"So as you can see, since I became the CEO, our user growth, undeniable." "Our retention, so sticky, it's pornographic." "We're lean, we're exploding, and we're more mission-focused than ever in providing the best video chat the world has ever seen." "Wow." "Well, this seems really promising, gentlemen." "Promising, indeed." " I think if each..." " "Promising"?" "You're a young associate here, so I'm gonna help you out, okay?" "We have a lot of these meetings set up." "We will be fine." "What he means by that is..." "But you... you don't wanna be known around here as the guy who fucked this up, okay?" "So when you hip your bosses to our numbers and they get visible hard-ons, have them move quickly." "Erlich, you're with me." " It's "hards-on."" " What?" ""Hards-on" not "hard-ons."" "It's a syntactical error that I could've remedied if you had just given me the space to speak." "Erlich, seeing you Thursday, right?" "You better believe it." "Can't wait for it." "For, uh..." "For Jian-Yang's pitch." "His new idea sounds super exciting." "Yes, well, he is... white hot right now." "And that's why I had him reach out directly, and we can't wait to pitch you the idea that is gonna be pitched to you." "Great." "I'll see you then." " You have no idea what it is, do you?" " Not a fucking clue." "Always blue!" "Always blue!" "Always blue!" "Always blue!" "Always blue!" "Always blue!" "Always blue!" "Always blue!" " Hey." " Always bl..." "Richard, hey." "What's, uh..." "Ah, there we go." "What's going on?" "You..." "celebrating something?" "We were just... chanting." "Why?" "What, the pitches go well?" "They went fine, you could say." "You said they went awesome." "All right, thank you, Big Head." "I mean, I did get us a... few offers." ""We" did receive more than a few offers, as "few" often refers to three." "And today, we're four for four." "Huh." "Which..." "I mean, what does that even mean?" "Nothing." "Nothing at all." "Look, you don't have to do this." "Really." "It was my choice to leave the company, and besides, my Internet thing is going great." "Really, it's going very well." "So I want you to succeed, and I want you guys to be happy." "Sure you do, slugger." "Stop." "Really." "It's cool." "I mean that, totally honestly." "Keep it positive." "I should go Skype my dad, I think, and tell him the good news." "Um, it is good news, though, right?" "'Cause we were all sort of like happy and celebrating, but now... now it feels sort of weird and..." "Just go, Big Head." " Okay." "It's good?" " Yes." "All right." "Well... enjoy." "Carry on." "Always blue." " Jared." " Okay." " Always blue." "Always blue." " Sorry." "Sorry." "Dinesh, I think you accidentally disabled my access keys for the video chat data repository." "No, actually, I deleted them on purpose." "I purged all our ex-employees." "Gleb, Sanjay, Elisabet, you." "Gleb?" "What, you're comparing me to Gleb?" "When we agreed to split the company, we said that you could take the algorithm for your video chat, and I could use the data flowing through the system to optimize the algorithm for my thing." " We had a deal." " We had an agreement, not technically a deal." "What the fuck, Dinesh?" " Play!" "Play!" "Blue, blue!" " Always blue!" "Always blue!" "Have fun, you're having a party." "You got pizza and everything." "Always blue." "So, what?" "I should've got it in writing, Dinesh?" "Is that it?" "You wanna lawyer up now?" "You know, we're just some guys in a house." "But I don't wanna be just guys in a house, Richard." "That's the whole point." "I want PiperChat to be a real company." "And after all the bullshit we went through, no offense," "I finally got some real financing lined up for us." "I cannot have another Intersite on my hands." "That was fucking Russ and his shitty tequila." "You know that, man?" "You were there." "That wasn't me." "Richard, it happened on your watch." "I'm sorry." "I really am." "But the answer is no." "Okay, well, suck a dick." "I'm sorry, what did you say?" " Nice blazer." " Thank you." " Where'd you get it?" " Does it matter?" "I just want to know where I can get one, so I can look like a total fucking douchebag." "Wow, right?" "Unbelievable." "Gents, why don't we take this... party outside?" "Yes, we live in California." "We should take advantage of it." "Oh..." "Okay." "Gavin, you told me to interrupt if Jack Barker came to see you." "I'm sorry." "Yes." "Send him in." "I thought Barker would crack after one day in that basement." "The fact that it's taken him two weeks to fess up about hijacking my fucking plane and resign will make it all the sweeter." "Hiya, Skipper." "Sorry to barge in." "I owe you an apology." "Really?" "Whatever for?" "When you stuck me in that basement," "I was like, "Jack, what the hell did you do wrong?"" "And I'm sorry that it took me so long to get it through my thick skull." "I finally figured out what this is all about." "Well, I'm glad to hear it." "You are doing exactly what Bobby Iger does over at Disney." "What?" "He makes every manager spend one day of the year in the Goofy suit." "Because sometimes, you just gotta be at product level to be able to see the best path forward." "And once I realized that, it was like, ka-pow!" "It was so obvious." "It's the algorithm." "Pied Piper put middle-out in their vid chat, and it's amazing now, I know." "I'm on it all the time with my grandkids." "We could use middle-out to revamp our entire suite of products." "We can make billions, Chief." "I'm whipping up some proposals right now that are gonna knock that wig right off your head." "Yeah." "What the fuck is he up to?" "Look like a fucking wig to you?" "The point is, Jian-Yang, you don't set pitches." "I handle the scheduling." "That's the symbiosis of our relationship." " No." " What do you mean, "no"?" "No." "Jian-Yang, PiperChat has some real heat, okay?" "And we can draft off of that, but it has to be a carefully choreographed dance." "You can't just wiggle your little tush and expect every VC in the Valley to get hards-on." "I am your lead investor, you will respect me as such." "I do not respect you." "You're not any kind of investor." "You own nothing." "I own 10 percent." "You live in my incubator." "No, you evict me," " I evict your 10 percent." " What are you talking about?" ""Santa Clara Sheriff's Department." ""Vacate or be forcibly removed."" "To be fair, Jian-Yang, I filed this when I had no expectations" " that the system would work." " Okay." "Jian-Yang, just tell me... can you just tell me what the idea is, so I can Gauge how aggressively I should pursue it?" "Hey, Jared, you were there, right?" "When we split the company into two," " Dinesh and I had a very..." " Stop, stop." "Please stop." " Richard, what're you doing?" " What?" "What?" "What do you mean?" "I'm complaining about Dinesh." "He..." "He sucks." "He's my boss now, Richard." "Well, your boss is being a real prick." "Richard, we have to bifurcate our relationship." "You and I can no longer discuss business." "All right?" "We can..." "We can talk about anything else two guys might talk about." "We can talk about sports teams and their scores, or pussy, but... but you and I cannot and will not discuss business." "Hey, man, for what it's worth," "I thought it was super fucked up what Dinesh did." "I know what it's like to be the one guy not in the company." "You know?" "So..." "If you want my log-in, it's all yours." "Really?" " Yeah, man." " Thanks." "You know what?" "I shouldn't do this." "Dinesh said no." "And also, these are "Skyrim" cheat codes." "Oh, shit." "Yeah." "Hey, my Bloomberg interview is on!" "How did I come up with PiperChat?" "That's a very good question." "I guess the tech gods were just speaking through me." "Somehow, I knew to take the best parts of a service as substandard and crappy as HooliChat and make it..." "How do I put this?" "Incredible." "Do you think I have too much product in my hair?" "No, I think you should use more." "Wait." "Are you saying that because you think I look ridiculous and you want me to look more ridiculous next time?" "Which answer will get more of that stuff in your hair?" "but let's just say..." "Wait, wait, wait." "Watch this." "This is where I make Emily Chang laugh." "Quite a turnaround for a company that wasn't exactly soaring." "Oh, it was soaring, Emily... right into a clogged toilet." "And not just like a standard clogged toilet." "Like, I don't need a plunger." "I need a shovel and a bucket." "But enough about the previous leadership, which was inept, lame, bitter..." "Fuck him." "We had a deal." "Thanks." "That's weird." "Hey, Richard." "Have you seen the new Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition?" "The cover model has the most lovely, enigmatic facial expression." "Jared, I..." "I don't really want to talk about guy talk." "I'm here to tell you that I think Dinesh may be in some serious trouble." "Okay, so I was analyzing a bunch of user data, and I noticed..." "No, no, no, no, no, no, no." "Richard." "Richard." "I told you, I can't talk about this." "You have to bifurcate." "No, Jared, listen, you're gonna wanna hear this." "Wait." "What do you mean you were looking at user data?" "You violated our system?" "Richard, you were inside us?" "Don't tell Dinesh, and don't tell any of the other guys, okay?" ""Don't tell Dinesh"?" "Richard, Dinesh is my CEO." " Oh, God." " What are you doing to me?" "Did I make you angry?" "I'm trying to save his ass, okay?" "I'm trying to save you." "Just survey the users... and make sure you ask how old they are." "Okay?" "And then, that's it." "That's it." "That's it." "No more." "Stupid fucking Jian-Yang and his shitty app." "I don't even know if it is shitty." "Hey, you know, I could probably find out about Jian-Yang's app." "He asked if he could practice-pitch it to me." " Do you have any nines?" " Go fish." "Wait." "This could be great." "What time are you guys doing that?" " I could listen in." " I don't know." "He asked if he could pitch me, and I said sure, and then he kind of just like kept talking for a while." "Oh." "You don't think that could've been the pitch, do you?" "God damn it, what did he say?" "Geez, I kind of zoned out." "Shit." "Fives?" "Uh, go fish." "Wait." "I don't know if this would be relevant, but he did say the word "Oculus" a whole bunch." " Wait. "Oculus"?" " Mm-hmm." "Oh, my God." "It's a VR play." "That's the frothiest space in the Valley right now." "Nobody understands it, but everybody wants in." "Any idiot can walk into a fucking room, utter the letters "V" and "R," and VCs will hurl bricks of cash at him." "Then by the time they find out that it's vaporware, it's too late." "I have got... to get in on this." "Trust me." "Just give me five minutes." "There he is." " Hey!" " Wait." "Is that our lawyer?" " Hey!" " I thought he was in jail." "Hey." "Perfect timing." "I just completed the detailing on this Kia." " Come on." " What the fuck is going on?" "Wait." "I don't understand." "How did Richard have access to our user data?" "Someone must've let him in." "It was you." "You're a fucking rat, Jared." "Richard entered us without consent." "In spite of that, he has raised a real issue here." "Fuck this." "I'm gonna Uber home." "Mr. Monahan, good luck with this whole work-release situation, but I have more important things to do." "Mr. Chugtai." "It appears that 33 percent of your users are under the age of 13." "It's also apparent that you have no parental permission requirements in place." "You're going to want to sit down for this." " Are you familiar with COPPA?" " Who?" "That's the Children's Online Privacy and Protection Act." "This Act establishes strict guidelines to protect the privacy of younger children on the Internet." "You are in gross violation of this act." "You know how kids can't have a YouTube or Facebook account till they're 13?" "It's because of this." "Yes, but our users are chatting with each other, Jared, not some old creep." " No offense." " None taken." "My shame will linger even after my voting rights are restored." "Now, are there records of these chats on your server?" "Yeah, we store everything." "What..." "Okay." "What's going on?" "How serious is this?" "Each violation of COPPA... carries a penalty of $16,000." "So we're fined $16,000?" "Oh, no." "I hope they take cash." "$16,000 per user." "Not only each user... each use." "Fifty-one thousand estimated underage users times an average 25.6 chat sessions per user times $16,000..." "$21 billion?" "I mean, how is that even fucking possible?" "I mean, I knew Dinesh was going to fuck this all up, but honestly, this couldn't get any better." "What's with the shirt?" "Oh, he sort of became ill on himself." "I was wrong." "This just got better." "This is all your fault, Richard." "This was your company before it was mine." "What are you talking about?" "Dinesh, I specifically reminded you to port over the terms of service from the platform." "Right, and I asked if you'd done it, and... and you said you had." "Okay." "I checked the TOS box when I submitted to the app store, but then I didn't end up doing it, all right?" "And then when we caught fire, the last thing I wanted to do was bog our users down with legal bullshit, you know?" "I mean, nobody reads that stuff anyway." "Well, first of all, everyone reads the terms of service, and secondly, they would've given us legal cover from exactly this." "Every sound is $16,000." "Fuck!" "All right, all right." "Don't think about that." "Just think about how to solve this massive, massive problem." "Quickly." "Quick as you can." "Jared!" "Just..." "Wait." "We could shut down." "No, no, no." "Not when we're this close to signing a term sheet." "And in case all of you gents have forgotten," "I'm on the hook for half a million clambos for this thing." "But we can't stay online!" "We're just racking up more fines!" "Well, technically, this is a corporation." "So whatever they fine you, they'll really only be able to collect what the company's worth, which at this point, is basically nothing." "That's right." "I'm just the CEO." "I'm not personally liable." "Although..." "Although what?" "Well, when you lied to me about adding terms of service, it could be argued you violated your fiduciary duty to the company, rendering you personally liable." "I mean, if the FTC brought us to trial," "I could be compelled to testify against you." "Jared, I trusted you." "Oh, trust has nothing to do with it, but thanks for making that official." "So I could be personally liable for $21 billion?" "Yeah, most likely." "I know, in the fable, Pied Piper led all the children into darkness, but now we're doing it." "So, what do you wanna do?" "I'm gonna throw up again." "I'm going to watch this." "I want full surveillance on Jack Barker, 24/7." "I don't recommend using conventional listening devices." "He may sweep for those." "I do have a colleague at Facebook that has a laser microphone." "You can point it at an office window from a mile away and read the sound vibrations." "I like it." "Hoover, you're the only person I can trust at this goddamn company." "It's good to have a friend." "I understand that, sir." "Ah!" "Gavin, there you are." "Oh." "I don't want to interrupt your talking with Hoover... and talking and talking about things, but I have some concrete news." " Regarding?" " Jack Barker." "By forgoing Western gadgetry, simply stationing myself in the hall outside of his office," "I was able to overhear him speaking of his plans to move against you." "He even referred to you as "Gavin..." "Smellson."" "I knew it!" "Good work, Denpok." "Good work." "Let's go slice this bastard in half, huh?" "Hold on." "We need proof." "Otherwise, he'll just deny it, and it'll just be a case of he said/she said." "That's a good point." "Denpok, who was he talking to?" "Oh, um..." "Alas, I could not see this from my hidden vantage point." "I'll check the logs and see who was in his office." "No, because... no one was there." "I'm confused." "Was he on the phone?" "Yes." "Very perceptive." "Easy." "I'll just pull up his phone records." "No." "Not the phone phone." "So what was he doing?" "Was he video chatting?" "That's what it was, chela." "Even better." "I'll pull up the chat data." "You can do that?" "Well, as long as he was on HooliChat, but the bastard kept grinding in my face how much he loved PiperChat." " What if he was using..." " PiperChat." "Yes." " Fuck!" " He said the resolution was so vivid and superior to HooliChat." "Ah." "Sadly, now we'll never know the identity of the person with whom he was definitely talking." " Unless..." " Unless what?" "Dinesh?" "Hey, man." "How's it going?" "Bad." "Well, look, I've been there, man." " No, you haven't." " No, I..." "I have." "One time when we were pitching at Ross Loma..." "I threw up in my pants." "Don't you mean "on"?" "No." "No, I mean..." "I mean "in."" "We were pitching and... well, things weren't really going well," "I was getting nervous and..." "I don't know," "I think I must've eaten something bad that day." "Anyway, my stomach was upside down, so I made a beeline to the stall." "But then I pulled down my pants, sat down... but instead of shit, I threw up..." "into my pants." "Well, I was CEO for 11 days, and in that time I violated the rights of 50,000 little girls, exposed them to sexual predators, and racked up fines the size of a small nation's GDP." "Yeah." "I threw up in my pants." "Fuck." "What do I do, Richard?" "There are no right answers." "You know, when I was CEO..." "I found that it was more about choosing the one wrong answer that you can live with." "I really loved that video chat." "Hello." "This is he." "What?" "It's Gavin Belson." "It's Gavin fucking Belson." "Hey, Gavin Belson." "What's up?" "Oh, my God." "We're crushing it all the time." "I'm in a bathtub." "Yeah, of course." "I'd love to." "Bye." "He wants to meet me at Josephina's tonight." "Did I say yes?" "Holy shit." "Gavin Belson wants to acquire PiperChat." "He made the same call to me back when he wanted to make an offer for Pied Piper." "He could take this entire shitbomb off Dinesh's hands?" "Where's the fun in that?" "More importantly, I could get all my money back, maybe even more." "We could 10X this motherfucker, gents." " Although..." " Although what?" "Well, I'm sorry to play the Cassandra again, but Dinesh can't sell Gavin the company." " Why not?" " Why the fuck not?" "It's due diligence." "Gavin doesn't trust anyone." "When I worked for him, he tried to microchip me." "Before he finalized any acquisition, his legal team would uncover our malfeasance." "They'd sniff out the user issue immediately." "And they'd probably turn you in, and you do not want that." "I mean, there's also the moral quandary." "Even if he could get away with it, could Dinesh really sell the company, knowing it's basically a Sizzler buffet for the sexually deranged?" "Of course he could." "Because even if there is a one percent chance of success and a 99 percent chance of failure and prison, he will do the right thing and get me my money back." "I'm sorry, Erlich." "I've made my decision." "I'm gonna say no to Gavin Belson... shut it down, and just see what happens." "What the fuck, huh?" "What the fuck?" "Jian-Yang!" "Hey, Gavin." " Well..." " Dinesh." "Thanks for coming." "Listen, Gavin." "I've thought about it, and if this is about you buying PiperChat..." "I didn't come here today to buy your company." "You didn't?" "No." "I came to take it." "I thought I'd have to buy you out, and I wanted to know what kind of CEO I'd be dealing with, so I had my comms people pull your press, like this interview you did with TechCrunch" "where you described PiperChat as, and I quote," ""Exactly like HooliChat," ""but without the suck-ass parts," end quote." "Or the one you did with Emily Chang, where you told her how you took "the best parts of HooliChat" ""and made them less crappy."" "I was about to throw you a massive acquisition deal, and then I realized you'd already publicly admitted to stealing my IP." "I hope you have a good lawyer." "He works at the car wash down the street." "What?" "Look, Gavin, you do not want to do this." " I can't explain exactly why." " Shut up." "This is not a negotiation." "If you fight me, I will win, and I will fuck you in the tech business forever." "No one will hire you." "I'm taking PiperChat." "By 8:00 a.m. tomorrow, you will hand over to Hooli all your data and systems." "All your users will be converted to HooliChat users." "It will be like PiperChat never existed." "And what you get out of it is the chance to walk away and try and get another job in this town." "You have five seconds to decide." " Five, four..." " Okay." "So we're in agreement." "For a 10 percent stake in your current venture, you will receive full pool privileges, more room in the crisper, and you may live in my home for..." "For free." "for free for six months." "Fuck you." "One year." "Fuck!" "Fine." "Fine." " It's a deal." " Deal." "Jian, I mean, your onerous terms not withstanding," "I'm very excited to be a part of your VR play." " VR, virtual reality." " Who's doing VR?" "You are." "That's what Big Head said." "This play has to do with the Oculus, right?" " No." " But he said that you said, "Oculus."" "He said you kept saying it." ""Oculus, Oculus, Oculus."" "Octopus." "No." "No." " Octopus?" " It's a water animal." "I..." "I know what an octopus is." "Just..." "What does your application have to do with octopus?" "Eight different ways to make a Chinese recipe, octopus." "So I just traded one year... of free rent, full pool privileges, and more room in the crisper for an application that is just... eight recipes for octopus?" " Hmm?" " Yes." "Hey, guys, they're ready." "Ooh." "Ooh." "What the fuck is this?" "I went through every chat in his history." "They're all the same." "Perhaps it was another chat format." "Could you acquire Skype or FaceTime and check them as well?" "What?" "Uh, Gavin, I'm..." "I'm sorry." "I need to talk to you about this PiperChat acquisition." "I put together a panel of the most active users you ported over from PiperChat." "Bear in mind, this group is representative in terms of gender, race and, most importantly, age." "Now, who else thinks changing to a HooliChat log-in is hella lame?" "Madison, Allison, Jennifer," "Stephanie, Quinn, Ingrid, Kaylee..." " Oh, no." " Amber, Sarah, Janelle..." "Carl." "Now, Carl... you said the new sign-in page made you nervous." "Did anyone else feel nervous?"