Fishbowl (31 page)

‘There's more to do.'

‘There'll always be more to do. It doesn't need be perfect, Andrei. It doesn't need to do everything right now that it might be able to do in the end. It only needs to work.'

‘It can be better.'

‘Remember how you started Fishbowl. If you'd waited until it was as good as it could be, you still wouldn't have launched.'

That was different. When he had started Fishbowl, Andrei had had nothing to lose. ‘There's no video functionality,' he said. ‘And the audio functionality is crude.'

‘You don't need either. Plenty of people just write. That's all the Fish Farmers do right now.'

‘We need more. You can't teach a kid to read if he has to read everything you say when he's teaching him. You need someone who can talk to him.'

‘And that might take you another ten years. What you've got already is awesome, Andrei. It's more than awesome – it's fucking Stakhanovite! Let's use it and get the money to do the rest of the development. Stages, Andrei. Putting in place the next model of advertising was always the first step. We do that, and that gives us the funds to develop the rest.'

‘I guess so.'

‘You need to start testing it.'

‘We test all the time.'

‘Externally? On Fishbowl?'

Andrei shook his head.

‘Start.'

Andrei knew that it was time. He didn't need Chris to tell him that what he had was just about good enough as a starting point. He had been prevaricating over unleashing the program. Something was holding him back. Maybe it was just that this thing was so big, so special, so precious, that he didn't want to take the risk of it failing until it was pefect.

‘This is it, Andrei!' Chris grinned. ‘Watch out. You're about to change the world.'

They started testing on Fishbowl. Four months later, they were done. Watched by Chris, Jenn McGrealy and the Manhattanites, Andrei symbolically switched off the lights in the office on Manhattan Avenue.

The Manhattan Project ran for a month shy of three years, a fearsomely short period for what it accomplished. It cost just over half a billion dollars, and left each of its researchers a multimillionaire.

Andrei Koss was twenty-seven years old. It was not quite seven years since he had founded Fishbowl. His two co-founders had moved on from the company. He was known to the outside world as a brilliant, visionary, somewhat introspective tech leader who appeared at selected conferences, occasionally gave an interview, and had an intense manner in private conversation that some people saw as passionate and others as arrogant. His company, Fishbowl, was a big beast of the internet jungle, one that was setting the pace in the world of social media and hadn't been scared to introduce the controversial Farming approach, which was fast becoming the standard on the net for high-value products and services.

People thought they knew what the company was about. But no one, including two of Fishbowl's own board members, was ready for what it was about to unleash now.

35

ROBERT LEIB GLANCED
at Pete Muller, who looked back at him with a frown of disbelief. Andrei had started the board meeting by saying there was a project he wanted to tell them about. Then he had proceeded to describe a project that had been running, apparently, for years, and which had cost … which had cost a sum that must have included a mistake with a decimal place. Or two.

Apart from Andrei and Chris, Muller and Leib were the only ones at the board meeting. One of the seats had never been filled and a second had been vacant since Kevin Embley had left the company almost two years earlier.

‘When
did you say you started this project?' demanded Leib.

‘Three years ago,' said Andrei.

‘Was that after we joined the board?' demanded Muller.

‘Around that time.'

‘I don't know what's worse,' said Leib. ‘If you started after we joined, or took my money without even telling me it was already happening. Chris, I assume from the fact that you haven't said anything that you knew about this?'

Chris nodded.

‘And you were happy that Pete and I were told nothing about this?'

‘It was a software development project,' said Chris. ‘Fishbowl has hundreds of development projects running. I can't recall you ever having wanted the details before.'

‘I don't think it has hundreds that cost … what did you say, Andrei?' said Muller. ‘Five hundred and fourteen million dollars? Is that what you said?'

‘Cheap,' said Chris.

Muller ignored him. ‘Is that what you said it cost, Andrei?'

‘It's complete now,' said Andrei. ‘I expected that we might end up spending even more, but the team we pulled together exceeded expectations.'

‘And what team was this?' demanded Leib.

‘Linguists, artificial intelligence experts, graphics experts, programmers. For artificial intelligence and linguistics we drew on the most advanced academic labs in the world. MIT, Stanford, Imperial College, Cambridge—'

‘It was a who's who,' said Chris. ‘Plus we got seven of the nine top programmers in the Valley.'

‘How?' said Muller

‘Why do you think this cost five hundred million?'

‘And what exactly did you achieve?' demanded Leib, who was trying to balance the anger he could feel boiling away in him with the knowledge that if Andrei Koss spent half a billion dollars on a project then there was a good chance that something rather useful had come out of it.

‘I think that's what Andrei was trying to tell you.'

Andrei nodded. ‘The Manhattan Project—'

‘The
what?
' said Muller.

Andrei shrugged. ‘We had an office on Manhattan Avenue.'

‘We're changing the world,' said Chris. ‘Oppenheimer did it with a bomb. We're doing it with something infinitely more powerful.'

‘I've never met an internet entrepreneur who didn't think he was changing the world,' retorted Muller.

Chris grinned. ‘Listen to this, Pete, and tell us if we're wrong.'

Muller exchanged another glance with Leib.

They listened as Andrei took them through a summary of the Manhattan Project. Leib was expressionless throughout. Muller sat with his arms folded, a frown lingering on his face.

When Andrei was finished, there was a moment of awestruck silence.

‘You were right,' said Leib eventually. ‘If you really have managed to do this, you'll change the world. Question is, what's it going to look like once it's changed?'

‘Buckle up!' said Chris. ‘We're about to find out.'

‘And as far as the business is concerned …?'

‘Can you imagine how hard it will be to replicate this? The days of advertising in any of the ways we know it today are gone. This is the future, gentlemen, and we're the first ones to arrive.'

‘And we can use it for other things,' said Andrei. ‘It's not just for advertising. There's a whole range of applications.'

‘Sure,' said Muller, ‘but are you certain people are going to be prepared to use a website where they don't know whether they're talking to a real person or a sales program?'

‘Farming didn't stop them,' said Chris.

‘But this is on a mass scale.'

‘To the individual, it's still on an individual scale. We see the mass. They don't.'

‘Is it legal?' asked Leib.

‘It's no different in principle to Farming,' replied Andrei, ‘which we know is legal.'

‘Maybe on this scale it isn't,' said Muller.

Andrei looked at him. ‘Why not?'

‘Because it's automated?'

‘That's irrelevant. We have to stay factual and not mispresent. If we're doing that, this is a service, Pete. It's about bringing relevant information to people at the exact time when they want it. Look, to me this is about Deep Connectedness – extreme, radical Deep Connectedness. Advertising is only one small aspect of it. There are all kinds of other stuff, all kinds of other forms of connectedness it can facilitate. But if you want to focus on advertising, fine – think about advertising as we know it, and it's full of deceit. It tries to create emotional attachments to things
that have no emotional content. We're doing the opposite. We're putting factual information out in a way that's relevant to the interests people have told us they have.'

‘That's what you say.'

‘That's what it is.'

‘But it looks like it's coming from someone they know. An actual person who exists.'

‘Is an endorsement from a celebrity any better?,' said Chris. ‘They're made to look like the celebrity likes the thing he's advertising and has maybe even used it. Well, that's legal. It happens all the time.'

Robert Leib heaved a deep sigh and shook his head a couple of times. ‘Well, I have to say, this would have to be the most dysfunctional board I've ever sat on—'

‘I wouldn't even call this a board,' muttered Muller.

‘If you two guys think it's OK to spend five hundred and fourteen million dollars in cash – most of which, I assume, came from me and my partners – without even so much as telling me or Pete here what was going on over a period of three years, I don't know what you'd think isn't OK. Andrei, I'm going to tell you, I've never been treated like this. So I'm angry. I'm damn angry.' Leib paused. ‘But on the other hand, if you and your team have done what you really say you've done, then all I can says is …' Leib threw up his hands. ‘I'm speechless.'

‘The future's arrived, Bob,' said Chris. ‘The future's right here.'

‘Let me show you an example,' said Andrei.

He projected his computer on the screen and pulled up two home pages, side by side. ‘One of these is a person's real home page. The other is a program palotl's.'

‘That means a computer program generated it,' said Chris. ‘Not a person. This is what we call a PP, a program palotl. A program independently generated everything you see there, including the photographs.'

Leib and Muller peered closer.

‘Here's a conversation between them,' said Andrei, switching to a chat trail. ‘Again, one of them is a PP. Can you tell which one?'

Leib read down the screen.

Pete was still chewing over the way he had been treated. ‘Why weren't we told?' he said suddenly. ‘I'm assuming you had a reason, Andrei. I'm assuming it didn't just slip your mind.'

‘We didn't think you'd believe it could be done,' said Chris. ‘We thought—'

‘Chris, I asked Andrei,' said Muller. ‘Do you want to let him answer?'

‘I'm giving you the answer.'

‘Let him answer. Just shut the fuck up, Chris, and let him answer.'

‘What the fuck's wrong with you, Pete?'

‘Just fucking let him answer.'

‘Guys!' said Leib. ‘Andrei, do you want to answer Pete's question?'

‘It's like Chris said,' said Andrei. ‘I thought that if you thought your money was being used on this, Bob, you'd try to make me end it or be less aggressive, cut back on the spending somewhat, or you would have tried to track it against some kind of business targets, which would have fatally compromised the project. I apologize if I was wrong.'

Leib shook his head thoughtfully. ‘No, you're not wrong,' he murmured.

Andrei glanced at Muller. ‘That's the reason.'

‘Well, I don't know if I can serve on a board where this kind of thing happens,' said Muller.

‘I agree,' said Leib. ‘It shows a basic lack of trust and respect.'

‘I apologize again if that's the impression,' said Andrei. ‘On the other hand, Bob, what you just said to me is that you had a basic lack of trust in me, a lack of respect for my judgement, and you would have tried to get me to scale back on the Manhattan Project, or even shut it down.'

Pete Muller stood up. ‘I can't work on a board like this. If you don't want me to help think through the big decisions – and I can't see one bigger than this – then I don't see that I really have a role.'

‘I'm really sorry to hear you say that, Pete,' said Andrei.

‘Pete, sit down,' said Chris.

‘Don't tell me to sit down!'

‘Pete, don't be so petty.'

‘So
petty
?'

‘Look at the bigger picture.'

‘Shut the fuck up, Chris!' shouted Muller, hands clenched in fury.

‘Don't tell me to shut the fuck up!' yelled Chris, getting to his feet too.

‘You ought to have known better.'

‘What ought I to have known better?'

‘No, you're right. Why would I expect you to know better? Why would I expect Chris-fucking-Hamer to know better?'

‘You fucking moron, Muller! Andrei has just stewarded this motherfucker of a project through from concept to completion in three years, and even though you know what the implications of this are, all you can think about is whether you were fucking
told?
!'

Muller stood staring at him for a moment. ‘If I want to be told about stuff when it's done,' he said through gritted teeth, ‘I'll read about it in the newspaper.'

‘I'll be sure to send you one,' said Chris, sitting down and turning away from him. ‘Hard copy, which is what you probably still read.'

Muller turned to Andrei. ‘I resign from your board, effective right now. From the way you run your company, Andrei, it doesn't look like you need one.' He looked at Leib and stood for a moment longer, then shook his head in disgust and walked out.

The door slammed. A pregnant silence followed.

‘Are you leaving too?' asked Andrei, looking at Leib.

‘That depends,' replied Leib. ‘Is there anything else I don't know about?'

‘Nothing significant.'

Leib smiled wryly. ‘Would you have described this as significant?'

‘Yes,' said Andrei.

‘And is this going to happen again?'

‘I don't have any plans for anything on the same scale.'

‘What if you did in the future?'

‘Would you trust me that I know what my team is capable of?'

‘You're not omniscient, Andrei. You can make mistakes. You can overreach yourself. Anyone can. That's why you have a board – not to tell you what to do, but to help think things through, even challenge you occasionally.'

Andrei frowned. ‘That's fair enough.'

‘What I can say,' said Leib, ‘is that, having seen this, I would have a different attitude. I might not be quite so quick to assume that something can't be done. I'd give you more of a hearing than I probably would have. So I need to think about how I would have reacted. But you need to think about the way you behaved, too. You really, really need to think about the way you handled this, Andrei. It doesn't become you.' Leib paused. ‘You know perfectly well that you have the votes on this board. No one can stop you doing what you want to do. That means you can behave like a dictator if you want. It's up to you. For what it's worth, I don't think that would be a very wise approach. I don't think it would show a lot of foresight. The reason Pete and I – well, me anyway – are here is that we might be able to give you some advice. We might have some thoughts. But we can't give you thoughts if we don't know what we're supposed to be thinking about.'

‘Who needs Pete's thoughts?' muttered Chris. ‘He's a complete fucking moron.'

‘He's not a complete fucking moron.'

‘An incomplete fucking moron, then.'

‘Andrei, when you get to a situation when you've got a guy like Pete Muller walking away from your board, that is not something to be proud of. I'm going to be blunt with you. That's a reflection of mismanagement on your part.'

Chris snorted.

‘I'll see if I can get him back.'

‘If he's so smart he would have seen this achievement for what it is.'

‘Chris, enough!' shouted Leib. ‘Shut the fuck up!' He turned back to Andrei. ‘Personally, what I'm saying is, I need to know about something like this. I need you to show me that trust.'

Andrei was watching him. He had listened to everything Leib said, absorbing it, without saying a word.

The venture capitalist considered his next move. He didn't want to leave Andrei's board, whether or not he was told everything he should have been about the Manhattan Project. For a start, he had a lot of his investors' money – and his own money – tied up in Fishbowl, and he was keen to do what he could to make sure it earned the best return it could. But, more importantly – because he had no doubt he would make a spectacular return on his investment, whether or not he had any personal involvement from this point on – Robert Leib had the feeling that Fishbowl was only beginning, and that somehow the combination of Andrei Koss and Chris Hamer – the visionary and the iconoclast, as he thought of them, the thinker and the rebel – had the power to do things that really would change the world, or at least shake things up in quite interesting ways.