Terminal Compromise, Winn Schwartau [sight word books txt] 📗

yet

is really a one dimension stream. In either source dimensional

view, the addition of a three dimensional attribute structure

yields interrelationships that are not inherently obvious. Thus

we use graphical representations to simplify the entire process.”

After several weeks of pounding the high risk financial community

of the San Francisco Bay area, Max was despondent. Damn it, he

thought. Why don’t they understand. I outline the entire

theory and they don’t get it. Jeez, it’s so easy to use. So

easy to use. Then the light bulb lit in his mind. Call Pierre.

I need Pierre. Call Pierre in New York.

“Pierre, it’s Max.” Max sounded quite excited.

“How’s the Coast.”

“Fine, Fine. You’ll find out tomorrow. You’re booked on American

#435 tomorrow.”

“Max, I can’t go to California. I have so much work to do.”

“Bullshit. You owe me. Or have I forgotten to bill you for the

engine?” He was calling in a favor.

“Hey, it was my idea. You didn’t even understand what I was

talking about until . . .”

“That’s the whole point, Pierre. I can’t explain the engine to

these Harvard MBA asswipes. It was your idea and you got me to

understand. I just need you to get some of these investors to

understand and then we can have a company and make some money

selling engines.” Max’s persistence was annoying, but Pierre knew

that he had to give in. He owed it to Max.

The new presentations Max and Pierre put on went so well that

they had three offers for start up financing within a week. And,

it was all due to Pierre. His genial personality and ability to

convey the subtleties of a complex piece of software using actual

demonstrations from his music were the touchy-feely the investors

wanted. It wasn’t that he was technical; he really wasn’t. But

Pierre had an innate ability to recognize a problem, theoretical-

ly, and reduce it to its most basic components. And the Engine

was so easy to use. All you had to do was . . .

It worked. The brainy unintelligible technical wizard and char-

ismatic front man. And the device, whatever it was, it seemed to

work.

The investors installed their own marketing person to get sales

going and Pierre was asked to be President. At first he said he

didn’t want to. He didn’t know how to run a company. That

doesn’t matter, the investors said. You are a salable item. A

person whom the press and future investors can relate to. We

want you to be the image of the company. Elegance, suave, upper

class. All that European crap packaged for the media. Steve Jobs

all over again.

Pierre relented, as long as he could continue his music.

Max’s engine was renamed dGraph by the marketing folks and the

company was popularly known as DGI. Using Byte, Personal Comput-

ing, Popular Computing and the myriad computer magazines of the

early 1980’s, dGraph was made famous and used by all serious

computer users.

DGraph could interface with the data from other programs, dBase

II, 123, Wordstar and then relate it in ways never fathomed.

Automatically. Users could assign their own language of, at that

time, several hundred words, to describe the third dimension of

data. Or, they could do it in pictures. While the data on the

screen was being manipulated, the computer, unbeknownst to the

operator, was constantly forming and updating relationships

between the data. Ready to be called upon at any time.

As the ads said, “dGraph for dData.”

As success reigned, the demand upon Pierre’s time increased so

that he had little time for his music. By 1986 he lived a virtu-

al fantasy. He was on the road, speaking, meeting with writers,

having press conferences every time a new use for dGraph was

announced. He was adored by the media. He swam in the glory of

the attention by the women who found his fame and image an

irresistible adjunct to his now almost legendary French accent

and captivating eyes.

Pierre and Max were the hottest young entrepreneurs in Silicon

Valley; the darlings of the VC community. And the company spar-

kled too. It was being run by professionals and Max headed up

the engineering group. As new computers appeared on the market,

like the IBM AT, additional power could be effectively put into

the Engine and Voila! a new version of dGraph would hit the

market to the resounding ring of an Instant Hit on Softsel’s Top

40.

Max, too, liked his position. He was making a great deal of

money, ran his own show with the casualness of his former hippie

days, yet could get on the road with Pierre any time he needed a

break. Pierre got into the act hook, line and sinker and Max

acted the role of genius behind ‘The Man’. That gave Max the

freedom to avoid the microscope of the press yet take a twirl in

the fast lane whenever he felt the urge.

The third round of funding for DGI came from an unexpected

place. Normally when a company is as successful as DGI, the

original investors go along for the ride. That’s how the VC’s

who worked with Lotus, Compaq, Apple and other were getting

filthy stinking rich. The first two rounds went as they had

planned, the third didn’t.

“Mr. Troubleaux,” Martin Fisk, Chairman of Underwood Investments

said to Pierre in DGI’s opulent offices. “Pierre, there is only

one way to say this. Our organization will no longer be involved

with DGI. We have sold our interest to a Japanese firm who has

been trying to get into the American computer field.”

“What will that change? Anything?” Pierre was nonplused by the

announcement.

“Not as far as you’re concerned. Oh, they will bring in a few of

their own people, satisfy their egos and protect their invest-

ment, that’s entirely normal. But, they especially want you to

continue on as President of DGI. No, no real changes.”

“What about Max?” Pierre had true concern for his friend.

“He’ll remain, in his present capacity. Essentially the finan-

cial people will be reporting to new owners that’s all.”

“Are we still going to go public? That’s the only way I’m gonna

make any real money.”

Martin was flabbergasted. Pierre wasn’t in the least interested

as to why the company changed hands. He only wanted to know

about the money, how much money he would make and when. Pierre

never bothered to ask, nor was it offered, that Underwood would

profit over 400 percent on their original investment. The Japa-

nese buyer was paying more than the company was worth now. They

had come in offering an amount of money way beyond what an open-

ing offer should have been. Underwood did a search on the Japa-

nese company and its American subsidiary, Data Tech. They were

real, like $30 Billion real and did were expanding into the

information processing field through acquisitions, primarily in

the United States.

Underwood sold it’s 17% stake in DGI for $350 Million, more than

twice its true value. They sold quickly and quietly. Even though

Pierre and Max should have had some say in the transfer, Under-

wood controlled the board of directors and technically didn’t

need the founder’s consensus. Not that it overtly appeared to

mattered to Pierre. Max gave the paper transfer a cursory exami-

nation, at least asked the questions that were meaningless to the

transformed Pierre, and gave the deal his irrelevant blessings.

After the meeting with the emissaries from DGI’s new owner, OSO

Industries, Pierre and Max were confident that nothing would

change for them. They would each continue in their respective

roles. The day to day interference was expected to be minimal,

but the planned public offering would be accelerated. That

suited Pierre just fine; he would make out like a bandit.

Several days before the date of issue, Pierre received a call

from Tokyo.

“Mr. Troubleaux?” The thick Japanese accent mangled his name so

badly Pierre cringed.

“Yes, this is Pierre Troubleaux,” he said exaggerating his French

accent. The Japanese spoke French as well as a hair-lipped

stutterer could recite “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled

peppers.”

“I wish to inform you, sir, that the Chairman of OSO is to visit

your city tomorrow and participate in your new successes. Would

this be convenient?”

Pierre had only one possible response to the command performance

he was being ‘invited’ to. Since OSO had bought into DGI,

Pierre was constantly mystified by the ritualism associated with

Japanese business. They could say “Yes!” a hundred times in a

meeting, yet everyone present understood that the speakers really

meant “No Way, Jose!” There of course was the need for a quality

gift for any visitor from Japan. Johnny Walker Black was the

expected gift over which each recipient would feign total sur-

prise. Pierre had received more pearl jewelry from the Japanese

than he could