The Last Network - Chapter 52
You Gotta Walk
The elevator opened. Em stepped out into the parking garage. She scanned the rows of cars looking for the bright blue Porsche with the tinted windows. Sonny was inside, and they needed to talk. She found his car in a far corner of the garage. He didn’t like parking too close to others, always worried about scratches. This conversation would be worse than any scratch across his precious car. Sonny thought Em was a real Chicken Little, but now the sky was falling and she had to tell Sonny it was landing on him. She opened the door and slid into the passenger seat.
“Peared is being sued for intellectual property theft,” Em began.
“What?” Sonny gave her a quizzical look.
“Frank Meyers gave me a call. The source code for the AR and VR clients was copied from a surgical training program. It is not a licensed SDK like Rabbit told you.”
“Fuck.” He smacked the steering wheel with his open palm.
“Fuck indeed, Sonny.” She gave him her best ‘hate to say I told you so’ look. “How much of it is still in there?”
“None of it. We swapped it all out six months in. It didn’t play well with the rest of our stack.”
“That’s good. Damages will be minimal.”
“It’s not good, Em. Even if there’s a settlement, this is a big hit to my reputation and to the reputation of the technology team.”
“That’s true, but there are ways of compensating for reputation.” Em pretended to be interested in her fingernails, fanning them in front of her face, looking at each one as Sonny stared back at her.
“You want me to sell myself?”
Finally, she turned and acknowledged him. “You already have, you just didn’t know it at the time. Now that Rabbit cost you, the question is what are you going to do about it?”
“He’s cost me twice. First by not selling to Thorn, now my reputation.”
Now she followed with the words. “Hate to say I told you so.”
“Who is suing us?”
“Well this is where it gets complicated. Together bought the IP. They are bringing the suit.”
“Frank Meyers?”
“Yes.”
Sonny leaned back, scratched his chin, and stared out the window. “That crafty bastard. I want no part of their fight and you shouldn’t either. Ethics aside, and I’m finally having a hard time putting them aside, that is a blood feud. There’s no safe harbor there.”
“What have I been saying all along? On its own, I could have managed our image through this lawsuit, but combine it with your TJ operation, plus there’s also…”
Em trailed off. Nadia Camiso was on her lips, but Sonny didn’t need to know about her, at least not at this point. She could probably get Rabbit around two of those problems, but all three? Impossible. Someone was holding Nadia back. If Em found out about her, then so had Meyers and Thorn. It was only a matter of time before they learned about Mexico, too.
“Look Sonny, I’m done. I can’t do this anymore.”
“Done? What about your options?” Sonny asked.
“Chief Marketing Officer was an experiment. It failed. Managing Rabbit would have been a challenge if we stuck together, but we couldn’t do that. I’m going back to my old life. It pays well and doesn’t require faith in others. Stock options be damned.”
“Em, there aren’t many startups with 200 million users. Even if Rabbit is an ass and even if he’s getting sued, our chances of cashing out here are better than anywhere else.” Sonny tried to convince her as much as himself.
“No, they are not.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I’ve done the same analysis that you are about to, and I’m walking. There’s more dirt on Peared than the IP theft. If Rabbit tried to sell today, Thorn wouldn’t offer him a pot to piss in. Go ahead and ask your friend up there. You are right. This is a blood feud, but Rabbit is beefing in the wrong direction. Thorn hired Frank Meyers specifically to distract Rabbit, and that move just paid off. You think Rabbit is a pain to work with now? Just wait until he’s spent two years fighting their lawyers instead of paying damages in arbitration. Our definition of winning is radically different than Rabbit’s. This is all personal to him. It’s all about his neglected ego. Take your vested options and walk.”
“You know what the worst part of this is?”
“What Sonny?”
“Had he just told me upfront, I could have built the stolen clients in four months. This was avoidable.”
“What did I tell you about shortcuts? They always bite you in the ass. So, what are you going to do?”
Sonny let out a long sigh. “I don’t know. I’ll take some meetings, put out feelers. Vic Khan is starting something up in Pasadena. I always got on well with him.” He paused again, and then continued. “Em, I’m sorry I froze you out on Tijuana. It was just easier at the time.”