The Start-Up (5 page)

“Eleven-fifteen? Oh my God, why are we awake? We just went to bed, like, four hours ago.”

“Six, actually. Five if you take out the hour we were hooking up before you passed out.”

“Oops,” she giggled. “Why don’t you come back to bed so I can finish what I started?”

He turned to face her. She’d tossed away the covers and was propped fully naked on her side, pushing her enormous breasts forward in a pose she’d probably seen in a magazine that told her it was irresistible. Her bleached blond hair was a mess and her eyeliner was smeared. She had a nice body but was overly tanned and he typically liked girls with thinner faces than her round cheeks allowed.

“Can’t,” he said as he turned back to the mirror to finish tying his tie.

“Have a really important meeting downtown.”

“More important than me?” She pouted coyly.

“Listen, I don’t have time to take you home, but I left forty dollars and the number for a cab company next to your purse. They’re usually here in ten minutes.”

She let out a sigh, realizing she wasn’t going to get him to come back to bed, and searched the sheets for her underwear.

“Do you have shorts or something I can borrow so I don’t have to walk out in my dress and heels from last night?”

“When would I get them back from you?”

She stopped searching and looked at him. He was still looking in the mirror. She rolled her eyes and said sarcastically, “Um, I don’t know. The next time I see you?”

He final y turned and crossed the room back to his desk. “I real y don’t know when that will be. I’ve got a ton going on. There’s a back door if you turn left out of my room; that takes you to the outside stairs. Just tell the cabbie to meet you in the back and no one will see you.” The girl’s mouth fell open as she sat naked on his bed. “Oh my God, you’re actually serious.”

He didn’t respond.

“Oh my God,” she repeated, now covering her chest with the sheet while she hurriedly collected her clothes, feeling her cheeks burn and hot tears start to well.

T. J. was putting his things into a laptop case and running through a mental checklist of what he needed to bring. He really didn’t have time to deal with drama from a girl whose name he only knew because he’d searched her purse while she was sleeping and found a University of Santa Clara ID card. She was a sophomore, apparently, and had been the most attractive girl at the bar he’d gone to after the party last night. She was an easy score—he ordered her a shot of Patrón and she was completely impressed. Three more and they were making out on the dance floor, his hand up her skirt for all to see. They were half undressed by the time the cab pulled up to his frat house, that freshman Adam passed out in the front seat. He’d told the cabbie to take him back to his dorm and given him an extra tip.

To defray her disappointment, he said, “Don’t get so stressed. It’s only sex. We used protection. It was fun.” Having collected all his things, he turned to face her and smiled a warm, charismatic grin. He touched her cheek. “It was really wonderful meeting you, Sandy. You’re beautiful, and I had a really good time getting to know you.” She blushed uncontrollably, sniffled and nodded, but couldn’t bring herself to say anything. He held her gaze for a moment, then turned away.

“Will you lock the door on your way out? Thanks so much, babe.” His
BMW
3 Series Sedan beeped as he unlocked it and climbed inside.

He loved this car, mostly because he’d had to earn it himself. His parents were adamant about not raising spoiled rich kids, so when he and Lisa had turned sixteen, they’d only been willing to buy each of them a “reasonable” car—a Volvo or Subaru or Saab—something safe and high quality, but nothing

“brand-y.” So, he’d worked hard during summer internships in finance, first in New York and then Hong Kong, and then invested his earnings into funds he researched with a family friend who was a senior partner at Goldman Sachs.

His investments had performed exceptionally well (beginner’s luck, he’d told everyone, though he was in fact incredibly proud), and he’d used the proceeds to upgrade his Subaru Outback to a
BMW
with al the highest-end features: built-in Bluetooth and navigation system, Bose speakers, and satellite radio.

He’d been resentful of his parents’ frugality at first. It was hard being the only kid in high school without a nice car, and he thought the decision was incredibly hypocritical given the eight collector’s sports cars his father had in their extra garage at home. But, in retrospect, they were right. The satisfaction of knowing he’d gotten this car and its amenities on his own made him feel a lot better than if they’d been handed to him.

As he drove toward University Café, where he was meeting Tom Fenway, T.J. felt his heart racing with excitement. Tom was the founder and
CEO
of Kadence, a music content generator that he’d sold to Apple for a billion dollars in the late nineties. He’d since become an Angel Investor, giving money to early-stage start-ups he thought were promising, and growing his wealth in the process (more than a dozen of the companies he’d invested in had done as well or even better than Kadence).

T. J. had never met Tom—he was notorious for shunning the Atherton social scene—but knew through the gossip chain that Tom was starting an incubator on Sand Hill Road, selecting promising young talent and grooming them with money and advice to start new companies.

T. J. was determined to become one of Tom’s investments, and this was the meeting that was going to seal the deal.

T
om patted the trunk of his Tesla Roadster affectionately as he clicked the door locked and headed toward University Café. He loved this car. Finally, smart engineering, smoking hot design, and environmental consciousness had fused into a vehicle he could be totally psyched about driving. He’d met Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla Motors, years ago at a Cool Products Expo, and they’d bonded over the Grateful Dead. When Elon called him a year later asking him to invest in their new company, it had been a no-brainer.

“Never turn down a Dead Head,” was Tom’s only strict investment thesis.

Tom was meeting T. J. Bristol, the son of Ted Bristol, an old friend from the early days of Kadence. Ted had been an early investor and a great advisor, especially during the sale. He was smart as a tack and had helped Tom structure the deal so that Kadence’s users didn’t get screwed when Apple took over. They were pretty different socially—Ted was an icon in the Silicon Valley social elite, where Tom happily avoided any event where flip-flops and shorts were not socially acceptable—but he liked Ted well enough and was always happy to talk to a kid interested in entrepreneurship.

Tom chuckled as he spotted the kid that must surely be Ted’s son through the window. T. J. was decked out in a fancy suit, carrying an expensive leather briefcase and typing something frantically on his phone.

He didn’t notice as Tom walked up to the table.

“T. J.?” Tom, wearing khaki shorts, a Hawaiian-print Tommy Bahama button-down, and Rainbow brand flip-flops, stuck out his hand.

T. J. took a moment to process the character in front of him, and then leapt up from his chair. “Mr. Fenway! Hello! T. J. Bristol. It’s really wonderful to meet you, sir. I’m sorry I—”

“No sweat. I try to keep a low profile.” Tom smiled casually and took a seat.

T. J. grinned. His father had told him Tom was “chill” but he hadn’t expected someone quite so … casual.

“So, T. J., what’s on your mind?” Tom said, leaning back in his chair and smiling to the waitress to let her know they’d order whenever she was ready. He glanced at the television hanging on the wall behind her: Animal Planet. Excellent. Last month, Tom had complained to the owner of University Café that the only thing they ever played on the television was
CNBC
, which, in his opinion, created a hostile atmosphere. There was nothing more depressing than the exaggerated reality of the twenty-four-hour news cycle, he’d explained, and cafés like this one ought to inspire the entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley to be more innovative, not more mired in the what-could-go-wrong ideas pitched by newscasters. The owner had laughed and promised to test other channels. Tom had suggested Cartoon Network, but Animal Planet wasn’t a bad compromise.

“Well,” T. J. said, “I’ll get straight to the point. I heard you were setting up an incubator, and I’d like to get involved.” So, that’s what this was about. Tom chuckled and smiled. “I am starting an incubator! It’s going to be fantastic. I’m such a believer in positive energy, and I think there’s nothing better than getting a lot of really smart, ambitious, creative minds together in one space and seeing what happens.”

“I agree. Completely. And I’d really like to be part of it.”

“Awesome. What do you want to do?” Tom asked as he directed his attention to the waitress, who had approached the table. “I’ll take the turkey avocado Panini and a—what kind of beers do you have on draft?”

“Fat Tire, Budweiser, Stella—”

“Fat Tire. Perfect. T. J., what are you having?”

“I’ll have the grilled chicken Caesar salad, dressing on the side. And sparkling water, please.”

Tom nodded (what had become of college kids these days, ordering dressing on the side and sparkling water?) and smiled at the waitress.

“Thank you, my dear,” he said, before turning back to T. J. “Where were we?”“You were asking what I’d like to do at your incubator,” T. J. said, “and I was going to say that I’m open to hear where you think my skills would be most useful.” T. J. hadn’t expected this to be so easy. It was like Tom was asking him to write his own job description.

“Well, what are your skills?” Tom sat back in his chair and tried to stay focused on T. J., though he was secretly watching the television screen behind his head, where a lion was stalking a herd of elephants somewhere in Africa.

“I’m very strong both quantitatively and qualitatively.” T. J. had rehearsed his answer in front of the mirror this morning. “I’ve done two investment banking internships, in New York and in Hong Kong, but I’ve supplemented that rigorous quantitative analysis with minors in economics and French, which have given me an opportunity to explore softer skills.” The camera panned in on a baby elephant. Uh-oh.

“The economics degree gave you softer skills?” Tom lifted his eyebrows.

“Well, compared to the rigor of hardcore investment models, economics is awfully theoretical and fuzzy.”

Tom nodded; perhaps that was true. He’d never studied much of either.

T. J. waited for him to say something, but Tom had turned to the waitress who was holding their lunch.

“So,” T. J. said, trying to refocus his lunch partner. “I think I could fit in anywhere.”

Tom took a bite of his sandwich, and chewed carefully. “Do you want to be an entrepreneur?”

“More than anything,” T. J. said. “In the long term, I want to be a venture capitalist, but I think the best way to be a good investor in start-ups is to start something of your own, you know? Besides, after two summers working in huge companies with asshole bosses, I really think I’m better off working for myself.”

The lion was getting close, hiding behind a bush.

“Sure,” Tom offered. “Working for yourself is great. Set your own hours, make the decisions. It can be a lot of pressure, though,” Tom said, half listening as he looked past T. J.’s head to the television.

T. J. laughed. “Oh, I think I can handle the pressure. I had a project last summer where I had forty-eight hours to finish a one-hundred-fifty-page pitch deck for a critical client meeting. I literally slept for four hours over two days—didn’t leave the office, didn’t shower, had all my meals delivered to my desk—but it went off without a hitch.” The TV cut off right as the lion was closing in on the herd, snapping Tom back to the conversation. “What’s a pitch deck?” Tom glanced at the waitress, then at the television, indicating she ought to turn it back on, which she did, as T. J. continued. “A pitch deck is something you make in PowerPoint, then print out and bind and give to clients. It explains the costs and benefits of a deal. So, there are a ton of charts and graphs explaining everything.”

“So, you came up with one-hundred-fifty pages of charts and graphs in forty-eight hours?” The adult elephants saw the lion and started to charge, the mother placing herself between the lion and the baby but—it cut out again. Dammit!

“Oh, no. I checked the spelling and the alignment and made sure there weren’t any typos. The charts and everything are pretty standard for the company and just have to be updated and pasted into the deck.”

“Ah.” Tom beckoned the waitress. “What’s going on with the television?”

“I’m not sure, Mr. Fenway. Let me check to see why it keeps cutting out.”“Thanks, love.” Tom smiled and looked back at T. J. “Here’s the thing, T.

J. I think there are a lot of people who think they want to be entrepreneurs, but they don’t really. I mean, starting a company is tough. You have to put your life and reputation into your idea, to live and breathe it all the time.

And no matter how great you think your idea is when you start out, you question it sometimes. It can be easy to get sidelined by people who tell you it’s impossible.”

T. J. smiled. He’d heard this before. “I totally understand that. I think growing up in Silicon Valley has given me a great perspective on the commitment it takes. And having been through two corporate internships, I know I have the motivation to stick with it.” Tom nodded. This kid was obviously bright and polished, but he didn’t have the spark. It wasn’t his fault—most kids didn’t. “So, what’s your idea?”

“My idea?”

“Yeah. You want to join the incubator, so what business idea are you working on?” The TV flickered back to life. Now the lion was devouring the baby elephant. The rest of the herd had vanished.

“Well, I don’t actually have an idea yet. I think that’s what’s so great about the incubator. It gives you time to really think about an idea.” Tom chuckled at this. “Oh, I don’t know that sitting around in an office on Sand Hill Road is going to suddenly inspire an idea!” Again! The TV cut out. What was going on? Tom sat forward in his chair and looked around the room. Was anyone else seeing this? A girl at a table in the corner was holding—was that a remote? No, it was her phone, but she was pointing it at the television. What was she doing? “Excuse me a second, T. J.”