Chapter Twenty
JUDE
Amber and I get back from New York on Wednesday night, and I don’t want to talk about it. Not any of it.
Ella, proving to have the highest EQ in our family, is not at my apartment when I return.
She has left three perfect things for me on my kitchen counter: takeout (saag paneer and rice), a Post-it that says YOU GOT THIS, I LOVE YOU -E, and on top of the note, a sleeping pill. I eat, I read, I swallow.
In the morning I make a mental note to tell Ella to never give me one of those pills again, no matter how much I beg.
I log in and see that no one internally has Slacked or emailed me since Monday.
Not even Jonnie. I’ve destroyed every last bit of respect or good will anyone at Lettercat has for me, which should make today even more fun than I thought it would be.
Imagine all this time thinking you’re the hero when it turns out, you’re the bad guy.
I see that the non-disclosure agreements went out at the beginning of the East coast workday, which means that when Lacey wakes up and logs in, she’s going to see an early-morning meeting request and an NDA from Corday Ford in her inbox.
I set an alarm to go off at 7:02 so I’ll be ready to call her the moment she wakes up.
On Monday morning I decided to be optimistic.
I woke up at five and slid out of bed, showered, and got ready for work quietly while Lacey slept.
I thought about how, when we were so worried for Glenn that day, she told me she believes there’s no point in freaking out until someone gives you something concrete to freak out about.
A little harder to implement than to say, but better to try than waste so much energy on something that might not happen.
I crept back into my room to grab a pair of sneakers.
“Hello there,” Lacey said from my bed.
“Shhh,” I told her. “Go back to sleep.”
“But I was going to-”
“Nope. There’s nothing left for you to do. You did it all.”
I walked over to the bed, leaned down and kissed her.
“It’s kind of a big day,” she said, yawning.
“Which is why you should get more sleep.” One more kiss. “You can leave your bag here if you want. Maybe you can stay tonight, too?”
She gave me a sleepy nod and closed her eyes. “That can be arranged,” she said.
I walked the five blocks to the office, thinking I’d be coming home with Lacey after having drinks with the team that night.
I stepped off the elevator and stood in front of that neon sign and let myself be overwhelmed with gratitude for the people who helped me get to launch day.
I thought of every line of code that had been written, every bug filed and fixed, every decision and idea our team had contributed in the past four weeks, the past four years.
It was inspiring and humbling to think of how much energy they’d put into this company; I felt grateful for them, but also responsible.
I didn’t even get a chance to finish my thought before my phone started ringing. It was Edmund.
To his credit, he blindsided me in private, without an audience.
“I want to prep you,” he said, “so you’re ready for the emergency board meeting that’s about to hit your calendar.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, waving my keycard at the door. Nothing about the words emergency board meeting are a cause for optimism, in my experience.
“I’ve got great news. How does a successful exit sound to you?”
“I’m not sure I understand what you mean,” I told him, flipping the switch and watching the overhead lights flicker on over the desks of the people I was just reflecting on.
“Corday Ford have prepared an offer to acquire Lettercat. Congratulations, Jude.”
There it was: something to freak out about.
Remember that everything Edmund says is a riddle, that you cannot take it at face value.
Like the term “successful exit.” There’s a lot to unpack there.
Because it sounds good, your startup getting acquired by a large, public company.
It sounds like parties and articles in WIRED and checks with lots of zeros on them.
It’s like that when you’re a strategic acquisition, when the company’s hot; that’s when you make the big bucks and you celebrate.
It’s a different story when your company needs funding and your board has lost faith in you.
Sometimes a company is just off-loaded, sometimes it’s a fire sale.
And when a company has investors, like Lettercat does, they’re the first ones paid out when any deal happens.
What’s left is divided between the people who hold equity, like the board and the founder, and then the employees.
It usually goes in that order, too, because not all stock is the same.
While Edmund quoted numbers at me, I dug the most recent cap table to try to understand what it all meant. Corday Ford was making an offer that would let the investors recoup all they’d given us and a bit more, with only a small-to-decent bonus for the rest of the team.
Me, I’d be able to claim it as a success and take some time off.
Do things like go backpacking in Vietnam and attempt to be a thought leader on LinkedIn.
And then I’d have to find a new place to work, because no matter how much Edmund told me on that call that CF wanted to meet me and were excited to bring the team into the fold, we all know how they operate.
Buy it up and pare it down. In a year, there’d be nothing left of Lettercat as we knew it.
This all sounded fine to the board when they met later that morning.
It was considered an encouraging development.
I heard this as I sat there, numb, on the Zoom while they discussed my company’s fate, like a person who woke up during surgery to hear the surgeon telling their assistant that the prognosis wasn’t good.
“It’s been four years of moderate growth, so this is realistically the best we can hope for,” Edmund told the rest of them.
“This will allow us to recoup our investment, sure, but outside that we’re talking pocket change,” someone said.
“Any chance of shopping this around still? See if we can get enough interest that Corday Ford increase their offer just to close the deal?” another proposed.
“Corday Ford wants to move quickly,” Edmund said. “We jeopardize the deal if we shop it, and could end up with nothing.”
I spoke up briefly.
“Aren’t we concerned about what they just did to Tooity?” I asked.
“They didn’t do anything to Tooity,” Edmund explained. “That partnership was rocky from the start, so they started looking for a direct acquisition. We had perfect timing.”
“But what about the new strategy we agreed on last board meeting? You agreed the numbers look phenomenal.” I tried to keep this from sounding whiny or belligerent but somehow managed to combine the two.
“And that’s part of why CF’s made this offer,” Wally insisted.
“We’re scheduled to launch it today,” I said. “It could really be a game changer.”
“Ah, Jude makes a good point,” Edmund declared. “We need to cancel that launch for now. Corday Ford will want to bring it to market themselves.”
When the meeting was over, I did as I was told and booked a flight to New York. Meetings with various Corday Ford executives slowly filled my calendar. I needed to go for a walk and clear my head, or to call Glenn or my friend who’s a lawyer to see what my actual options were,
Instead I went out to hit the gong and call off the release.
After a weak and cowardly performance with the team, I then spoke harshly to my sister, Lacey, and Trevor, knowing it was unfair to turn all the frustration I felt toward the board on the people I cared about most. But I did it anyway.
I’d been told to keep it all confidential, which doubled as a convenient excuse to avoid telling anyone anything, to avoid admitting that everything happening was outside my control.
I spent years being coached by Edmund, and now I was complete: a killer of projects, a powerless warrior, and now, technically, a winner.
I waited for the whole team to leave and then I walked home to pack, sneering at the earlier optimistic version of myself.
I changed out of my Lettercat t-shirt into a plain black one, and threw some clothes into a suitcase.
There was a bright green toothbrush next to my sink, Lacey’s.
I put it in the pink and red striped pouch she’d left on the counter, zipped it, and tucked it into the overnight bag on the floor of my room before I left.
I texted Ella and asked her to please get it back to Lacey. I told her where I was going, and then I was gone.
I called Lacey the next morning, with the misguided notion that she might be able to separate me from the person I was there in New York to be. I didn’t know how bad it was until we hung up, until I got into the Corday Ford offices.
I did a lot of handshaking and smiling, saying my name to people whose names had already escaped from my brain. All of them older than me, all dressed in business casual; it’s different in New York. I felt like I was doing old-school Zuckerberg cosplay in my jeans and hoodie.
“And I believe you already know Mike,” Edmund told me.
“Mike Eckert,” said the man who accompanied Edmund on his surprise visit to our Santa Cruz codeathon. “I’m the COO here at Corday Ford.”
“Good to see you again,” I said, matching his grip and his smile.
“You and the team really impressed me out there,” he told me. “I’m looking forward to collaborating.”
“Me too,” I said. It didn’t feel like lying anymore, it was just me playing a part. And I couldn’t be merely present and resigned to my fate. No, I had to be excited by it. Pumped, even.