I Am in Here (6 page)

I like basic colors for basic things. When things get clear I must not see a quiet color like brown. I am looking at yellow because I feel clear, but when I get all confused I have to start looking for my DVD. DVDs can have smooth color effects. They are really noisy in a good way. Not at all confusing. But I get so confused when I hear someone ask me something too direct. I like to see bluish colors when I feel relaxed. I don't mind it now, but don't show me brown when I am mad!

To this day, not one piece of clothing in Elizabeth's closet is brown. Why take a chance? This passage helped me understand why she watched so many videos as a youngster. She effectively managed her stress by watching Disney videos whose primary colors soothed her.

“Show Me” Strong Evidence of Pain Relief

A company needs to have a compelling value proposition which remedies a critical pain point for its customers. In other words, the company's product is a must-have solution. When that dynamic exists in a large and growing market, I'm an investor.

For Elizabeth, Soma offered that kind of pain relief when she taught Elizabeth to communicate on the letterboard. It was a must-have solution.

Today Soma continues to offer pain relief to Elizabeth because they have such a special relationship. Soma is probably the closest thing that Elizabeth will ever have to a therapist. I know this because I recently asked Elizabeth if she wanted to go to a local therapist and she typed, “
No, my business is private
.” But when Elizabeth “talks” with Soma, nothing is out of bounds. Elizabeth is curious about all the same things that other thirteen-year-olds are curious about, and I have found myself blushing during their sessions.

In a recent visit with Soma, we tried to get a better understanding of how to help Elizabeth when she is in distress. Like most of us, she finds it hard to communicate in the midst of an emotional outburst. Putting a letterboard in front of her when she is upset compounds the problem.

This discussion has given me some comfort and guidance to better deal with the meltdowns that occur. To know that crying releases energy for Elizabeth and is not usually related to sorrow makes it easier for me to handle. I still have a hard time when she bangs her head, even though she says it doesn't cause her pain.

“Show Me” Fire in the Belly

Entrepreneurs and autism moms are among the most driven, passionate people I have ever met. We have a saying in the venture capital business: a successful entrepreneur must be willing to chew through a wall. I know many autism moms who have done that and more to help their kids.

One entrepreneur I had the honor of working with early in my career came to this country from the Czech Republic with three dollars in his pocket. He quickly got a job at a local supermarket and learned the secret of growing a business with its own working capital. In short, the business collected from its
customers immediately and paid its vendors in thirty days. This entrepreneur bought a small deli and then a bigger store. When I met him, he had a twenty-million-dollar operation. With some venture capital from my firm, he grew the company to a one-billion-dollar enterprise. This man chewed through many walls.

Even this type of relentless dedication, though, can pale in comparison to that of the autism moms who chew through walls called Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) to get the services their children need. IEP meetings are held annually to determine the services necessary for a child with special needs. Although I have never had an unpleasant IEP meeting, many autism moms face daunting bureaucratic hurdles and even need to bring their lawyers with them in order to get appropriate services for their children.

Some of my closest friends are relentless autism moms whom I have never met face-to-face. We have met on the internet, creating our own virtual network of support. I know that I can email them at any hour with some panicked question and they will send it out on our network to get the answer. Mostly, we talk about poop. Healthy poop is a holy grail in autism land. Enough said.

“Show Me” the Courage to Make Hard Decisions

The process of gathering data and making a decision with imperfect information is eerily similar in venture investments and autism treatments. In both cases, I look to balance risk and reward. Just as there is no risk-free investment, there is no risk-free treatment for a child. Almost every drug package insert includes warnings of complications as extreme as deafness, blindness, and death. These complications are extremely rare, but they do happen.

The decision to place a ten-million-dollar bet on a start-up company pales in comparison to making the decision to stick an experimental intravenous needle in Elizabeth's arm.

The autism journey is an emotional roller coaster of hard decisions. We hear about a promising new treatment and have to decide whether it is worth the risk. The data may say that it only helps a small percentage of children, but if it helps Elizabeth, that's all that matters.

After agonizing over a new treatment decision, my hopes soar. Sometimes the hope even reaches my subconscious, and I dream about Elizabeth speaking to me. We do the new treatment and we wait expectantly. Often the results are that nothing seems to happen. We did years of chelation, hyperbaric oxygen treatment, and vision therapy, all with no results.

After the hard decision to start a treatment comes the hard decision about stopping. If we did it for another month, would it help her? With my hopes dashed, I have a good cry, dust myself off, and search for the next promising treatment.

These entries from my journal tell of one roller coaster ride that was particularly painful:

  
Voices
  

Not a day goes by

That I don't feel the need to cry

And question why

I am trapped in here

Hearing voices all around me

But not be able to break free

And join them

I am frustrated because I can't speak. Why me? I don't get it. Why do people have disabilities?

“Show Me” Skin in the Game

Despite my best efforts to keep my two worlds separate, sometimes they converge. Such was the case with a company called LockStar.

The year was 1999, the height of the internet bubble. Companies defined as three guys and a dog in a garage with a business
plan written on a paper napkin were getting money thrown at them at lofty valuations. With thirty-five employees, LockStar was further along than the napkin stage. In fact, it was well on its way to building an exciting e-commerce security company.

The CEO, Jane, was a smart, energetic Stanford MBA who had been successful with two other start-ups, and we immediately hit it off. Three months after my fund led the first institutional investment round in LockStar, Jane took me aside after a board meeting and handed me an invitation to her wedding with a smile and a wink.

“Ever been to a Jewban wedding?”

“Excuse me?” I asked, confused.

“I'm a Cuban Jew, a Jewban. Let's just say that it will be a lively wedding. Prepare yourself.”

It
was
a lively wedding, with lots of good food, music, laughter, and love. But life can sometimes throw some harrowing challenges at us before we even have time to count our blessings. Three short months after the wedding, I got a phone call from the chairman of LockStar's board. Being a cancer survivor himself, he had a hard time getting the words out.

“Jane has cancer.”

At thirty-one years old, she had an aggressive form of breast cancer and was in surgery within forty-eight hours. Following the surgery, Jane needed to undergo months of grueling radiation and chemotherapy treatments. Despite our pleadings for her to take a leave from the company, Jane continued to manage it. The company was like a family, and she didn't want to let them down. Jane would come to work with a wool cap covering her bald head, carrying a trash can to meetings just in case she needed to barf. This took “chewing through a wall” to a new level.

In fact, it was a level too far. Both the chairman, Jim, and I grew worried that Jane was literally working herself to death, and we had to do something. After a painful review of all the options, we fired her to save her life. She knew that it was the right thing, and there were tears all around.

As Jane stepped aside, I became acting CEO, not because I was the most qualified but because I had the most “skin”—invested dollars—in the game and I was within driving distance of the headquarters. Jim and I worked closely with the shaken team, and there was more drama than a production of
Les Misérables
. The company earned some lofty accolades, including being named one of the 100 Hot Companies of 1999.

Today, despite physicians' predictions to the contrary, Jane has two beautiful, healthy children. She is a How Person. Her days are spent taking exquisite care of her children and helping others in need, including giving hope to young women who are diagnosed with breast cancer. A glutton for punishment, she is also looking to get back into the entrepreneurial game.

Jane and I have grown close over the years; you could say that we have become soul mates in this crazy thing called life. This is not the typical outcome between a venture capitalist and an entrepreneur. But our unusual journey together broke down the normal barriers: I was there through cancer, and she has been there through autism. We all did our best to make LockStar a success, even though in the end the company did not survive. But Jane did, and my life is infinitely better because of it.

“Show Me” Integrity

In my years of working in venture capital, I've seen both examples of great integrity and the complete lack of it. There was the
honest CEO who told the board that the new product wasn't working and that the business plan would need to be completely rewritten. This admission of a mistake, especially one that could have cost him his job, took guts. The board saw this integrity and stuck by him. On the other hand, there was the CEO who bugged his own conference room and then listened in on the board's confidential executive sessions when it was discussing his performance. After discovering his espionage, the board had no choice but to fire him. The company later needed to post armed guards at the headquarters.