Chapter 4
William Harrell worked through his morning in the usual fashion, attending three meetings, then moving on to his daily correspondence.
After eleven o'clock he left the ICP headquarters building for a ten-block ride to an exclusive men's athletic club whose clientele consisted entirely of high-level executives. Typically, the club arranged rotating squash and racquetball matches between executives in similar positions from different companies and industries. A president of an insurance company, for example, might be paired with a CEO from an advertising agency; a TV executive with a restaurant magnate…or the chairman of the world's largest computer manufacturer with chairman of the world's largest food manufacturer.
Waiting for his technical and business advisers to arrive for their two o'clock meeting, William stretched and considered the soreness in his arms. They felt now as they had after his match with Rolland Worthy, chairman and CEO of International Foods, a little over two years ago. During that match, he mused, he had felt as though he'd been punched in the stomach midway through the game.
"What do you know about Wallaby?" Worthy had asked him.
The hard rubber ball struck the wall with solid force and rebounded toward William.
His concentration and judgment were wrecked by Rolland's question; his racquet overextended. The ball hurtled past him.
"What, I hit a nerve?" Worthy laughed, arming his sweating wrinkled forehead with his shirtsleeve.
William crouched. "Wallaby is a small company in Silicon Valley that manufactures portable computers and those new small wonders referred to as PIAs, which stands for personal interactive assistant," William said flatly. He bounced on the balls of his feet, anticipating Worthy's serve.
Worthy tossed the ball in the air and pounded it with his racquet, then dropped to a defensive footing, his actions fluid and youthful.
William smashed the ball and they played out the serve, and he ultimately gained the ball after Worthy crashed into the wall.
"You okay?" William huffed.
Worthy gave his shoulder a quick squeeze where it had connected with the wall. "Serve," he ordered.
William served and the game continued.
Before the match, William had started the day in his imperturbable business-as-usual mood. He remembered the pleasure he felt upon reading his business adviser's latest market-share report, announcing that ICP had nearly doubled its total unit sales of the BP computer, compared to Wallaby's estimated total sales of its Mate all-in-one portable computer. But though sales of the BP were greater than those of the Mate, William Harrell's consummate business sense counseled against feeling triumphant. He rationalized that Wallaby was presumably up to something big; Peter Jones, Wallaby's eminent founder, had been too quiet as far as the press was concerned. Normally the capricious spokesman of the portable computer industry, Jones had not granted a public interview in more than a year, and that concerned William. Jones had something up his sleeve. Something really big. The only thing that kept William's fear of Jones and Wallaby from growing beyond a mild concern to an actual loss of sleep was the fact that Jones was a poor chief; though he was capable of creating innovative miniature computers, he was incapable of running the company. Without proper guidance and leadership, Wallaby would sooner or later fold.
As they headed from the court to the showers, William wiped his face with a towel and asked, "All right, Rolland, fess up. Why all the interest in Wallaby?"
"This is off the record, my friend. They called one of my best guys, Matthew Locke. They're flying him to California to interview for a job as president."
William felt the color drain from his face.
"Locke, as you know, is who I'm thinking about advancing into my slot when I retire in a few years," Worthy said.
"Anyway, he stopped by my house last night and told me that he had gotten a call from a headhunter and was a candidate to take the lead at Wallaby, working with some kid named Peter Jones."
William remained silent, praying that Worthy would go on and spill everything he knew about Wallaby and its interest in Locke.
"I think Matthew wanted me to tell him he was guaranteed my job when I retire. When I told him I couldn't do that, not yet anyway, he said then that he was going to fly out there to California and see what the company was all about.
"I just can't figure it," Worthy remarked. He paused and slung his towel over his shoulder. "Why would some hippie bantam computer nerds want to hire the president of a company that makes soda pop and chips?"
Harrell knew precisely why. What had he been mulling over all morning? The only factor preventing Wallaby from becoming a bona fide threat was that Peter Jones lacked the business savvy necessary to take his small company into big business. His intuition about Jones had been correct. The young man was looking to hire an innkeeper to run the shop so he could concentrate on building the nifty toys.
"You think they're going to start stuffing little computers into cereal boxes?" Worthy quipped with a chuckle as the two men headed for the showers.
Despite the hot shower, William Harrell felt washed with a chilling morbid dread. Not since his wife had begun her slide into the final stages of cancer had he felt that same feeling of helplessness that comes when loss seems inevitable.
That day was now long past. Worthy's disclosure about Wallaby had been enough to give the older man a jarring advantage that perhaps helped him win the squash game. But in the long run, William smiled to himself, the aching effects he had felt in his muscles after that game were a meager price to pay for what would be felt by the business world, thanks to the data Worthy had advanced him.
Had it not been for that squash match two years ago, he reflected, he might still be worrying about Wallaby someday becoming a serious competitor to ICP, rather than a subsidiary.
What had started as a far-out notion that night following the squash match was beginning to enter the formative stages of reality; the brakes would come off and the wheels would begin turning after Wallaby's board meeting today. His secret acquisition plan was the first thing to come along since Martha's death that had totally engrossed him, and he had wholeheartedly welcomed the diversion as a way to overcome his grieving.
William dreaded the thought of the ensuing two hours during which his advisors would spew figures and specifications, suggesting competitive market action and reaction, while all along he had begun, more than two years ago, his own competitive market plan, its countdown to liftoff about to commence.
* * *
Peter sped away from the company parking lot and raced for the engineering building and the solace of his office.
Turning into the driveway, however, he became suddenly aware of the tears streaming down his face. Cutting the wheel sharply he vaulted off the curb, then sped down the street. His outrage toward Matthew and everyone in the boardroom for what had just gone down was not coming as intensely as he wished. Instead, he felt only anguish. The damage was done, and he knew it was irreparable. Matthew had stolen control of Wallaby right from under his nose, the ultimate irony being that Peter's plan was to propose his, Matthew's, elimination. They had all turned against him.
He raced past the Wallaby buildings and headed for the highway, his mind frantically searching for answers. How could he not have seen it coming? Where had he gone wrong? Had he any forewarning of this? Could he have prevented it from happening, or have better prepared for Matthew's evil force? Had there been, when he had first interviewed Matthew two years ago, some clue, some inkling of what was to come?
"Are you sure you'll make it?" Peter said nervously.
"I'm sure," Rick Boardman said. "But if you don't quit breathing down my neck, I'll never have it ready by four o'clock!"
Rick was Peter's most prized software engineer. When Peter had discussed with Hank Towers the possibility of hiring Matthew Locke, he learned that Matthew was a somewhat reserved person. So Peter went directly to Rick, who was the programming leader on the new Joey computer. Peter asked Rick to put together an eye-popping sight-and-sound exhibition of the prototype computer, something to really show it off.
"I just hope you can do something incredible, Rick," Peter said.
He turned to leave.
"Wait," Rick said, taking the bait.
The programmer clicked the small button above the trackpad, and on the screen an image of a bag of International Foods Crunch-Munch materialized. The bag opened, accompanied by crinkling sound effects, and popcorn started exploding out of the bag, followed by animated, high-spirited peanut-people adorned in tiny colored sunglasses and striped sneakers. Each carried a little bucket. They chased after the three-dimensional popcorn puffs, splashing sounds resonating from the attached stereo speakers as they drenched the popcorn with candy coating. A baby kangaroo suddenly appeared on the scene, and the little popcorn people chased after it. The joey appeared to tear open a pocket right in the middle of the screen, then hopped inside, dropping a wink before vanishing. The peanut people dove in after the little fellow, then in the next instant they all came bursting out of the pocket with a pennant, which they unfurled: "WELCOME, MATTHEW," A chorus a children's voices screamed the same welcome and then the screen faded to black. Finally a phantom paintbrush appeared and painted the screen with the shimmering Wallaby logo.
Peter grinned with extreme satisfaction and pride. Still, he laid on a little more pressure, a little more challenge. "Hmm. I wonder if you make the last part, with the paintbrush, a little faster," he said, tracing the word "Wallaby" on the screen quickly with his finger. "Maybe you can add that part you showed me last week, too, with our little Joey pointing out the device's features with those slick animated flash cards he's got stashed in that secret pocket of his…."
Rick nodded excitedly. "Yeah, yeah, I can do that."
Peter left to the staccato sound of keystrokes and clicks, and went to his own office. Taking a folder from his desk, he lowered himself to his stylish couch, kicked off his dock shoes, stretched out comfortably, and began sifting through the collection of articles and clippings about Matthew Locke and International Foods, which had been mailed to both him and Hank earlier in the week by the headhunter they had retained for the search.
In a "Fortune" article entitled "Big Business Chairman Hopefuls," Matthew Locke was the first person mentioned, accompanied by a half-page picture of the young grinning Ivy League executive posed before a wall of soda bottles in a super market. The article predicted that Locke was being groomed to succeed International's long-time chairman and CEO, Rolland Worthy. It described Locke's career over the past fifteen years at IF, listing the numerous successful marketing programs he had developed, all of which Peter recognized: Holy Cow ice cream, Presto Microwave Popcorn, and one of the most popular beverages of all time, Orange Fresh carbonated juice. International Foods had formerly been separated into several divisions, the largest being food, beverage, subsidiary, and services. The article explained how Locke had consolidated the food and beverage divisions into one group, and had the services divisions rolled out as a subsidiary operating unit. That way, International Foods was able to concentrate primarily on developing and marketing its mainstream products; non-retail sales were managed as a separate business unit.
Pretty smart, Peter admitted. In his head, he tried to work the formula on Wallaby's separate product divisions, Mate, and the new Joey, but did not come to the same conclusion Locke had reached. Each of Wallaby's divisions was unique from a technological standpoint, and incompatible, unlike food and beverages which, as far as Peter was concerned, were all the same. This type of solution would not work in a company like Wallaby, Peter concluded, just as he had known it wouldn't when he started the Joey project a few years ago. To create Joey, he had taken a number of his top engineers from the Mate division and moved them into their own building. There were accusations of special privileges, and the accusations were true. Peter nursed, stroked, and dined his people in the Joey building. A giant refrigerator was stocked with exotic foods and beverages, portable Walkman CD players were free, and in-office massages were provided by professional masseuses and masseurs.
Dismissing Locke's consolidation concept as impossible at a place like Wallaby, and therefore an inappropriate measure of the man's abilities, Peter skimmed more articles. He read interviews with people who had worked for Locke over the past several years. Most of them reflected on his no-nonsense business attitude and keen marketing abilities. One marketing analyst who had worked with Locke on International's now highly successful line of diet beverages said that Locke often had several secret projects going at any given time, and as different market opportunities arose, he called upon the brewing projects to launch major new products. The analysts and business community, and the most important group of all, the consumers, perceived the new products as brilliant and timely. Most of them, however, had been waiting in the wings, in some instances, a few years, until the right moment arrived to move them out of the marketing group and into the supermarket. One spiteful IF manager revealed anonymously that Locke had never actually invented any of the products himself. The most outstanding example was the pull-tab, which back in the early 1970s banished the need for a can opener. While Peter took it for granted nowadays that all you had to do was pop the top on a can of soda to sip its contents, he could remember back to when he was a boy, when you had to use a can opener to get to what was inside. It was this fact, that Locke was the one to introduce the pull-tab, that appealed to Peter more than anything else. He compared the metaphor to the Mate and Joey. The Mate was the first all-in-one portable computer (though inside the company they referred to it as a "luggable," rather than a true portable) that you could easily move from room to room, place to place, but it was nonetheless difficult to use; you first had to understand the utility "tool" programs that controlled the machine and its programs before you could fully employ all of its features. Getting into the Joey, on the other hand, was easy, intuitive, like using a pop-top can; all you had to do was to look at it to understand how to use it, no special tools or knowledge were required. The built-in address book and calendar and phone dialer and e-mail program all looked like, and behaved like, their real world, paper-based counterparts. Plus, it was much smaller than the Mate and truly portable, able to run on its rechargeable battery for days at a time. The trackpad interface was so intuitive that in studies Wallaby conducted with brand new users, every attendee was naturally drawn to the small black square without so much as a clue from the study group guides, their fingers sliding across its surface without any thought at all about what they were doing. Just like the soda pull-tab.
So as for Locke's reported reputation of taking credit for what others had invented, Peter felt neither surprised or concerned. It was a non-issue. He was the primary inventor in the company and everyone, including the public, knew it. Locke was being considered because of his abilities to run the business side of things, and only the business side.
Which was just fine with Peter. But what about Matthew Locke?
Would he be content with a second-place role to Peter?
That question had just been answered in today's board meeting.
The tables had turned, and now Matthew was the star. He had used
Peter as a pawn in his own deceitful, unscrupulous game. How long
had he been planning this coup?
Peter mentally lashed himself for not having taken some sort of action when, about a year ago, Matthew had suggested that Wallaby's products should be engineered to be more compatible with those of ICP. An alarm had gone off in Peter's head, but he had quieted it, tolerating the fact that Matthew did not fathom his desire to uphold Wallaby's proprietary-technology direction. In the long run, that's what it all boiled down to. Matthew wanted to transform Wallaby into an ancillary concern, its computers acting as peripherals to ICP's machines, allowing ICP to remain as the number-one portable and desktop computer manufacturer.
He felt exhausted and lifeless, disembodied, his foot heavy on the gas pedal, drawn by gravity as he raced down the highway pushing seventy-five miles per hour. Even the car was a fucking prop, Peter thought miserably. When Matthew had gotten one for himself just like it, he had told Peter it was because he valued his artistic appreciation for the machine, that he respected his passion for beautifully designed products. How many other little games of pretend had there been, when all along Matthew had been treating him like a child, playing him along and pacifying him until he could drop the ax?
His throat felt packed with cotton balls when the reality of what had just happened started to sink in. His stomach turned and rolled in mini-heaves. All he wanted to do was to make smart portable computers that made everyone's life easier. Couldn't he be allowed that simple pleasure? With this question, the weird feeling in his heart stirred. It had been dormant all morning, and he had all but forgotten about it. But now it was awake, and this time it felt a little different. A little larger, a little livelier. A little more painful.
All of Peter's work on the new and improved Joey Plus was over. Matthew had taken away the thing that was more important to him than anything else in the world. Peter could just picture it, how it would proceed from this day forward - Matthew marching into the engineering group, armed with a complicated schedule and an army of bozo project managers, all meant to scare the development team into finishing the Joey Plus. Then of course he would re-introduce it and take all the credit for Peter's hard work and vision.
How? Peter wondered. How could Matthew, the person he had sanctioned to join him in creating something so exciting and important, do this?
"Simple," Peter said aloud, at last letting himself acknowledge the underlying truth of the whole mess. "He used me."
Yes, he'd been used. But for the last time. Enough was enough. As soon as he got home, he would begin weeding from his life everyone who was using him.
His car phone jingled, and he punched it, knocking it to the floor. No more talking. It was too late for that. He gripped the wheel more tightly and pressed down hard on the gas pedal, eager to get home and begin undoing his mistakes, ditching the bad parts, nurturing the good parts. It would be just that easy.
He would start with Ivy.
* * *
"I think he answered, but then he hung up," Eileen said, holding the telephone to her ear.
"Forget it," Matthew told his secretary. He closed his office door and seated himself before his computer. He closed his eyes let out an exhausted sigh. Leave it alone, he told himself. Leave him alone, you can't get through to him, can't make him understand. It has to be this way. There is no other way.
His plan had worked. The executive staff and board of directors had faith in him to run the company after all. Peter could no longer stand in the way of his taking control of Wallaby. Now he was free to build momentum and power as he moved into the next phase of his plan. He felt a dizzying rush of elation as he fully comprehended what he'd just done. Though he had sincerely cared for Peter when they'd first met, after awhile he had grown less enchanted as he was reminded that falling for the young inventor would prevent him from ever achieving his real goal at Wallaby. He wholeheartedly wished things could have turned out differently. But they had not. And it was over. He only wished Peter had tried harder to understand the real reason everyone in the boardroom had voted against him, even though they themselves had not yet admitted it. He had known all along that Peter would not simply bow out gracefully and accept a non-management role in the company. If only he had been more receptive to the idea of connecting to ICP's computers, this would have never happened. There was no room for being sentimental now, he told himself. Why revisit the past? But as Matthew rested his eyes, he allowed his mind to wander back anyway, letting the memory of those intoxicating early days deepen the resonance of his most recent triumph.
The airplane banked left, changing its coastal orientation, and rose through the hazy grayness surrounding JFK Airport. Destination: San Jose, California.
When the seat belt sign blinked off, Matthew eased his seat back into a more comfortable position. Sunlight broke through the grayness and the cabin was filled with sunlight as the plane climbed.
"Good morning," a stewardess said. "Can I bring you a glass of orange juice? Champagne?"
"I'd like Orange Fresh, please," Matthew said. He was certain the airline carried the soft drink-it had, after all, been his idea to test-market the all-natural citrus beverage with this very carrier before it was introduced by International Foods several years ago.
The stewardess returned with a glass of the sparkling orange beverage. She placed a napkin on the tray and then set the drink upon it.
"Do many people drink Orange Fresh?" he asked.
"It's one of our most-requested soft drinks. Though most folks don't keep it all that soft," she said with a wink.
He felt a burst of pride and love for Greta. Thanks to her, Orange Fresh had carved a new and highly profitable market niche that had earned Matthew kudos from the company's executives. Though International Foods' marketing of the all-natural refreshment ("Good for you, and fun to drink!") had created a markedly successful soft drink, a second, unexpected market had blossomed, thanks to Greta - the Sassy Screw. One part vodka, two parts Orange Fresh. The healthy soda had instantly become a popular cocktail mixer, displacing Mother Nature's own natural contender, orange juice. In its first month of sales, the product reached the magic 50 million-case mark, and the company threw a yacht party for Matthew. That day, however, had ended in tragedy. And now, as he flew to California, he hoped that maybe, if he landed this job, the loss that he and Greta had suffered that day might be amended.
Finishing the beverage, he made room for the materials he had received from the headhunter who had contacted him two weeks earlier, expressing Wallaby's interest in him. He pulled his briefcase from beneath the seat in front of him and opened it on the vacant seat beside him. The over-stuffed folder inside contained newspaper clippings, annual reports, and magazine article reprints, as well as a brochure of Wallaby's computer, the Mate.
Although Matthew knew of Peter Jones - who in the Fortune 500 didn't? - and the highly publicized invention Jones created in his bedroom while a senior in high school, he became more and more intrigued as he browsed through the clippings.
A cover story in "Time" two years earlier touted Jones as
"Silicon Valley's Hottest Kid On The Block."
"Forbes" magazine listed Jones in its directory of America's richest people. An accompanying article detailed Wallaby's phenomenal growth and financial milestones, ranking it the fastest-growing company in America. When Wallaby had gone public five years ago, Jones's total worth was estimated at more than 250 million dollars, with Wallaby reporting annual sales of just over 600 million. Holding the second largest share of Wallaby stock was Hank Towers, who was estimated to be worth close to 200 million dollars. A five-year-old "Fortune" article told the story of how Towers was the man Jones first approached for start-up cash with his hackneyed portable computer design. At the time, Towers had owned a small company that built highly-specialized computers that were ruggedized for field and medical applications. Towers had invited Jones to visit him at his offices after seeing the invention, the first truly all-in-one portable computer, at a science fair. Towers, unlike some of the others to whom Peter had shown the product, hadn't balked at its radical design, nor had he laughed when Jones explained his vision for manufacturing the computer at very low cost so that millions of people could have their own portable personal computer to take with them wherever they went. Not long after their initial visit, Towers gave Jones a check for 200 thousand dollars. The rest was history.
Another "Fortune" story was the first among several of the more recent articles to raise in Matthew a curious caution. According to Nicholas Whitley, a science teacher at Sunnyvale High School, "Jones was a rebel. He never wanted to participate in what the rest of the class was focused on. He wanted to do everything himself, on his own." Whitley admitted, however, that had Jones been like the rest of the kids, Sunnyvale High would never have become, thanks to its simple all-in-one design, one of the biggest education customers of the Mate computer - or any computer, for that matter. His main concern was Jones's leadership skills: "I wonder about Wallaby's long-term success. He's a bright kid, with a knack for divining opportunity, but as a company grows, I'm wondering if he'll be able to handle it."
A month-old "Business Week" article crystallized Matthew's caution. A profile on Jones commented on his biting rivalry with ICP, the world's largest computer manufacturer. When Jones was queried about whether Wallaby was developing communications features in their products that would make them more compatible with ICP's mainframe, desktop, and portable computers, he had replied adamantly, "Never. We do it our own way. Though I would consider letting them license our operating system and hardware designs." It was that interminable audacity that raised many eyebrows about the future of Wallaby. When Matthew considered ICP's size, more than fifty billion dollars in sales, and the fact that its computers were used for almost every aspect of worldwide systemization in one way or another, a red flag unfurled in his mind. Matthew feared that he was probably wasting his time speaking to Jones about becoming the company's earnestly sought president. At the same time, though, the lure of being in a position to influence the future technology tools used by people all around the world aroused his interest. Perhaps Jones was working on something new and more powerful than ICP's own desktop and portable computers, which had quickly overtaken and then dwarfed Wallaby's market share. Many speculated that that was the case. Jones, however, had remained tight-lipped over the past year and would talk to no one about what he was working on. If the speculation was true and he got in there now, while they still had a window of opportunity, perhaps he could help Jones build a strategy that would firmly seat Wallaby as the portable computer technology and market leader, with a perpetual lead over ICP.
He loosened his tie and pushed the seat to the fully reclined position. The stewardess asked him which entree he had selected from the lunch menu, and he said he was going to pass on the meal and nap until they arrived.
He had gotten little sleep over the few nights prior to his trip to Wallaby. Two nights earlier, after work, he had gone to a local computer dealer and purchased an Wallaby Mate computer. He had worked with the machine until two o'clock in the morning. Though he read the manuals and stepped through the tutorial programs packaged with it, he found the computer difficult to use, and that made him wonder how long it would take before Wallaby's sales began to dwindle even further; its last-quarter numbers had slipped from those of the preceding quarter. Furthermore, for a portable computer it was considerably heavier, bigger, and shorter-lived in the battery department than ICP's and other, smaller companies' portable computers. Although schools preferred the system because of its rich library of education programs, the market for the Mate was closing fast. If Wallaby wanted to be successful in the future it would have to bring something radically new to the table, something so compelling people just had to have it.
The Joey came close to fulfilling that tall order, but not close enough. But it would, soon enough. It was Matthew's plan to make Wallaby more compatible with ICP's computers. If only Peter had agreed, things would have worked out better, and he would not have had to unseat the young man from the company's top position.
As he loaded Joey's e-mail program, any pain he had felt at the loss of his friendship with Peter was almost fully entombed now. With e-mail, Matthew had been able to communicate with his secret partner in Manhattan for the past two years, and he had been looking forward to this day, to sending this message, for a long time now.
He typed:
- - - - - - - - - -
TO: wharrell@icp.com
FROM: mlocke@wallaby.com
SUBJECT: STATUS
Today I was granted full support by the board of directors and executive staff to take over all senior management responsibilities at Wallaby, including the development of the Joey Plus computer, which will be complete and ready for release in three months.
I attempted to persuade Peter Jones to accept a position within the company to oversee the development of our future products, but my sense is he will not accept.
We will succeed regardless.
—Matthew
- - - - - - - - - -
He tapped the Send button, and a flashing message appeared indicating that the e-mail was being transmitted.
Just then, his office door opened and he spun in his seat. It was
Laurence Maupin.
"Hello, Matthew. How are you holding up?"
Matthew leaned back in his seat, blocking the computer screen with his upper body. "I think I'm still in shock," he said wearily, wiping his sleeve across his brow.
"Your statement's out to the press," she said, giving the folder in her hand a little shake. She looked at him with a genuinely concerned expression. "Why don't you take the rest of the day off?"
"I think I will," he said, and offered her a grateful smile. He turned and shut off the computer, noticing before the screen went black that his message had been successfully sent.
"Good. We can catch up later," she said, touching his arm lightly.
He gathered his notes and briefcase. Exiting the building, he felt euphoric yet depleted, as if he'd just run a marathon. And he had won. The race was finished, and he had emerged victorious. His biggest obstacle had been overcome.
Unlocking his car door, he was struck by a sudden realization, and he let out a small laugh at the irony of his new position. He'd really done it. He'd really made it. And farther than he had ever imagined. To think that soda and crackers were his business just a few short years ago. It was incredible. Indeed, although he would not become the chairman of the largest food company in the world, as he had once dreamed, today's accomplishment set him up for an even greater eventual success - chairman of the largest computer company in the world.