"I, George Walker Bush, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States." "that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and will, to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution." "Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman caused quite a stir when they announced plans to separate." "The couple explained the split was caused by careers that frequently keep them apart." "The market plunge was sharp and swift, the NASDAQ was bloody too, closing below 2000 for the first time in more than two years." "Our 40th president, Ronald Reagan, born February 6th, 1911, celebrated his birthday quietly today" "In his home in Los Angeles." "The tech sector took yet another beating this week but there were a few winners, most notably Landshark, whose stock hit a record high for the fourth straight day." "In just a few minutes, we'll talk to Landshark CEO, Tom Sterling." "Mark, tell us just a little bit about this company." "It's an amazing story we're seeing here, Ron." "At a time when the tech sector has been in virtual free fall, here's a company that's been public for four days and it's already up an astounding 500%." "Indeed it has." "And we want to talk Landshark CEO Tom Sterling." "Tom, are you with us?" "Yeah, I'm here." "Congratulations." "Thanks for joining us." "Thank you for having me." "This is a very difficult market environment." "Can Landshark get the traction it needs?" "I think you're missing the point, Ron." "Traction really isn't the issue because Landshark is not a vehicle," "Landshark is the road itself." "We've seen start-ups before, they come out strong, get B-listed before they're even out of lockup." "The man has got to be very very tough." "That's just business, Ron." "That's what separates the men from the boys." "I indeed it is." "Tom, congratulations, thanks for being with us today." "Absolutely." "Any time." "Market confidence in Landshark has been extraordinarily high." "The real question is where will these guys be six months from now?" "We'll be right here!" "You did good." "Congratulations, man." "Hey, Tom." "This is Tom." "Leave a message after the beep." "Ahh." "I am so sorry, guys." "Um, Tom is not much of a morning person." "Excuse me, sir." "Excuse me." "Can I help you?" "One skinny mocha latte." "Thank you." "Here he is." "So," "I see you've met my brother Joshua, the creative genius behind our little venture." "Brad, Jonathan, we've met of course, and you are..." "Mason Newburger." "Nice to meet you." "So, you're Unison, we're Landshark, let's make money." "We were, uh, we expected a proposal." "Okay, there's been a miscommunication." "We apologize but what Tom and I..." "We are who we are." "The brand speaks for itself." "Who else are you talking to?" "Who are you meeting with?" "Well, actually," "I don't see how that's relevant." "Nobody, right?" "I mean, nobody of any weight." "Because nobody does what we do." "You know it, I know it, so let's cut the shit." "Without a proposal?" "Without something to take back?" "You can understand, it's gonna be hard for us to sell this upstairs." "Well, maybe next time, we should be meeting with upstairs." "Big words for an MOP." "Your lockup is standard 180." "He's out September 14th." "So you got four weeks, which according to the FCC means you can't buy, you can't sell, all your millions, it's all on paper." "Okay guys, um... before we get all heated up..." "You want portal play?" "Anybody can give you a portal play?" "Any asshole, he's a fucking portal." "That's so third quarter 99." "You want bleeding-edge mission-critical cross platform robust scalable architectures?" "Well, duh." "That's what everybody wants." "What you want is "e." Pure e." "Not e-commerce, not e-business, not click-and-mortar, anything but that, e." "Not old, not tired, not stepped on, not one gram of e and ten grams of baby laxative, pure e." "Josh knows e." "I know e." "That's what Landshark does." "And somehow when e changes, we're there first on the shore." "Beckoning." "Is there anyone who can aggregate the way we can?" "I don't think so." "Because if there was, I'd be there." "But I'm here." "And that's why you invited me here." "You invited me here because you want in." "Okay." "Fine." "So let's talk numbers." "Our CFO, as you know, is Dylan Gothschalk." "Give Dylan a call, make him an offer." "We'll see if we can accommodate you." "Motherfucker!" "You fucker." "Don't you ever fucking apologize ever fucking again." "That's not what we do." "Well, I'm so sorry." "Hop in!" "Oh no, I told Mo I'd stop home first to make sure she's okay." "I'll give you a ride." "That's okay." "I'll see you back at the office." "What?" "Hey!" "Did you hear?" "Pseudo dot com." "How many they dump?" "60, maybe 70 out of 100." "Everyone but the." "Who do I owe?" "Baum who called twice." "Andrew Goldman." "Fuck him." "Jonathan Grey." "Fuck him." "Laurel Wormack, twice, Kowalski." "Somebody's sitting in my chair." "Don't get all pompous on me, Tom." "Just don't." "You blew them off." "You had to, didn't you?" "I just did my thing, Mel." "I don't tell you how to do your thing." "I won't have a thing if you keep on blowing off the people who are trying to hire us." "We've got Snowmark to worry about." "Our plate is full." "Our plate is not full." "Snowmark is three months late." "We need that account, we need the money." "Take it then." "You want the money, take it." "They'll call Dylan, and when they do, take their money." "They'll call." "Trust me." "You'll see." "I've got a bazillion shares of Landshark" "I can't do anything with." "28 days, Mel, we come out of lockup, 4 weeks." "Four weeks from now, if we don't get any cash coming in, we're gonna be under water!" "We IPOed at 12, shot up to 60, last week we were at 7." "Want to know where we are now?" "Two and one eighth." "You better get to work then." "Can I have my chair back, please?" "Hey." "Yeah, you can put it there." "Can you give me a burp pad?" "Yeah, yeah, yeah." "Josh, you need to help me unpack this shit." "I can't do it by myself." "I know." "I'm sorry." "I'll help you unpack tonight, I promise." "Is there anything I can?" "I can't stay very long." "Is there anything that I can do before I leave?" "You can give me a kiss." "How is he?" "Good." "He fell asleep." "Wanna hold him?" "Yeah, yeah, yeah." "Do you want your hot chocolate?" "What do you mean I can't?" "What you're saying isn't can't, you're saying I shouldn't." "There's a world of difference." "Do what you want." "Want the Gulfstream?" "Go ahead and get it." "I just want the numbers, not the moralizing, not the more than I can afford, just numbers." "With maintenance?" "With everything!" "Give or take, but a million a month." "What does it cost not to lease the G5?" "Ever think about that?" "Did you ever take that into account?" "You're looking at me like "What does this asshole think?"" "That the bottom never fell out?" "Like July never happened?" "Of course it happened!" "Abercrombie was like, "This is great"" "and then she was like, "This is overvalued."" "What the fuck does that have to do with us?" "It's about valuation, Tom." "Elision has a Gulfstream." "Case has a Gulfstream." "Ross has a Gulfstream." "Bezos has a Gulfstream." "Fucking Bezos!" "The cost of not having one is the cost of saying to the world that Tom..." "Tom is just not in that league." "And what does that cost?" "A fuck of a lot more than a million a month." "A million a month can be leveraged." "Being looked at as B-list, can't." "Can't." "You're past that point, Tom." "I was right about Unison, wasn't I?" "They called, just like I said they would." "You and Mel just need to have a little bit of faith." "This will take more than smoky mirrors." "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." "Am I fired?" "Just find a way to do it." "Arbitrage, I don't care." "Wanna know something?" "You're gonna like it." "You're gonna like riding in it." "You're gonna call me and say," "I'm gonna take the family to Hawaii." "You got two kids?" "Three." ""I'm gonna take the wife and three kids to Hawaii."" "and I'm gonna say, "Cool." "Why don't you take the G?"" "And I'll tell you this." "I promise you this." "When you do, once you do, Dyl..." "Never mind, just get it." "Hey." "Sarah?" "What are you doing here?" "Tom." "Hi." "Hey, Dylan." "Hi, Sarah." "When did you get back in town?" "Um, just a couple of weeks ago." "I'm taking off, Tom." "Gotta get home." "Nice seeing you again, Sarah." "Welcome back." "Thanks, nice to see you too." "I was just trying to keep a couple of shifts." "So you're back then." "Yeah." "Classes start next month." "So..." "Where are you living?" "Same place." "How's your brother?" "Josh is good." "Yeah, he's good." "Good." "Tell him I said hello, okay?" "Bye." "Who was that?" "So what do you want to do tonight?" "Taxi!" "Well, good night." "Good night." "Recent polls show that 55% of Americans disapprove of President Bush taking a 30-day working vacation." "If the President returns on Labor Day, he will tie a lot of records held by Richard Nixon." "Ben Affleck today, for alcoholic." "Nicole Kidman says she refuses to be bitter about the break up with Tom Cruise." "Josh?" "I'm just starving right now." "What are you doing?" "Nothing." "You were supposed to be unpacking." "I'm totally unpacking." "Do you want to order some food?" "Tom, you think about what size you want me to send to your parents?" "What the fuck are these still doing here?" "Hey, what are these doing here?" "Come on, come on, get them up?" "Big ones, little ones, let's go, they don't do much good sitting here!" "Hey Tom, Charlie Corwin?" "Livemusicchannel. com?" "Fuck that guy." "So what?" "A little one?" "No, he's through, he's finished." "Fuck him, don't give him shit." "You know what?" "Give him a little one, what the fuck." "Dylan." "Nice Koosh." "We got problems, Tom." "Josh is on his way." "Oh, this is important." "Well, let's get started without him." "Josh." "So what's all the excitement?" "Snowmark shit the bed." "They haven't filed yet, but word is out." "And Unisol pulled their offer." "So where does that put us?" "The NASDAQ went down 87 points at opening, and we're doing worse." "We're below a dollar." "Josh!" "So what are our options?" "Cutbacks, but then there's the whole perception thing." "Rumors, the sniping, the downward spiral could sink us." "So we're probably looking at another round of financing." "We got an offer from Barton Ogilvy." "What's the catch?" "Second-round financing is not easy." "They'll pay market value but they're gonna want a big piece." "How much do I have to give up?" "Percentage, Dylan." "What percentage are we gonna have to give up?" "Like fifty." "So Josh and I, we start this company, no, we invent this company, we bring you two in, we give you contracts which we don't even have." "Now you want to let some moneybag fuck us up the ass?" "A better time to do this might have been four months ago, Dyl." "Before July!" "Things have changed." "So we lose half our company." "We get greeked up the ass by Barton-fucking-Ogilvy?" "This is no time to be proud, Tom." "That's not the play." "That's not the way we're gonna do it." "I'll cash-hold the company myself." "You're leveraged to the hilt." "I'll find the fucking money." "You're broke, Tom." "Get the fuck out of my office, Dyl!" "I just want to talk, you know, some place away from the office." "Yeah." "Can I get the next ball?" "Take the left flipper, come on." "There's some shit's been going down, it's complicated but I've been thinking about your future." "Oh, how nice for me." "You've always been smarter than me." "That's not what's at issue here." ""At issue?" Are we at a court of law?" "Why are you telling me this?" "I want to let you in on this." "It's an opportunity, it's, not a Landshark thing, it's a brothers thing, a Tom and Josh thing." "What do you want from me?" "You've always been smarter than me." "The squirrel and the whatever, you, you always were prudent who saved..." "Tom, what do you want?" "Just some working capital." "How much "just some working capital?"" "Enough to get us through the lockup, to get us to the other side." "You want me to put myself on the hook personally?" "Josh!" "When you said thinking about your future," "I should've known." "When Tom says "thinking about your future."" "that means "What can I screw you out of today?"" "Yeah." "You got me all wrong, man." "Oh, yeah, I don't think so." "Know what?" "You're a great designer, man." "But this is business, this is money." "You remember, when it was just me and you and we were moving into our first place?" "Why do you always bring this up?" "And I said we were gonna need 15 phone lines?" "And you laughed." "And you went down to NYNEX and they said it was gonna cost 110 dollars a line plus deposit, plus it was gonna take five weeks?" "Please, why do you always tell this story?" "And you were gonna pay it!" "I went down there and they installed them the next day and for free!" "Wow!" "I know money, man!" "And maybe the NASDAQ is up, maybe the NASDAQ is down, but if we could just make it from here to there, if we could just make it through this lockup, these next few weeks, there's a fucking pile of money, man." "Just waiting for us." "A mountain of it and we're gonna eat it." "When we're around everybody else, I got a front." "But with you, I can tell you when I'm in trouble." "We're in trouble, and you gotta believe me when I say that we're in trouble." "Now we can make it through this but..." "I need your help." "You gotta trust me." "Uhh..." "Oh, okay." "I mean..." "You know what?" "Just because I'm smart doesn't mean I'm stupid, Tom." "Hold on!" "Is there anything I can do?" "It's all done." "I'll open the wine." "There's wine open already." "This is a great bottle." "You'll like it." "It's a Batard-Montrachet Grand Cru, 1998." "Am I supposed to be impressed?" "It's really good, Dad." "Perhaps you could save it for a special occasion." "And so they asked me to speak at e-symposium which is quite an honor because it's considered the most important" "North American conference on new technology." "What do you actually do, Tom?" "Excuse me?" "You, Landshark, what do you do?" "David!" "I'm serious." "I was there last Friday." "Where was I?" "How would I know where was I?" "I dropped something off for Joshua and... you know what I saw?" "You know what I saw?" "Oreos." "You know me, Tom, I see it, I say it." "What I saw was a whole bunch of kids, bright young kids, they're all just sitting around." "When they got tired of sitting, which was more often than not, they'd get up, go to the kitchen and eat some Oreos." "Then they'd go back to their desk, a cute little desk from Ikea." "Am I correct?" "And they'd play solitaire on their computers." "Now you correct me if I'm wrong." "It's a long day, I give you that." "Ten in the morning till ten at night, seven days a week, but... why the hell would somebody give you a million dollars just to watch you sit around and eat some Oreos?" "Dad, add some zeroes." "Add two zeroes and that's what we're talking about." "Just because you take your failure and call it success doesn't mean you can take my success and call it failure." "Tom!" "I'm not finished yet." "Tom, I do not like where this is going!" "I was saying something and I wasn't finished." "Do you want to hear what I have to say?" "Do you want to fucking hear what I have to say?" "He just does not get it!" "What did you want?" "You wanted to change the world!" "Stop the war!" "Poetry must be made by all!" "Right?" "I've seen the bookshelves!" "I grew up with them!" "Cinderblocks and five copies of Soul oNice." "You wanted to change the world, and what did you settle for?" "Tenure?" "You wanted to change the world?" "Well, we're changing it." "Tiananmen Square?" "That was the fax machine." "Think what we'll have now that we have the Web." "Your guy, what's his name?" "The guy you did the seminar on?" "McLuhan?" "Global Village, right?" "Well, we're out there making it every day while you puff up, all smug and proud and self-satisfied!" "And then it's like go tell the maid to go dust the Goddard posters." "I'm leaving now." "No Mom, I'm leaving." "Hi." "Hi." "You look, um, vaguely familiar, have we met before?" "I don't think so." "Don't, Tom." "I've gotta work." "When do you get out of here?" "You mind if I wait?" "It's a free country." "Maybe we can get a bit to eat when you're finished." "I'm broke." "I'll take a number five and a number eight, and he'll have..." "Let me take you someplace nice." "a number 11." "Wasn't that the one you used to get?" "The babaganush, right?" "Just this once." "Yeah, he'll take number 11 and two Cokes, please." "Thank you." "So, how are you?" "How have you been?" "Good, yeah." "Everything's good." "Um, work is good." "Landshark is doing great, so..." "Work great, how's everything else?" "Is there something else?" "How are your parents?" "How about you?" "How was Barcelona?" "Oh, it... it was amazing." "Incredible." "I mean, the people and the culture, the architecture, it was just... fantastic." "And the program was really great, too." "And I got to stay on to the end of July as an apprentice." "Sarah, what happened with us?" "Come on, Tom." "Don't." "I was, um, working for this firm that was designing like this massive public housing project." "But with these really beautiful structures, and, um, and they were incorporating all of these sustainable design concepts..." "Stop it, Tom." "Stop what?" "You're doing that thing." "What thing?" "You know what you're doing." "So, thank you for dinner." "It was, um, it's good to see you." "It's good to see you too." "I missed you." "Tom." "Sarah." "Sarah." "What is this?" "It's nice to see you, thank you for a lovely evening?" "Is that really what this is?" "I can't." "Okay." "It's just that... it's okay." "I get it." "I'm okay." "Hey man." "Hey!" "What's up?" "What are y'all looking at?" "What's so funny?" "We're studying our screen saver." "It's really interesting." "I like the logo." "Oh yeah." "Yeah, fuck y'all." "Fuck Company?" "You guys are wasting your time on Fuck Company?" "You're wasting your company time..." "They have this countdown." "Our capitalization, our outflows." "Burn rate." "How many days till it all runs out." "Yeah?" "What do they say?" "Three weeks." "Fuck that noise." "Come on, get back to work." "Get back to work, come on, come on, come on!" "Ooh." "Car's here, Tom." "Car?" "Car to the Center." "Car as in town car." "He forgot." "I betcha he forgot." "Forgot what?" "The e-Symposium?" "That's next week." "This is next week." "And I'm gonna assume, Tom, that the reason you look like shit is because you were up all night working on your speech." "Come on." "In 1997, Landshark was two brothers and a dirty old office down in the Bowery." "Today, hundreds of employees in eight cities..." "Don't forget to mention me." "Us." "You won't fuck 'em now, will you?" "Now, they're stock's a little bit down, but they're not." "While other companies are laying people off, they're actually hiring." "You know the man I'm about to introduce." "Mr. Tom Sterling." "Yeah, Tom, go get them!" "Thank you, Jason." "I mean it." "Really." "It's great to be here." "We get invited to these things all the time but we never go." "But... this one is special." "Because of you." "Because of Jason." "Because of the free shrimp." "Shrimp." "Pigs in a blanket." "Those tiny little caviar things on little crackers." "But you didn't come to hear me talk about snacks." "You came because... we are at the forefront of a revolution." "A revolution in technology but also a revolution..." "You probably know what I was gonna say, so fuck that shit." "What I mean is, if I say what you already know what I'm gonna say, then it's like the hamster scurries and scurries and the wheel spins and, at the end of the day, we're all still in the cage, right?" "So, instead of that prepared shit," "I'm just gonna tell you what's in my heart." "You know what the problem is with the... with, I don't even know what to call it, with "our thing?"" "The problem is, w- what are we doing?" "Are we making the world a less sucky place?" "Or more sucky?" "How are we everyday impacting the suckage?" "My mom and dad were right." "It pains me to say it but they were right when they said that those who make half a revolution only dig their own grave." "Is that what we're making here?" "Half a revolution?" "What the Net is supposed to do, what new broadband is supposed to do, what digital whatever is supposed to do is increase freedom!" "Is increase choice!" "But what are we offering in the way of choice?" "AOL or EarthLink?" "Gates or Ellison?" "Miller Light or Coors?" "Gore or Bush?" "B2B or not B2B?" "We make money." "Tons of it." "We help big greedy advertising agencies sell the useless products of massive morally corrupt multinational corporations." "We advise them on how to aggregate eyeballs," "Have you ever seen the beginning of Chien Andalou?" "You know, with the eyeball and the straight razor?" "'Cause pretty much that's what we do." "Fuck you, Tom." "Okay, okay, fuck me." "Fuck me." "But what I'm telling you is the truth, and you know it." "Click-through is over." "Cross platform is over." ""i" whatever is over." "Disintermediation is way over." "The start-up is over, branding is over, convergence is so over!" "Dot-com and everything it stands for... over!" "So what's left?" "What's left is what we do." "What's left is those people who are very very good at what we do." "You all know people, they're in your shop, who are amazing designers." "Writers in a language that's being invented before our eyes." "I grew up with one." "My brother Joshua." "Now, I can charm a VC." "Well, on a good day I can charm a VC." "But Joshua..." "Joshua can imagine." "Joshua can make something where yesterday there was nothing." "And that makes all the difference, doesn't it?" "Thank you." "Thank you and enjoy your lunch." "Yeow!" "Tom rules!" "Tom." "Tom, I've got to take off." "Have a drink with me first." "Just one." "Oh yeah, I can't." "Morela called..." "Is everything okay?" "Yeah, yeah, yeah." "Jacob's having a tough time, he's still colicky, he's..." "What did you think of the speech?" "It was good." "It was good." "It was nice, thanks." "Tom." "You really pulled one out, Tom." "I was a little worried there for a moment but, you pulled it out." "I was thinking maybe we could just do something quiet, um, like, maybe I could cook dinner, just hang out and talk, you know." "'Cause I had a really good time seeing you the other night." "And, uh... so just gimme a call back when you get this, okay?" "Hey." "Hey yourself." "Holy shit!" "You did it!" "Of course I did it." "I didn't think you would." "What do you mean?" "I don't know, I just, um," "I just thought you were humoring me." "Are you kidding me?" "I love it!" "I sure wish you were here when they were working at it, because the contractor screwed me." "I have pictures." "You were totally right about opening this up." "Lets in the light." "So do you like it?" "It's the first thing that I designed that's actually been, you know, realized." "That's the, um..." "do you want some wine?" "I made a rabbit." "You aren't still a vegetarian, are you?" "Just kidding, I made a sea bass." "You still eat fish, right?" "Seems a little hypocritical though, this one looked cute and furry so I'm not gonna eat this one." "I'll make a little exception for that one." "I mean, fish have feelings too, right?" "So, can you explain the logic to me in that because" "I just don't understand." "I'm sorry, were you actually saying something?" "I was saying you liked the rabbit, remember?" "Fuck off." "You remember the time with Mo and my brother?" "Yes, I do." "You were a dick." "Walt, how is it my fault?" "Because you could've told me." "You just gobbled that shit right up!" "I though it was tofu!" "I had no idea it was..." "A cute little bunny rabbit?" "You were like, "Damn, this is some tasty tofu."" "Hypocrite." "Prick." "What else is new?" "Just work stuff, really." "Just dealing with Landshark." "That's going well?" "Are you happy?" "Yeah, of course, I mean..." "It must be nice to get to work with Josh, right?" "And everything seems like it's going really well." "Do you know, last spring, I was..." "I was on a train to Madrid." "And someone left a magazine on the seat." "And I looked over, and there was your face on the cover." "Wired?" "I hated that picture." "I looked like a total douche bag." "Yeah, you did." "You were doing your picture face, with your lips all pouty." "You looked totally gay." "The point is, the article," "I mean, holy shit." "You did it." "All those conversations that we had, and I remember you saying that there's no second-best in what you and Josh were planning." "No second-best?" "I never said that." "I would never say anything that cheesy." "That is exactly what you said, and you'd totally say something that cheesy." "But that's what I love about you." "You're always with the absolutes." "You did it, Tom." "I'm really happy for you." "So come on." "Tell me." "Tell me how it feels." "It's not what you think it is, believe me." "Well, tell me what it is then." "Things have changed since that article was written." "Five months ago, when that was written," "Josh and I were, uh..." "On March 14th, our combined net worth hit 387 million dollars." "But now, we're, uh, worth about one one-hundredth of that." "And Landshark has burnt their 95 million dollars in seed money and made virtually... no revenue to speak of, so..." "Basically, we're fucked." "But hey, it was fun while it lasted." "But let's not talk about Landshark." "I'm sure everything's gonna be fine." "What about you?" "What have you been working on?" "Oh, there's, like, a house, that I designed." "It's in a show and it's opening tomorrow night." "A house?" "Yeah, just like a little house." "Sounds great, I love a little house." "It's from last year, it's like drawings and a model." "But I think it came out really well, actually." "I wanna see it." "Tomorrow, five to seven, there's a reception." "Five o'clock." "I'll be there." "I should go." "Oh, fuck." "Barton Ogilvy." "Very... particular." "I'm not in position to talk price." "My client would like to discuss it with Mr. Sterling directly." "But I can tell you that they're very interested in hearing your proposal." "They can meet you tomorrow at nine am." "Maybe you want to talk this over and get back to me, just call my office by lunchtime." "But as I said before, if you're not prepared to offer seats on the board..." "I just want to be clear on that so we're all on the same page." "We're not wasting anyone's time." "We'll be there." "Tomorrow morning, 9 am, we'll be there." "Thank you." "How we doing on that Gulfstream, Dyl?" "I'll talk to him." "I'll talk to Josh." "Hey, have you seen my brother?" "Have you checked the roof?" "No." "Hey, have you seen Josh?" "Over there." "Hey, Josh." "Oh, hey, Tom." "You just missed your brother." "Did you tell him I wanted to talk to him?" "Yeah, I did." "Check that shit out." "It's like a big pita." "It's totally absurd though." "Your house is the best one by far." "It blows these other ones away." "I didn't miss it, did I?" "It's five to seven." "I told you." "I'm just gonna hang out with my friends." "Come on, don't be mad." "I'm not." "It's my fault." "I just thought maybe You might have changed." "I was hoping that..." "Take care of yourself, Tom." "Okay?" "Use that." "We need to watch out because usually when..." "He pees his pants." "That's when I peed my pants too." "How's your brother?" "Tom?" "Um, well, he's Tom." "I don't know." "By special messenger." "It weighs a ton." "Whoa." "It's from Tom, Dad." "Go ahead and open it up." ""From your friends at Landshark, wishing you the gift of enlightenment."" ""The gift of enlightenment."" "Enlightenment." "Hard to beat." "Ohhh." "Hi Tom, how are you feeling?" "We're just taking off, so..." "You know what, Josh?" "Why don't you stay and I'll take Jake." "No, I think we should go home." "No, really, um, help me to the cab." "Alright, everybody." "Okay, well, I guess I'll be back." "Why don't you come over for dinner?" "Bye." "I'll get Morela a cab." "Bye." "I said some words." "The last time I was here, I said some words." "And I said them in anger... and sometimes... anger may not be the best way to say some things." "I think, David, he's apologizing to you." "I'd need my decoder ring to figure that one out." "Cut him some slack." "You want the words?" "I'm sorry, I apologize, my bad." "Thank you, Tom." "I know how hard that was for you." "And I just want to say that..." "It's okay, Mom, it's okay." "It's okay." "Oh!" "I also want to say, "Thank you."" "Thank you for the, um..." "Crate!" "The crate and what was in it." "I'm glad y'all liked it." "How big is it, Dad?" "There it is." "Is it this big?" "Yay big?" "Like... 18 inches?" "Yeah, like a foot and a half." "Okay, so not three feet." "Not three feet!" "Where would we put a three-foot Buddha?" "Exactly." "No, see, that's not my point." "That's beside the fucking point!" "You see?" "The point is that Tom doesn't give presents, okay?" "Everybody gives presents." "Tom doesn't 'cause it's so crass, it's so, uh, it's so third quarter 99." "Right?" "So Tom, instead of giving presents to celebrate Landshark, to celebrate coming out of lockup, he gives you..." "But of course, Tom being Tom, there's gotta be an order, you know, a hierarchy of some sort, because how do you know you're in if there's no out?" "Right?" "So, A-list Buddha, and B-list Buddha." "Am I right, Tom?" "Anyway, who are you guys?" "Oh, just his mom, just his dad." "So, B-list." "I should go." "Joshua, can I give you a lift?" "Oh, I'll get a cab." "Come on, let's take a walk." "Come on, Josh." "What do you want?" "I don't want anything." "Well, what are we doing?" "Why are we here?" "What is this?" "A conversation." "A conversation." "Down a road and at the end of that road..." "Joshua, will you turn all your shares over to me?" "Just for a day, just for a week." "Just sign this piece of paper... and everything will be cool, bro, you said." "I just want to talk, Josh." "I just want to hang." "You understand the position I'm in, right?" "I'm in the same position." "Not really!" "See, for you this is all..." "a game, or something." "But for me, it's different because I've got Mo and Jake to think about." "I can't afford to be cavalier." "I've got a fucking baby!" "I just bought an apartment!" "I've got a mortgage to pay." "I know that all seems square to you, but it's my fucking life!" "Look, what you said at that e-Symposium about me, and about what I do, it was really sweet, Tom, it really was." "But we had a deal!" "I do my thing, you do yours, right?" "Well, I did my thing." "And you?" "I don't know." "I mean, you talk a good game." "You... you understand money." "You understand business a whole lot better than I do but where's it gotten you?" "Where's it gotten us?" "I trusted you, Tom!" "It doesn't work, Josh." "What do you mean?" "Landshark." "As a business model... it doesn't work." "What are you talking about?" "The numbers don't add up." "At least not the way we expected them to." "Oh, fuck you!" "You're so full of shit!" "I know what you think of me, Joshua." "I know that you think that I'm taking advantage of you." "I know that you don't respect me." "But you tell me, you tell me how what you do, what Landshark does could possibly make money as a business right now." "You could say whatever you want about me, but I believed in your idea." "I believed in you!" "But the financial projections that we made, they were like three years off." "The technology isn't there!" "So, our market, it doesn't fucking exist!" "That's not my fault." "I'm not saying that it is." "It's just the fucking reality of our situation." "We're no different from any of these dot-coms, Josh." "It's all hype." "And where the fuck do you think that hype comes from?" "You're right, I spent a lot of money on stupid shit, but that's what kept us going." "Fumes." "That's what Landshark runs on." "I still believe in Landshark." "And in three, maybe four years, but we're not gonna last that long." "We're not gonna last three weeks if we don't make this deal work tomorrow!" "And I need your help!" "I need your permission." "Josh." "Don't leave!" "It was just me and Josh." "Still living at home, if you can believe that." "I mean, Josh was." "So we sat down after dinner," "Nancy and David were up at Lincoln Center." "We were like, we can do this." "I mean, I was like, we can do this." "Together we can do this." "And Josh just sort of woke up." "Right before my eyes, he just sort of woke up and he said, "Of course we can."" "And so... we get this place on the Bowery not the new Bowery, it's the old Bowery, we had rats, big fucking rats the size of cats, I swear it." "We'd meet our clients out at restaurants, we couldn't bring them back to the office, it wasn't an office, not really." "Could we just get a water?" "This first guy, his name was Goldblatt, he was, like, what can you do?" "And I was like, 1.0 percent reach, 750,000 uniques." "And he's just, when can you get it up?" "And I don't hesitate," "I say, week after next but that's gonna cost you another 25." "I'll squeeze you in before Hardy McNimman." "Of course there was no Hardy McNimman." "Know why people commit to something?" "Not because they want to, because ultimately, nobody wants anything." "People commit for one reason and one reason only." "So some other son of a bitch doesn't get there first." "And that..." "Hey, it's Banana Republic." "I don't think I like your tone." "I don't think I'm selling it." "It's a little late for a working stiff." "You get pink-slipped?" "As a matter of fact I'm with Von Treska, the number one aggregator..." "Way back in May you guys had what did your press release say? "First mover advantage"" "meaning you were the first guys in the niche market only then came July." "It turned out the niche didn't really exist." "So you did what everybody like you did." "You said, "We're not a niche player, we're B2B."" "As if that was gonna save your ass." "How many people did that same exact thing that week?" "Fuck you." "It's a lot more fun to make inventory than sell it." "A lot easier too." "How much do you guys spend in a month as opposed to how much comes in?" "Or is that old- school accounting?" "I said fuck you." "I heard you the first time." "If I wanna say it, I'll say it." "All night if I want to." "Fuck you, fuck you, and fuck you." "Do you know why you're even here?" "Because we had a dream." "And you did what guys like you always do." "You smelled the money." "You came down." "You wanted in." "You wanted to drink the Cru." "Not because you love, not even because you know what you're doing but because this is where the action is." "No, because somebody told you this is where the action is." "You don't know anything about me." "Guys like you ain't got no vision." "Ain't got no passion." "Ain't got no soul." "Hey, let me ask you something." "Do all the flowers and the fancy dinners make up for the fact that he's never been able to make you come?" "Open up, Tom!" "Come on!" "Good morning, Tom." "Nice shiner." "What happened to you?" "Somebody obviously had enough." "Hope it wasn't his brother." "Did you speak to Josh?" "You did talk to him, didn't you, Tom?" "This guy's old school, he's not gonna fall for the sweet talk." "I can handle this, Dylan, trust me." "If they ask you about the shortfall?" "I'll let you handle it." "And if they ask about the e-Symposium?" "I was just shaking things up." "I was trying to inject a little salutary controversy the way that an oyster needs a small bit of grit to make a pearl." "Believe me, I got this." "Mr. Barton will see you now." "Mr. Ogilvy's with him." "Shall I show you the way?" "Thank you." "What a joy." "What a significant day." "The pleasure is all ours." "I'm a busy man to be sure, but when the opportunity presents itself to meet my friends at Landshark, why, we clear our decks, so to speak." "Allow me to introduce my senior partner." "Cyrus Ogilvy." "Cy?" "This is Miss Melanie Hanson." "It's a pleasure." "Mr. Dylan Gothschalk." "Mr. Thomas Sterling." "COO, CFO, CEO." "We're here today to seek a fuller partnership." "So that our futures are separate but successful futures." "We'll be bound together so that our happiness can become your happiness." "Happiness?" "Dear boy, I'm more interested in ROI." "I'm offering substantial happiness." "How substantial?" "Very substantial." "40%." "At what price?" "Market value." "Circumstances have changed over the past few days, have they not?" "That offer no longer stands." "What were you expecting to pay?" "Market value does not matter because your stock trades by appointment." "To sell it, you need a willing buyer." "And your stock has no float." "But the real question is the board." "We'll want control." "You're kidding, right?" "What do you know about the Net?" "What do you know about new technology?" "Nothing." "Not a fucking thing." "The way people communicate, the way people think, the very nature of commerce is changing, and you're scared shitless." "You don't understand it, but you want in." "To be quite honest, Mr. Sterling, we don't like your style." "We don't like the way you conduct yourself." "And though you seem to have fooled a lot of people, we don't much like the way you conduct your business." "And since we don't particularly want to be in business with you, you'd have to make it very much worth our while." "I was in Adam's House at Harvard, so I made some friends." "And then Wharton, I made a few more, and in South Hampton where we summer." "So, on the street, you could say" "I have a lot of friends." "And they look to me for my opinion." "When I tell them, I tell them that we've looked at the Landshark figures and we didn't see a future," "I don't have to say it loudly." "I have only to whisper it." "Do you understand?" "By the time your lockup ends, you will own 500,000 shares D-listed paper." "You would dump your entire investment because you don't like my style?" "Why?" "Because I can, Mr. Sterling." "Is that a threat?" "That's just business." "It's what separates the men from the boys." "So why am I here?" "We're interested in the future of Landshark." "But we're not interested in you." "There is no Landshark without me." "Au contraire." "By our metrics, your company would be better off." "Miss Gilbo will show you out." "Wait." "Don't waste your time." "Or ours." "But if I could just say one thing..." "This is not a negotiation." "This is our offer." "Miss Hanson, Mr. Gothschalk, your brother Joshua, they'll stay with the company, and we'll do everything within our power to keep the stock price high." "You will step down." "And you will relinquish all interest in the company." "We will take control of the board, and we will buy your shares at 15 cents on the dollar." "Mr. Sterling." "You can take it or leave it." "We need your answer immediately." "My brother Joshua gets an employment contract?" "Joshua Sterling will be well taken care of." "Okay." "Okay." "You have yourself a deal." "Tom." "I'm fine." "Really I am." "Yeah." "This just in." "Singer and actress Aaliyah has been killed in a plane crash over the Bahamas." "According to sources..." "Six in quarters." "Thanks." "Jackpot!" "Oh, nice." "Hey, can I get the next one?" "It's gonna be a while." "Jackpot!" "Maybe we can... me and you, maybe we can... start... build, you know." "Make... something." "Uh, like, together." "It's all over, Josh." "Let me shoot this one." "Nope." "The left flipper?" "Jackpot!" "See?" "Jackpot!" "Hmm!" "Jackpot!" "Are you kidding?" "When did you get out of what?" "Jackpot!"