Forever Yours
56
Organizing and Re-organizing
“YOU WANT US to just let them make a religion out of Pythia?” Isobel asked incredulously at the board meeting on Wednesday.
“With a couple of caveats,” Henry explained. “What Rev. Morris does is benign. He asks questions of Pythia and uses her responses as inspiration for his sermons. The preacher who married Lisa and me did the same thing. If Morris’s church has a doctrine, it’s ‘find the right question.’ It brought to light another issue, though. Someone might ask a series of questions and then publish the answers in a book they could call the gospel. That is not what Rev. Morris does. But it could be done. That’s the real threat. Anyone asking the same questions would likely get different answers.”
“What are we going to do about that?” Luke asked.
“I suggest that we remove the ability to either print or copy Pythia’s answers. We have the ability to prevent screen shots, too. I’ll also create a policing AI to install here at corporate. It will track any publication of Pythian sayings and automatically warn the publisher to take it down.”
“We can do that?” Chastity asked, amazed.
“Not yet. It’s not that big a deal,” Henry said. “I’ll hand it off to Conrad.”
“Speaking of which,” Luke said, “we need to get you some management help. Have you been thinking about what you want?”
“Yeah. Chas said something to me the other day regarding needing me to work in the creativity part of the company—generating ideas and new products. The concept spoke to me. Here’s what I’d like to do. I want to split the group. One half will be product release and maintenance. The other half will be research and development. Right now, we’ve got several products in the market and they are getting continued updates. That’s what I call release and maintenance. Then we’ve got a couple of products that have never been released—notably the paver and Alice. I want to expand that group so there is a small cadre who are just thinking up new products we can release. We’re big enough that a research and dev group is supportable. It should also help in our IPO,” Henry said.
“I like the idea,” Dale said. “I assume you’ll take on the R&D group yourself?”
“That’s the idea.”
“And for the release and maintenance?” Luke asked.
“I’ll promote Conrad to director and give that group to him. He’s shown himself as a really good manager. We’re bringing on three new developers a week from Monday. We’ll give Josh to Conrad. They’ve worked together before and Josh is familiar with our released product line. Leonard is strong in robotics and has worked with Dale before. He’ll be a good addition to the paver project. I want Simon on Alice. That project has a lot of technology advances in it, but it’s missing a creative person. Simon will work as a program manager to clean up some of the creative issues.”
“Is that everyone Conrad will need?” Craig asked.
While they didn’t have a vote on corporate matters, the new chief operating officer and the new chief financial officer were still invited to attend board meetings. They were directly affected by the decisions of the board and needed to be heard.
“I think he’ll want to look for a replacement pretty quickly. His promotion will leave a hole and that’s not one that any of our current employees can fill yet,” Henry said.
“Do we have other discussion on the reorg of the technical group?” Luke asked. “If not, let’s move on to the status of the IPO.”
The meeting moved on with the exciting news that the underwriter for the IPO had agreed on a July 31 offering date. The company was going public!
Late Sunday morning, Luke, Isobel, and baby Paul arrived at the row house for Sunday brunch. The four partners and Lisa were all twenty-two years old now. They were bound by marriage, business, and family. Their ties brought them closer together than ever.
“Wow! It’s like we work or live together and hardly ever see each other,” Henry said, greeting Isobel with a kiss and taking baby Paul in his arms. “If I don’t take him now, I’ll never get a chance later,” he laughed.
“You can have him the rest of the weekend. Grace is off,” Isobel said.
“Sorry, grandparents have dibs tomorrow,” Luke said. “You’ll be surrounded.”
“I don’t think I can do a huge party,” Izzy sighed.
“Just your parents and mine and you don’t need to do a thing. We’ll sit by the pool while our mothers fight over the baby,” Luke said. Izzy hugged his arm.
Paul would be three months old in a week and Izzy had lost most of the baby weight at an alarming rate. She looked thin and exhausted. Lisa led her to a comfortable chair and attempted to engage her with small talk about babies and Lisa’s pregnancy. Chastity took the baby from Henry so the two men could go to the kitchen and get food on the table.
“Wow! You made all this?” Luke asked, looking at the frittata Henry pulled from the oven.
Scones were also on the table with assorted spreads. Henry handed Luke a pitcher of orange juice and carried the scones.
“Frittata is quick and easy, according to my mother,” Henry laughed. “I asked for her recipe and she just stared at me. Then she got out a pad of paper and wrote this.”
Henry and Luke returned to the kitchen to look at the note Sylvia had written.
“Cook way too much spaghetti and meat sauce for dinner on Saturday,” Luke read. “Put the leftovers in the big iron skillet, top with eggs and cheese. Bake until solid.”
Luke looked at Henry and then at the skillet full of frittata.
“That’s all? Really?”
“That was the simple version my mother gave me. Then she proceeded to give me a dozen variations verbally and wished me luck. I think it’s going to be pretty good, but I’ve never made it before,” Henry said. “The internet is a marvelous place to find information on cooking things that our parents don’t explain thoroughly.”
“It looks and smells delicious.”
“Here’s hoping!”
They finished putting food on the table and poured coffee for everyone, then called the women to brunch. Izzy actually looked like she was in a better mood from having been with Chastity and Lisa for a while.
“Here’s to years of friendship and family and success,” Henry said, raising his OJ glass. They all took a sip.
“Henry, you left the champagne out of mine!” Izzy said.
“I didn’t single you out, Izzy. I didn’t have champagne. We’ve got some sparkling water if you want a fizz in it,” Henry said.
“You teetotalers,” Isobel sighed. She raised her glass again. “Here’s to all getting rich on July 31st!”
“Maybe it would be better phrased as to a successful IPO,” Luke corrected her.
“If it’s successful, we’ll be rich,” Isobel said.
“Well, that’s only if you sell your stock,” Lisa said.
“Why wouldn’t I sell my stock?” Isobel asked as if the idea of holding it was unfathomable.
“Well, holding the stock is what keeps us in control of the company,” Henry said. “But that comes in two forms. We all have our options that could be cashed in and sold. As of this month, that’s three million shares each. So, you are right, Izzy. If you sell the three million shares at an offering price of $15, you’ll be rich.”
“But you won’t sell yours?” she said.
“The temptation is big. I’ll sell some. As much as we like this row house, we’re already seeing how poorly designed it is for a family. It’s the same thing Ray ran into when he got married and decided not to try to raise a family here. I think we’ll be out looking for a new house this summer. But I don’t think I need $45 million in order to find a nice place to live.”
Isobel was silent for a while as they all took bites of the frittata and commented on how good the food was.
“So, we aren’t going to sell the shares held by our partnership?” Izzy finally asked.
“We haven’t really had a partnership meeting,” Luke said. “I think all told, we have almost 32 million shares held jointly. As Henry said, that’s what keeps us in control. Argos holds 37 million shares, but only has 20 million voting shares. Most of what will be sold in the IPO will be voting shares, so we’ll no longer have a clear majority for the group of us.”
“Will Argos continue to invest?” Chastity asked.
“I doubt it,” Luke said. “They offered venture capital which is a moot point after a public offering. I would expect they will sell their shares during the IPO and take the profit they deserve. They’ve put fifty million into the company and if they sell it all at the offering price, they’ll get over $500 million in return. That’s a jackpot for venture capital and they won’t want to stick around for anything else. However, they’ll still be funding the jointly owned paver project.”
“This is all very fascinating,” Lisa said, reverting to a Cajun drawl. “But can’t we talk about babies now?”
They all laughed, realizing they’d let their brunch with friends turn into a business meeting.
The next week was short with the holiday on Monday, but by Friday, they were still ready for a massive office re-organization. Henry appreciated that the biggest portion of the office move was getting the administrative, human resources, and financial group moved from the third floor to the newly acquired first floor of the building. Open Cloak now occupied the entire building. Ray had revamped the first floor after the real estate company moved out so there was a double entry way to a lovely lobby where the receptionist had a secure safe-room behind her in case the security evaluation assessment of the possibility of a physical attack proved prophetic. Beyond the reception area, secure doors required a passkey to enter the rest of the office, including the elevators and stairway.
Luke’s office was moved to the first floor, as were Craig’s, Chastity’s, Isobel’s and Rachel’s. The network defense team moved to the third floor with Nathan. Luke’s old office was converted to a conference room. Conrad moved to Henry’s office which meant Henry moved to the second floor to be with the new research and development teams: Power Cells, Robotic Paving, and Alice.
On the following Monday, everyone was in a state of chaos as they worked on setting up their new office spaces and making sure their computers were all connected correctly. Darrel and his four IT specialists were kept busy all day troubleshooting problems as they occurred. Josh, Leonard, and Simon were almost overlooked when they reported to work for their first day. Chastity welcomed them, got their paperwork taken care of, and introduced them to the changes that had occurred since any of them had last been in the office. Conrad met Josh and took him immediately to a departmental meeting of the Release and Development group.
Henry greeted Simon and Leonard, then called a general meeting of the Research and Development group. Leonard was assigned to Jacoby on the paving team. Simon joined Mia and the team working on Alice.
“I win,” Henry said as he faced his assembled group. He was pleased to see how diverse his department was. There was a good balance of unique talents. “You might ask what I won,” he continued. “I won you. I’m not taking anything away from the engineering brilliance of the guys upstairs. Let me remind you that their work keeps money flowing into our company. Nothing in this group is generating income. But what we have here are the brightest and most creative minds in the company. Maybe in the country.”
The twenty assembled people applauded and slapped each other on the back.
“We have three distinct projects already under development that are two-year endeavors at best. Dale is heading up a joint development project with ARDC to create a fully automated road paving robot—guided by our Open Cloak Artificial Intelligence and powered by Ari’s research and development with the Agora Fuel Cells company in Minnesota. We are increasing our investment in Agora and may well decide to move some of their research here in the future. Then you have all noticed the locked doors of the Alice project.”
There were nods around the room and the people on the project looked nervously at each other.
“Everyone in this department has been security checked and re-checked. A company’s new IP is a precious asset. We are protecting it with all our might. That being said, I also believe in sharing information when it is appropriate. I hope that we will all be able to bounce ideas off each other in this group. Please understand, that does not include everyone in the company. Look around you and do not discuss your specific project with anyone who is not in this room,” Henry said sternly.
“So, what is Alice? I will reveal a little of that to you now. Alice was named after Farrell Scott’s wife as he was the person who integrated our AI with Jason Wilson’s holography research. Before our big office move this weekend, a holographic receptionist named Bea was in our lobby. As soon as I give them freedom from this meeting, the team will be working on setting up the next version of that holographic receptionist, Cici. In the past, holograms have, by definition, been pre-recorded images projected on an unnoticed screen, like a mesh or even Plexiglas. They have the appearance of being three dimensional, even though they are projected on a flat surface. Phase one of the Alice Project is combining the creative abilities of AI to generate the image on the fly. So, just as you might ask a question of Pythia Speaks and receive a new and unique answer from her, you will also be able to ask Alice—or Bea or Cici—a question, and the moving hologram will be generated with the response.”
There was a lot of applause for that. So far, most of them had some interaction with the holographic receptionist, but they’d not been given any detailed instruction on what was happening behind the scenes.
“This is also where our interdepartmental cooperations comes into play. Alice and Forever Yours share video generation capability. While Forever Yours is confined to a computer screen—and will probably remain that way—Alice generates the video in three dimensions,” Henry continued.
“There is a phase two of the project and therefore, the doors to the Alice project will remain locked at all times. We need to finish filing and revising patent applications before we can let any of that information out of the door. Please understand and do not probe for further information from the team. You will all be the first to know when we can speak about it.”
“Does that apply to our other projects, boss?” Ari asked.
“Not as rigidly,” Henry answered. “Both the power cells and the paver are known technology on which the bulk of the patents have been filed. Don’t discuss new patent applications or tech that has not yet been patented until we have protection. But as far as applying your technology to new products, share that information freely with each other. Come up with solutions to other problems. I don’t want us limited to the three projects we currently have underway. Our company is about to experience unprecedented growth. That growth will be spurred by our research and development.”
Even though Henry was now the head of research and development, he still had responsibilities as the chief technical officer. Conrad reported directly to him. One day, he supposed, he would have to hire a director of R&D as well. On Friday, he had a meeting with Conrad and Nathan to go over the test results on the perimeter defense system. Henry had ordered a 30-day test with an additional degree of separation and more severe counterattack.
“Well, did it help?” he asked when they’d had a seat in Conrad’s conference room.
“The test was a success,” Nathan said in measured tones. “Attacks on the perimeter plunged after we initiated one degree of separation and directory wipe on the attack.”
“Congratulations,” Conrad said, pleased.
“I’m hearing a note of reticence in your voice,” Henry said. “What was the downside?”
“The test has revealed that the Pentagon was behind many of the attacks,” Nathan said.
“The fuckers!” Henry said.
“Yeah. I agree,” Nathan said.
“Don’t tell me Rebecca was involved!” Conrad said.
“I don’t think so. Not any further than having instructed the current team on the defense software operation. That was her job when she left here. The current manager of the system has installed his own people right down the line to the lowest specialists. Both Major Bernard and Lt. Smith who were here on the team were reassigned. They are currently working on internal systems and security and are completely off the network defense system.”
“Rebecca and I are careful not to divulge any information on our current projects, but it’s getting harder and harder. I think…” Conrad looked at Henry. “I’m not suggesting we engage in any nepotism here, but I think that if Rebecca thought she had a good job to come home to, she’d resign her commission. She has enough service time that she could resign with minimal sacrifice.”
“We’ll talk about that,” Henry said. “In principle, I have nothing against it. Chastity is a member of my household. Luke and Isobel are married. You and Rebecca had a relationship before you came to work here. It’s a little different, but I’ll give it some thought.”
“Thank you, boss.”
“Nathan, what are the repercussions likely to be from wiping a bunch of Pentagon computers?”
“Well, it’s uncertain. They don’t like to be exposed and I think the first thing they are doing is rethinking their probe study. I don’t think we are the only private company they’ve attempted to penetrate,” Nathan said.
“Isn’t that illegal?” Conrad asked.
“A lot changed under the previous administration. It started with the wholesale raiding of government servers and collection of personal data from the IRS, Social Security, Labor Relations, Medicare, Department of Education, and CDC. Those were just a gateway. Cracks began to show in the principle of domestic surveillance and the deployment of military forces as policemen in some cities. Both of those were understood to be illegal, but proceeded anyway,” Nathan said.
“Are they going to come at us again? Do you think they’ll up their attacks?” Henry asked.
“Will they come at us again? Yes. Increase their attacks? I doubt it. It seems that they were targeting technology acquisition. You remember back in November when I was called in to testify regarding the security of their cyber assets? It seems they still consider Open Cloak a military asset. They could certainly shield their attacks under the idea of testing that security. Predicting what they will do if they either succeed or fail is uncertain.”
“Maintain the test level of security,” Henry said. “I want to talk to you downstairs about what to do if we are actually breached.”
Nathan nodded and Conrad realized this would be a conversation regarding new research Henry wanted conducted.
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
