Chapter Sixteen
JUDE
We have a lot of parts partially done, but we don’t have anything all the way done. And we don’t know that all the partially done parts will play nicely together.
“The teams are making good progress,” I tell Edmund on our morning call. “But we’re not in the clear. There’s a good chance we won’t have it all launch-ready by day thirty.”
“You’re full of honesty this morning,” he says.
Earlier I presented my nine-box grid to him, and when Edmund asked me what I thought I should do about the individual in the bottom-left corner, I told him I already have a plan to manage Keith out. He’ll be gone by the end of next month.
“It takes a lot of guts to admit you made a bad hire,” he told me.
So I’m just going to keep telling the truth and see where it takes me.
Edmund asks me what percent confident I am that the team will deliver on time.
Two weeks ago I would have hemmed and hedged and overthought, but today I just tell him sixty percent.
It feels about right, it communicates that there is a real risk that we might not hit the deadline.
Also I’ve come to understand there’s never one correct answer; it’s whatever answer I can make a case for.
“Hmmmm,” Edmund says. “Another assignment for you: make me a proposal for something I can fund that will make that confidence number higher. Put a budget on it, and if it makes sense I’ll be happy to get you the cash.”
I thank him and say I’ll have something over to him by early tomorrow.
“See?” he tells me. “I want you to succeed.”
“Fuck,” I say when I hang up. If Edmund really wanted us to succeed, he’d give us more time.
I open the task boards and realize quickly that there’s no point doing this by myself. I Slack Lacey, Trevor, and Dave, and ask them to meet me in the conference room in five.
“No Keith?” Dave asks.
I shake my head. I thought about it, then remembered his last lecture on Mythical Months and decided it’s not worth it. Maybe he’ll feel excluded out there and start calling some recruiters, but probably not.
I explain the situation and Edmund’s offer to the three of them.
“Sweet!” Trevor holds his fist up for me to bump.
“No,” Lacey tells him. “Put your fist down. It’s not sweet! it’s diabolical.”
I’m proud of her for recognizing the trap, but sad that she’s now this familiar with Edmund’s bullshit.
“We get extra funding. How’s that bad?” Dave asks.
“Jude can’t go back to him and say, ’nope, I couldn’t come up with anything.’ He has to find something reasonable to propose, even if it’s a waste of time.”
“Right. We end up with money we don’t want along with added pressure to deliver,” I finish.
“Fuck,” Trevor says. “So we now just bring in a bunch of contractors who won’t get up to speed in time to contribute?”
“Let me go find Ingrid,” Dave says. “She’s got this.”
“So, a hackathon?” Lacey asks.
“No,” Ingrid says. “I wouldn’t call it that. This is more an off-site crunch to get us to code complete.”
“A hackathon!’ Trevor exclaims. “Sweet.”
I dab him up just to be done with it while Ingrid tells us how it worked when she did this at her last startup: three days at a hotel in Santa Cruz where product and engineering spent a couple hours doing team building on a ropes course followed by intense work sessions in a shared meeting space.
“Did it work?” I ask her.
“We finished the project,” she says carefully, which means the company still went under.
“What do you think?” I ask the team, mostly wondering what Lacey thinks.
“It’s only going to work if everyone commits to going,” she points out. “But I’ll be there.”
“I’m in, dawg,” Trevor says. Dave goes off to get buy-in from the engineering team and the contractors. I send a note to Irina, the introverted AI consultant, who seems willing to come out of her shell for a free stay in Santa Cruz.
We’ll be working nonstop, I message her, in case she’s imagining corndogs on the beach boardwalk.
Am good when working, she replies. I try not to feel closer to her because of this.
I Slack Jonnie and ask her to come down to the conference room, where I have Ingrid give her a summary of what we’re looking to do, and for how many people.
I apologize on the tight turnaround that I need on the estimates, but Jonnie’s been working in startups longer than I have.
She’s well-versed in last-minute nonsense.
“Three days together at a hotel,” she says. “Sounds like summer camp. I bet you guys will get up to all sort of trouble.”
I look everywhere but at Lacey.
Edmund approves the proposal the next day.
Jonnie springs into action, planning transportation, snacks, meals, and activities.
I’m not sure how all of us doing the same work in a new location is going to make a difference, but a change of scenery might be nice.
Edmund’s been burying me in requests lately, and when I’m being cynical I suspect he’s doing it to keep me out of the code.
The question of why he would do that—to help me grow as a leader, or to tank any possibility of a launch?
—is a thing I will think about when this is all over. Just a few more weeks.
I have what I thought would be a difficult conversation with Keith. It’s remarkably smooth; he isn’t at all surprised. I get the feeling he’s been through this a couple times before.
Ella extends her stay so she can accompany the team to Santa Cruz.
She also moves her home base into my apartment at the behest of our mother, who was threatening to come here and take care of me until we reached this compromise.
I love my mother, but right now I do not need her in my home, wondering if I’m sure I wouldn’t like a pork chop.
“She worries,” Ella tells me.
“Too much, and about everything. I made the mistake of telling her my furniture isn’t all attached to the wall and now she’s convinced I’m going to be crushed under my dresser if there’s an earthquake.”
Ella sighs. We’re walking back from lunch, one she made me leave the office for.
“The problem with Mom worrying about unreasonable stuff is that it allows you dismiss they worries that are completely justified.”
I squint in the too-bright sun, which is probably the correct amount of bright to those not spending all their waking hours in an office.
“Is this the part where you tell me that you’re concerned about me, too?”
“I’m always concerned about you. I’m your older sister, it’s my job. Being a founder is a grind, I get it; you’re working your ass off. Like you do with everything. But the last few days, I don’t know. It’s like your spark went out or something. You seem…miserable.”
I shrug. She’s not wrong.
“This company has been my entire life for four years and it might be dying, so isn’t ‘miserable’ the right mode? I’ll be a failed founder. The whole team will be unemployed.”
She grabs my arm and pats it while we walk, and she’s quiet for a moment.
“Would it really be a bad thing if Lacey got a new job?” she asks.
I turn to look at her faster than I mean to.
“What do you mean by that?”
She gives me an infuriating, knowing look. “She’s a smart chick, she can get a job anywhere. It would make things less complicated, Jude.”
“There’s nothing to uncomplicate,” I insist, reclaiming my arm. “She’s a talented product manager. And Lettercat needs her right now.”
“Right. Because it’s always about Lettercat.”
I work late enough that she’s asleep when I get home, and I’m glad about it.
“Speech! Speech!” Trevor yells as I board the wifi-enabled bus Jonnie chartered for the team.
They’re sitting here in front of me, clutching coffees we had ready for them, a little sleepy in their new Project Roar hoodies that arrived just in time. It’s eight in the morning, the scheduled departure time.
I ask the bus driver to please turn down “Lose Yourself,” which Trevor somehow convinced him to play on repeat while everyone stowed their bags and found their seats. I appreciate his efforts, but I don’t know that we need to all be hype just yet.
“I’m not making a speech,” I promise. “I only want to let you all know how much I appreciate you all, and your work. I know asking you to leave your homes and families and pets for a few days is a big deal.”
I’m about to get choked up, but when I pause I see that Ella is seated next to Lacey. I imagine what they might talk about on the ninety minute drive to Santa Cruz, and wonder if there’s a threatening subtext I can add for my sister. I swallow, and continue.
“I don’t think it’s a secret that Lettercat means a lot to me. But you all mean a lot more. That’s all. I’ll be down in a few hours, and I’m really looking forward to what we’re going to accomplish in these next few days.”
The team cheers and claps, and I take the steps down and wave as they drive away, even though the bus windows are tinted and I’m not their dad sending them to camp.
At a beautiful resort in the hills over Santa Cruz, I’m standing in Salon C marveling at how disgusting a development team can make a space in a short amount of time.
The room is divided into three sections: a central area with a large screen, whiteboard, and long table that will seat everyone, and smaller breakout spaces on each side of the main meeting spot, with circular tables and smaller whiteboards.
A long table just inside the doorway is laid out with snacks, sodas, water, coffee, and tea.
Laptops, cords, and chargers are everywhere.
Empty coffee cups, Cheeto bags, lunch leftovers, and crumpled napkins fill all the spaces that the team is not.
It smells like what I hope is onions. But the state of the space doesn’t matter: it’s the people themselves, who are clustered in small groups, talking, whiteboarding, some in headphones coding.
There’s energy to the room, and I like it.
“There you are,” says Jonnie, who spent the night so she could be onsite early to help the hotel staff set up. “Let me show you your space.”