The Last Network - Chapter 35
Dog and Pony Shows
Rabbit watched as a single white male in his mid-twenties walked to the center of the stage. A spotlight beamed down on him, illuminating his smart denim jeans, black mock turtleneck, and trademark Birkenstocks. His name was Elliot Blank, and he was the little shit that Thorn had given $80 million. Rabbit stared at the screen, sizing up his new mortal enemy.
Behind Elliot, a light purple screen projected the word Together in bright white letters.
“We are here today to talk about an amazing transformation in human communication. For ages we’ve imagined the ability to put ourselves in another place. The ancients called it astral projection; science fiction called it teleportation. This ability has been out of reach until now. Ladies and gentlemen, I present Together.” Elliot motioned to the screen and a video began to play.
Rabbit watched the slickly produced video introduce a carbon copy of Peared. The interface was a little cleaner, the graphics slightly better, but the same functionality and commands were all there. They had ripped Peared off verbatim. The voiceover talked about Hands and Eyes, and the collective Consciousness between Pairs. The match process, the signaling, even the little glamours were all there. It was his fucking product wearing someone else’s clothes. Rabbit gripped his tumbler, fingertips pressed white against the glass, taut knuckles a mix of yellow and red. He picked it off his desk and hurled the glass at his office window. Instead of shattering, it bounced back, nearly hitting him.
“The balls on these people,” Rabbit said to himself.
He pulled his phone out and shot an angry text to Frank Meyers. “You no-pride thieving hack piece of shit. Enjoy today. It will be Together’s last good one.”
Thirty minutes later in a theater across the street, Rizon made its debut.
“I’d like to say that we were the very first people to introduce teleportation, but Together booked their theater quicker than us. That’s okay, because here at Rizon, we don’t aim to be first, we aim to be best. Having our competition introduce their product the same day as us creates a healthy rivalry. It pushes us to be better. Most of all, it shows that the Valley is still the world’s center of innovation.”
He’d never made two mortal enemies in one day, but there was a first time for everything. Albie Hammel was definitely his new mortal enemy. Another single white guy in his mid-twenties on stage and stealing his idea. This one was wearing a $700 hoodie and a pair of khakis. He had $120 million of Kleiner’s money and a clone of Rabbit’s fucking product. Where Elliot was clearly aping Steve Jobs right down to the wireframe glasses, Albie was cut from the bro fork of the startup tree. He stood six and a half feet tall, blonde-haired and blue-eyed, and clearly a fan of the gym. Rabbit immediately sized him up as a leader and not a doer. He could synthesize and inspire, but he doubted Albie ever had an original thought.
The demo clearly showed that. It was Peared all over again, just a little more aggro and gamer-centric. At least they had put some of their own personality into the branding instead of Together’s basic bitch minimalism. Rabbit clicked off halfway through their presentation. He had seen enough and knew what was coming next.
While the media would pitch the dual launch as an amazing coincidence for a budding rivalry, Rabbit was far more cynical. He knew that they had planned it all out. How else would they book theaters opposite each other and plan launch events an hour apart? It was clearly staged so that the lapdogs in the tech media could go from one event to another, load up on their speaking points, and spout out the canned bullshit the VCs wanted spread. Expect profile pieces comparing and contrasting the founders. Expect a manufactured rivalry to get breathless coverage. Expect them to never ever mention Peared as the basis for the entire space.
It was all a giant fucking whitewashing. A conspiracy of backscratchers to wipe Rabbit off the face of the earth.
He had seen this coming and was having none of it. Let them spend their money on fancy launch parties. Let them sponsor the Golden State Warriors. Let them read their own clippings until their shit stops stinking. Rabbit would be waiting for them where it mattered. He was going to cut them to bits. He was going to bleed millions from the masters of the universe. He was going to bleed them until there wasn’t another drop left. After that Elliot and Albie could take a year off, write up blog posts about the important lessons they learned, and move on to the next thing.
While they did that, Rabbit would go to bed every night with a single thought in his head. Satisfaction was his.