screen on the conference room wall.
“It’s a new wave of our millennial ad campaign,” Henry said.
“Okay…” Talia chewed on her lip.
“Millennials are our biggest demographic.” Lena started explaining their plan as George flipped through the slides. “We’ve got some designs for new digital ads in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and other big media sites whose audiences have disposable income and are tech-savvy.”
“That’s the same as we’ve been doing, right?” Talia asked.
“Yes,” Lena said. “But it’s foundational and I think it’s worked, so I don’t want to give up on it if it can continue to give good results.
Still, we’re continuing to innovate. Tech podcasts are big, and Henry is doing research on ones where we could get you on as a guest. We can also look into sponsorships on some of them. ”
On the other side of the table, Erin touched her Omni 3Ds. A message must’ve popped up on them. Then her eyes met Talia’s.
Talia nodded in support.
Erin sat straighter in her chair. “So, um, I was thinking, how about social media creator campaigns?”
George made a “meh” noise. “We haven’t had much luck with influencers recently.”
Erin winced, and Talia suspected it was because the term “influencers” was passé. Libby and Jacob used the word “creators” because it was more respectful of the time and work they put into creating content.
“Although…” Talia looked from George and Henry to Lena. “It’s possible we’re a little out of touch because of our age.”
Henry groaned but agreed. “Being in tech in your thirties is like being an NFL player in your thirties. The Silicon Valley chapter of AARP is already sending me mail, and it’s snail mail.”
Everyone laughed. What Henry said was only partly true, because the Valley did value experience. But the younger generation was coming in fast on their heels.
“I’m sure you chose great creators last time,” Erin said, “but I’d be happy to take another look and see if there are others we could add to the roster.”
Lena smiled at her, then looked at Talia. “I like this one. She’s smart and diplomatic.”
Erin beamed.
“Okay,” Talia said. “That all sounds like a good start. Anything else?”
George, Henry, and Lena shook their heads.
“Then I’ll let you get to it—” Talia started to say.
“Wait!” Erin jumped up from her seat. “I had another idea I wanted to share.”
“Oh. Yeah, of course. The floor is yours.”
Erin touched her Omni 3Ds again, where her Ideal Life Friend was likely sending her a nudge of encouragement. Then she turned to George and said, “Mind if I use the screen?”
He disconnected his presentation, and Erin projected hers on the wall.
The first slide was a photo of Temple Dots, Ideal Life’s wireless brain monitor stickers.
They were currently transparent and nearly invisible on the skin; customers wore them on their temples, as the name suggested.
Temple Dots mapped brain activity and correlated it with each person’s individual history to help Ideal Life identify neural pathway patterns and make suggestions for better behavior and choices.
They also kept track of other health indicators, like heart rate, blood oxygen levels, and sleep patterns.
“Obviously the tech is incredible,” Erin said.
“But like Lena was saying, our current biggest demographic is millennials, especially on the older end of that spectrum. And I know Ideal Life does do some Gen Z outreach, but I was thinking, what about doing more? We want to be our best selves, too, and I think it’s a market that Ideal Life can expand.
“But to get to us, you first have to appeal to something other than the dry tech pitch that works on the Wall Street Journal and New York Times crowd. That’s not where our attention is. Which leads me to this.”
She flipped to the next slide. There were more Temple Dots, but instead of looking like boring transparent Band-Aids, they were colorful—primary colors, fluorescents, and pastels.
“Gen Z—and Gen A—exists in an age of personalization. We started with stickers and filters on our apps, then custom emojis. We want to personalize our water bottles, our laptops, everything. Ideal Life already allows us to design our own Friend avatars. So why don’t we do that for Temple Dots, too? ”
Talia leaned forward on the conference room table. “Tell me more.”
Erin moved to the next slide. There, the Temple Dots grew even more varied, featuring floral designs, art deco, psychedelic swirls, and more. “Think nail art but of the high-tech variety. Customers can choose from predesigned Temple Dots or design their own.”
Lena was nodding furiously. “Yes! And this will likely lead to an increase in sales, too. Currently, customers keep Temple Dots on for two to four weeks before they have to switch to a new pair, because the adhesive we use is top-notch medical grade and lasts forever. But if they had the option to change it up to match their mood, their outfit, or whatever…”
“I love it,” Talia said. “Although I like it not because it’s good for sales, but because it adds to the joy in people’s everyday lives.”
“So do you want us to run some numbers on cost, timeline, et cetera?” Henry asked.
“Yes,” Talia said. “Let’s do it.”
Elated, Erin bounced in her seat and flushed bright red.
As usual, Talia’s day was packed with meetings, but she never forgot that Sam was playing in a tournament today.
Whenever she had a few minutes free, she tuned in to the live stream of the Cleveland Gold Poker Invitational to see how he was doing.
First prize was half a million dollars, and each time she checked, Sam was still in.
That wasn’t a surprise—you don’t go pro unless you’re really good—but even though there was a lot of game theory involved, poker was also part luck.
And everyone in that tournament was a professional.
Midafternoon, Talia ate a late lunch at her desk while she watched Sam play a hand. He had bags under his eyes—strange, since he was one of those rare, annoying people who could sleep anywhere, even on a red-eye flight. Hadn’t he slept on the plane?
The other players at his table looked a lot better rested.
There was an older gentleman in a suit and a Rolex.
A guy around Sam’s age who was sporting a bushy black beard.
Two other men who were forgettable in appearance.
And then there was Louise Enger from the Bay Area, a stocky woman who smiled little and looked like she could be an FBI agent or a spy. Definitely not someone to take lightly.
As the dealer dealt, the live stream showed what cards each player received.
(She knew it was actually on a thirty-minute delay—the live stream would show all the players’ cards for the viewers, so it fed out half an hour after the fact to prevent cheating, like someone outside the tournament communicating information to the competitors.)
Talia groaned when she saw Sam’s hand, especially compared to the others.
“It’s okay, though,” she said aloud. “He knows what to do.”
He folded immediately. Talia exhaled.
The trick to being successful at poker at the professional level was to know when to fold. Amateur players thought the game was about card counting or bluffing. But the best players folded around 80 percent more often than others. And Sam was no fool.
Talia couldn’t watch the next hand, though, because she had several more meetings to attend.
She’d known that Omni signing the acquisition agreement was only the beginning of the process, like lowering the walls of a dam, but she hadn’t known how much of a flood would come barreling through.
Omni’s massive team of lawyers now had free rein to request anything and everything for due diligence, and half of the Ideal Life team’s time was suddenly spent chasing down what they needed.
A lot of it needed to be funneled through Talia, too.
This startup had been her baby for years, and like Libby seeding new coral reef nurseries, Talia had had her hand in every aspect of Ideal Life.
So this afternoon she first had a meeting with the developer team about getting source code and AI weights into the encrypted tech escrow, where it would be secure from outside eyes but where Omni’s team could parse through what they needed.
Then she had a meeting with the contracts team to go through assignment clauses in their agreements with third-party vendors to see what could be transferred to Omni and what would need to be canceled, and if there were any penalties.
And then she had a meeting with Omni’s external law firm’s employment attorneys to talk about the four-year “golden handcuffs” agreement they wanted her and key Ideal Life employees to sign, which was a guarantee that they would continue working for Omni for four years once the acquisition was complete.
By late afternoon, Talia’s brain had been reduced to the consistency of mushy peas. She returned to her office and slumped into her chair.
Before she dove back into more work, though, she wanted to check in on how Sam was doing. But when she opened up the tournament live stream, his name wasn’t on the leaderboard anymore.
“Oh no…” Talia opened another tab to look at the complete standings.
Sam had been eliminated about an hour earlier, ranked at forty-eight.
She texted him immediately.
Talia: Hey, just getting caught up on the tournament. Sorry to see you’re out, but you’re still top 50. How did it feel?
Sam: Was off my game today. #48 means I’ll take home $6,000, though, so not bad for a day’s work.
Talia chewed on her lip. He was right: $6,000 wasn’t bad as a general matter.
It’s just that the Bay Area was astronomically expensive (unless you’d bought a home in the early ’80s like her parents had, before the region became the heart of tech).
After taxes, Sam’s winnings would only keep him afloat for a couple of months.
Talia had, in the past, tried to convince him to play in more tournaments, but he’d said that wasn’t how he wanted to spend his time.
Sam preferred being at his decommissioned lighthouse turned bookshop, helping tourists find the perfect beach read and locals pick the right novel for their upcoming book club.
It made him happy but nowhere near break-even (last year, he’d been tens of thousands of dollars in the red).
Bookstores were a razor-thin-margin business, especially here.
Last year, a prominent local chain had had to declare bankruptcy.
Poker was a necessary subsidy for Sam’s shop.
Which was why, as Talia looked at his text and his name on the tournament rankings, she thought, What if I rewound just a little bit and let him play the losing hand again?
Maybe he would make a different choice and he wouldn’t get eliminated, and then he’d be able to creep up a little higher in the standings.
Every place you inched up meant a jump in how much you’d take home in winnings.
But then she remembered what Sam had said—Promise me you won’t change my life on purpose.
She sighed.
And even though she really wanted to help him, she kept her promise instead.