The Sensory Deception (8 page)

“However,” he said, “we fund businesses, not ecological concerns. Strike one: you’re academics. Strike two: you haven’t had a real-world job in over a decade, since…” He flipped to the front of the document, to the résumés. “Since you spent a summer at a cannery in Alaska.” He stared down at Farley for a few seconds and added, “But I don’t see a strike three. Gloria thinks you have something. I think it remains to be seen, but the patents the three of you are accumulating impress me.”

McKay motioned to the sharp-looking woman, who said, “Your audience is too small. Now, this isn’t a criticism; it’s advice we deliver at this table every day: You need to think bigger.” She opened the business plan to pictures captured from the bird and polar bear VR prototypes. “Too much
National Geographic
, not enough Disney. See what I mean? You own intellectual property that can disrupt an industry, but your road map lacks the killer application.”

Farley could feel the “I told you so” from Gloria. She’d ranted this point to death. He said, “Experiencing nature at its most wild is the greatest story possible.”

“But not the most profitable.” The golfer leaned to the side, still carrying himself like the wise stag offering advice to the young buck. “I want you to rework your business plan to include more mainstream topics. Study the top-selling movies and video games. A full-blown sports VR would be a huge release: NFL, NASCAR, hockey, Navy SEALS—you could license James Bond.”

Farley looked around the table. Bupin was still marking up his copy of the business plan. Ringo had perked up. Farley didn’t need to look at Chopper. Farley exhaled and leaned forward, sending a message only Chopper would understand. It might annoy Gloria and would certainly offend the partners, but nothing is born without making a mess.

Chopper said, “Or pornography.” It was a challenge, not a question.

The VCs twisted their heads at him, except for Bupin, who glanced up and then returned to the document.

Flames blasted from Gloria’s eyes, directed at Farley, not Chopper.

Farley slid his copy of the business plan off the table and under his arm. Then he pushed his chair away from the table and rose. At six and a half feet tall, even from across the room, he towered over Joel McKay. Next to him, Ringo stood, too. Chopper didn’t move.

Bupin looked up.

Farley said, “Gloria worked very hard to devise a profitable plan under the constraints that I laid out. This is a nature experience. We have to agree on that, or we can’t continue.”

“This could be a huge opportunity. You’re showing a lack of business acumen.” McKay sighed. “But we’re here, and we have the conference room booked for the whole hour. Let’s work through what you have. We can talk about spin-offs later.”

“Thank you,” Farley said, tipping his head in a slight bow to McKay. He pulled his chair back to the table.

Gloria cleared her throat like an indulgent kindergarten teacher. She waited for each person’s eyes to turn to her, and as they did, she rewarded them with a gentle smile.

Farley said, “The battle of a sperm whale and a colossal squid is definitively the greatest competition on earth. Comparing this epic battle to a NASCAR VR is like comparing
Call of Duty
to
Pong
.”

“If we choose to invest in your company,” the bald man said, “we have some conditions. Series A funding is for development and prototyping. Series B funding will be contingent on evaluation of those results.”

“Yes,” Bupin said with a toothy smile. “Entertainment products require hype and buzz. You have the one chance to make first impression. Maybe you have one too many horses in this rodeo.”

Farley had no idea what he was talking about.

“This road map, your destinations are upside down. This horse may not float. You have VR helmet and gloves first, you call it a beta release, followed by the complete product, the arcade with bathtubs. This approach will dilute hype, reduce marketing opportunity, drown buzz, dull sting. You have in this thick document a development road map, not a product road map. Do you understand why your dog will have trouble hunting in this rodeo?”

Farley felt as if this eccentric man were speaking a different language. He appealed to Gloria. She rolled her eyes.

“Let me translate,” Gloria said. “Bupin, stop me if I’m wrong. You recommend that we do one full launch for Moby-Dick, our strongest product, featuring the VirtExReality Arcades. Then, on the heels of that buzz, release the take-home version consisting of the VirtExReality helmet and gloves. Is that correct?”

“Yes, this is what I said.” Bupin nodded his head, more of a bobble than a nod, really. “You should have your first rodeo
before
your second. Was I unclear?”

Farley shifted his attention back to Gloria. She’d said something that he had been hoping to hear since the day they met. She’d come close before, but this was the first time she’d said “we.” That “we” would change the road map.

The woman said, “Product production in twelve months and launch in eighteen.”

Farley nodded. He had to give something, but he also understood the nature of negotiation. “No problem reworking the road map, but core technology has to be developed. We can’t complete the product in less than twenty-four months.”

“There is another modification,” McKay said. “Since we are essentially buying forty-nine percent interest in your company, we require the right to license your intellectual property.”

“No,” Farley said. “We will not yield the right to license our ideas to other developers.”

McKay shook his head behind steepled fingers and was about to speak when Bupin said, “You will change your mind. Your ceiling will grow higher.” He smiled, as though he were the VC version of a grandfather. “You push harder. Hire people. You do in twelve months instead of eighteen.”

Farley left his statement on the table and maintained his slightly aggressive pose, but he could feel his dreams emerging from the womb of doubt.

McKay stood, made a point of looking at his watch, and said, “Excellent. We’re down to working out details. Thank you for coming in.” He walked around the table to the door, looking every inch the executive late for his tee time. He stopped behind Farley and gripped his shoulder. Farley pasted a submissive grin on his face and looked up at the man. McKay’s grip tightened and the two men made eye contact.

“Twelve months,” McKay said, “and you’ll change your mind on licensing.”

S
aying these words made Gloria feel like a fairy godmother: “I have the Series A contract. Congratulations, your first-round funding has been granted.”

“Thank you, Gloria,” Farley said in his measured way. “You are a VC goddess.” He put his right arm around Chopper’s neck and high-fived Ringo with his left. Then he said, “We will live up to your expectations. What are the strings?”

During the meeting at Sand Hill Ventures, Farley’s eyes had been shards of blue ice, so clear that Gloria believed she could see the calculations scrolling across his mind. Now, in the warmth of friends and home, they’d returned to that rich ocean blue. Through her VC career, Gloria had balanced her clients’ egos against romantic conflicts of interest by feigning ignorance of their flirtations—which, coming from engineers, tended to lack sophistication. Her first instinct was to insist that this approach would work now, too. But then something came to mind that caused her to pull her eyes away from Farley’s, a fleeting thought that she wanted to embrace.

She looked down and took a few seconds. She had spent a lot of time with Farley in the last few weeks. There had been ample opportunity to flirt, and she might have been guilty of it, but Farley wasn’t. She looked back up. He was still watching her, his face square and open, anticipating her analysis and advice. This is
when that fleeting thought crystallized: Farley’s open admiration and respect might convey attraction, but he had never flirted.

Gloria had come to Santa Cruz early that morning. Farley had been waiting for her, reading a zoology journal on the porch. She’d expected him to zero in on the terms as every other would-be entrepreneur had. Instead he gave her a friendly hug and then walked her around the porch to watch the sun burn away the morning fog. Seagulls cried, cars drove by, and waves crashed. She saw Chopper down on the bluff smoking.

As the blue sky emerged, Farley told her about his grandfather. “He was the only parent I ever knew—my folks died when I was six, and Grandma died before I was born. He taught me how to sail and told me that once I had that, I could wing the rest. They called him Captain—the other fishermen, his girlfriends, even the mayor, and me, too. I always called him Captain.

“When I stand here, right here between the ocean and land, I get this feeling, sort of spiritual, a primordial understanding of how it all fits together.” She looked up at him, a smile tugging at her lips. “No, listen, it’s more than a metaphor: the Captain told me that this ecosystem we call Earth is an ongoing act of affection that brings about life. Picture planet Earth. This great blue-and-green sphere. Envision how water surrounds the land. How the ocean in all its forms—rivers, lakes, and streams—caresses Earth, and how Earth provides nutrients and matter to the sea. Have you ever seen how beaches erode in winter and recover in spring? Winter storms wash the sand from the beaches into the depths. Those same storms put snow on the mountains and rain in lakes and then, in spring, it all washes out to sea, taking along sand and dirt and organic matter. The sand reaccumulates on the beaches and the nutrition feeds the oceans.”

His unkempt beard framed his smile.

She looked out from the deck over Monterey Bay, along the cliffs and beaches far below.

“The Captain, my grandfather, I think he took it literally; he used to say that life is the offspring of Mother Earth and Father Sea. He told me that raindrops are ocean kisses, that hurricanes and thunderstorms express their passion, and that the fog—well, the fog is a gentle embrace.”

He shrugged, and she thought he looked almost embarrassed.

“Do you believe it?” she asked.

“What’s not to believe? Earth and Sea generate life; how we interpret their interaction is up to us. I might not take it as literally as the Captain did, but yes, I think there is room in the ecosystem for love.”

Then he led her inside and called Ringo and Chopper to the office.

The four of them now stood in the southwest corner of the house. The office included a windowed octagonal tower that jutted straight up over the bluff like a lighthouse.

“The schedule is reduced to twelve months,” Gloria said. “Since you’re academics, McKay asked me to be your business consultant. I’ll show you how to do quarterly reports, branding, that sort of thing. They also moved the VirtExReality Arcade launch up to fourteen months. It means you have to be ready for product production in one year and delivery two months later. It’s tight, but Sand Hill Ventures has contract manufacturing contacts in the Midwest that can deliver—if you can.”

“McKay is challenging us, right?” Chopper said. “He wants pressure on the academics because he thinks we’ve never worked to a schedule.”

Gloria nodded.

“What if the schedule slips?”

“Okay, I’m not supposed to tell you this.” Gloria felt a wave of intimacy with this team, this band. “They expect the schedule to slip. They reviewed the development effort with some pretty awesome engineers, and they think your original twenty-four-month schedule was ambitious. When you fall behind, they’ll insist you license your technology to other companies. Look, they want to disrupt the video game industry, and they don’t have much confidence in the applications that we pitched.”

Chopper said, “We’ll beat the schedule.”

Farley looked at Ringo, who shrugged.

“We’re too
National Geographic
, not Disney enough?” Farley asked.

“Yes, sir.” Gloria smiled. “The good news is that you impressed them enough that they didn’t put licensing in the contract. But don’t think it’s not on the table—they’re betting that you’ll miss the schedule and give them leverage.”

“Leverage.” Chopper spit the word out. He pointed his index finger at her like a weapon. “Did you tell them that we’ll cave in to the almighty dollar? Did you ‘leverage’ us?” He emphasized every syllable in the word.

“No,” Gloria said. “Listen to me, Romeo”—Farley and Ringo both elbowed Chopper at the slight of his given name—“when you sign this document, my career will be ‘leveraged’ on your success.”

Ringo said, “Point to Glo, Chopper.”

Chopper turned and stared at Farley for a second as though reading the text of his face.

Chopper’s expression relaxed and he said, “All right, all right. Don’t worry, Gloria, we’ll deliver the goods.”

The way he said it was warm and playful, but Gloria detected something else in his countenance. It was something shifty, but not malevolent. She couldn’t nail it down.

Farley said, “Show us where to sign.”

She handed him a pen and indicated the locations on the contract where each man should initial or sign.

Then she saw what it was. Chopper wasn’t paying any attention to her. Even when he’d spoken to her, even when he’d looked her directly in her eyes. Chopper only paid genuine attention to Farley. To all others, even Ringo, it was as though Chopper were acting a role designed to impress Farley. The weirdest thing about it, and something obvious to her, was that Farley was utterly unaware of it. She wondered if Ringo noticed.