No Way Back (2 page)

But no, today really
is
a Monday, and it really
is
nine o’clock. There really
are
only twelve cars in the lot. This really
is
the company I have been
hired to save.

I kill the ignition and open the door. The Florida heat backhands my face. My suit wilts. What was once crisp wool pinstripe has been transformed, magically, into dark wet chamois, like a rag
held aloft by a Mexican when he’s done detailing a BMW at the car wash.

I trudge across the parking lot to a low-slung office. It is one of those nondescript buildings that dot industrial parks across America, an undistinguished shell behind which the actual dirty
biological processes of capitalism take place, hidden from view. It is a building that reveals absolutely nothing about its occupant, save for the cheap plastic sign at the door that says:
‘Tao Software LLC’ with a swirled gust-of-air logo that, I suppose, is meant to indicate a majestic wind, sweeping aside all competition. Or it could just be a fart. Based on what I
know about Tao Software LLC, I’m guessing more fart than wind.

But inside, everything changes. The reception area is chilled to the temperature of fine Chardonnay. The space is decorated like an interior design showroom. There is expensive grey felt
wallpaper on the walls. Pinpoint spots highlight carefully selected furniture: a green Camden sofa; a high-gloss mahogany coffee table; a convex reception desk, chest high, gently curving across
the open space like a relaxed letter
S
.

In my corporate travels, I have seen a lot of reception desks. I have developed a very general, but highly accurate, rule. The more money and attention lavished on the desk where the
receptionist sits, the crappier the company, and the more incompetent the executives that hide behind it.

Behind this stylish and attractive reception desk sits a stylish and attractive woman. She wears a feather-weight telephone headset. She has long red hair pulled into an elaborate chignon. She
wears far too much grey eye shadow, which makes her look like a very strung-out, but very chic, heroin addict. ‘Good morning,’ she says, with a voice indicating either exhaustion or
severe ennui. ‘Can I help you?’

From her look, she doubts very much that she can. Perhaps it is my crumpled suit, or the sweat glistening on my face. Or the bags under my eyes. Or the paunch I’ve been cultivating for the
last five years – ever since I turned forty-two and decided that working out in the gym was a hobby for younger men.

I lean over her desk, try to get into her face. ‘My name is Jim Thane.’

When the name doesn’t register, I add: ‘Your new CEO.’

She stiffens. ‘
Mr Thane
. I didn’t know that was you.’

Meaning: You don’t look like a CEO. Which is true. The image people conjure when they hear ‘CEO’ – a silver-haired gentleman with an imperious air and a steely gaze
– surely doesn’t fit me. I’m more of the cuddly teddy-bear type. The ex-alcoholic, ex-meth addict, ex-rehab cuddly teddy-bear type. Not the first thing that comes to mind, when
you hear ‘CEO’, I bet.

I twinkle my fingers around my face, like Ethel Merman singing a show tune. ‘Surprise,’ I croon.

Suddenly Miss Strung-Out is all stutters and nervousness. ‘Oh my Lord,
Mr Thane.
I didn’t know you were coming
today
. I didn’t get your office ready. Should I
get your office ready? I can do that right now.’ She rolls her chair back and stands, forgetting the telephone cord still attached to her ear. When she rises, the phone yanks across her desk,
skidding on rubber feet. The cord tugs her ear down sharply, as if she’s being scolded by an invisible schoolmarm. ‘Ouch,’ she says. She leans down, fiddles with her ear, and
extracts herself.

Finally, she looks up and smiles.

I say: ‘And you are... ’

‘Embarrassed.’

‘Hello, Embarrassed. I’m Jim.’ I offer my hand.

‘Amanda,’ she says.

‘Do you have an intercom, Amanda?’

She nods.

‘Make an announcement. All-hands meeting. Where do those usually take place?’

‘I’m not sure,’ she says. Meaning the company never has meetings. Then again, how could they, when no one comes to work? She adds, helpfully: ‘Maybe in the
lunchroom?’

‘That’s fine,’ I say. ‘All-hands meeting in the lunchroom.’

‘What time would you like it, Jim?’

‘Now.’

‘Now?’ She’s taken aback. ‘Should we—’ She peers past me, into the main office. The room is still dark, the desks mostly empty. ‘Should we wait for more
people to get here?’

‘No.’

I walk through the building as if I’m a prospective buyer deciding how much to pay for a fixer-upper. Alas, this is just an act. I have already taken title, and
there’s no backing out now. And I have already determined – ten yards past the reception area – that the company now in my possession is steaming corporate turd.

But, of course, that’s why I’m here. I’m a turnaround executive. A restart man. I get hired only at places that are falling apart. You won’t see me at a well-run company
minting money. But if you work at a company where management has taken a mental sabbatical, where the company is burning cash like coal in a Dickens novel, where customers are as scarce as July
snow, then you might see a man like me walk through the front door. If you do, by the way, it’s probably not a bad idea to start polishing your résumé.

Here’s how it works. Imagine you are a venture capitalist who invests $20 million in a Florida software company. Months go by without any obvious success. The CEO telephones you
breathlessly, and announces that a few huge sales deals are just weeks from closing. But those deals never seem to materialize. The new version of the company’s software product is
perpetually ‘a month away’. The old version is buggy, virtually unsaleable. Meanwhile, the company’s cash is dwindling. What do you do? Do you shut down the place, fire all the
employees, eat the loss of everything you have invested so far? Do you shovel more money into the firm, and hope the incompetent CEO suddenly grows a brain?

No. You choose a third path. You call a man like me. I fly into the company, size it up, fire three-quarters of the staff, and try to salvage some value from what’s left. It’s called
a restart. Perhaps I will figure out a way to sell the company to an acquirer. Or maybe I can knock a few of the engineers’ heads together, and get a new version of the product out the door,
and start making sales. From the venture capitalist’s perspective, whatever I manage to do is better than calling the whole thing a total loss and writing it down to goose eggs.

Typically a restart assignment is brief – twelve months or less. I get paid a decent salary, but most of my compensation is what is euphemistically called ‘upside’. Upside is
another way of a venture capitalist saying, If I don’t make money, there’s no way in hell
you’re
going to.

So that’s the prize. If I can turn the place around, and restart it successfully, I make millions. If I can’t, I make little. The job is half Green Beret mission, half crapshoot. You
have no idea what you’re going to find until you walk through the door.

I hear Amanda’s voice on the intercom. ‘Attention Tao team members,’ she says. She speaks languorously, as if the act of making a public announcement is exhausting.
‘There will be an all-hands meeting in the lunchroom starting immediately. Repeat, all-hands in the lunchroom immediately.’

Despite the announcement, there’s little movement – just a solitary chair squeaking somewhere behind me. Indeed, for a company haemorrhaging over a million dollars of cash each
month, there’s an obvious lack of brio on the floor. I see a Hispanic woman sitting in her cube, doing her nails. I pass another cube, where a young man – his back to me – is
hunched over his desk with his phone at his ear, discussing what distinctly sounds like tonight’s dinner plans with his girlfriend.

The office has an open floor plan – modern Steelcase cubicles and Herman Miller chairs. Around the perimeter are small private offices. Each has a window facing the building’s
exterior, and a glass wall facing the interior bullpen, presumably to allow management to keep tabs on the underlings, or maybe to allow the bigwigs to demonstrate good work habits to the
rank-and-file. However, since all the private offices are dark and empty at five minutes past nine o’clock on a Monday morning, this inspirational message may be lost on employees at Tao.

From the entrance of the building, there’s a commotion. Amanda is talking to an animated – and now rather disturbed – man. He carries a briefcase. He has just entered the
lobby. I can’t hear their words, but I see the man’s eyebrows arch in surprise as he mouths the word ‘
Now
?’ Amanda nods, says something, and points in my direction.
The man takes a long look at me, then drops his conversation with Amanda without saying goodbye. He makes a beeline to me. Twenty feet away, he already has his hand outstretched, and a big smile
planted on his face.

He rushes me. ‘Hello. You must be Jim. I’m David Paris.’ He says this without pause or breath, one long word:
HelloyoumustbeJimI’mDavidParis
. He adds: ‘VP
of Marketing.’

I take his hand, shake it perfunctorily. David Paris is shorter than me, small-boned, with a wiry body that would look fine in spandex on a gym mat. Here in an office, wearing chinos and a
shirt, he just looks peculiar. He has dark hair, ears the size of croissants, and eyelids pulled upward at the corners. His appearance is either the result of unfortunate genetics, or of a botched
facelift. Either way, he reminds me of an elf.

‘I’m Jim Thane,’ I say.

He wags a long elven finger at me, as if I’ve been naughty. ‘All-hands meeting? I like it! Trying to shake things up a little?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Good.’ He lowers his voice to a stage whisper. ‘I’m glad you’re here. Jim. Really glad. It’s time to get some competent management in this place.’

‘I’ll do my best, David.’

The lunchroom is twenty feet square, with three sets of tables and chairs. It’s a typical corporate kitchen: stocked during a period of great corporate largess and ambition (microwave,
dual cappuccino machines, cartons of Pop-Secret stacked along the wall), but depleted and worn down by tedious workday life. Several dirty, waterlogged laser-printed signs cajole the reader to
behave properly: to clean the counter, wipe the microwave, empty old lunches from the fridge. There are many exclamation marks on each sign. From the look of the place, these pleas, despite the
copious punctuation, have been ignored.

I go to the front of the room. The employees of Tao – the ones who have actually arrived for work – gather on the other side. There are now twenty of them. Each wears the official
Software Company Uniform: slacks on the bottom, short sleeves on top. I’m the only person in the State of Florida apparently stupid enough to wear a suit and tie in August.

I clear my throat. ‘Good morning!’ I say loudly. I try to make my voice seem both authoritative and happy at the same time, but I realize, too late, that I sound like a drill
sergeant getting a blow job. I lower my voice, try a more conversational tone. ‘My name is Jim Thane. As you may have guessed, I’m the new CEO here at Tao Software.’

I peer into the audience. Not a single face looks glad to see me. The most common expression seems to be mild amusement:
Let’s see how long the guy in the wool suit lasts
.

‘I’ve been hired by the investors in Tao. My job is to help turn this company around.’ I decide to leave out the part about how I was hired only after the previous CEO
disappeared off the face of the earth, and how I was surely the last available choice to take the job, and how no one – including me – holds out much hope that I’ll succeed.

Instead I say: ‘From what I understand, there’s a lot of terrific potential here at Tao. The investors in this company are very enthusiastic. They tell me there are fabulous people
here, and that the company has created a very exciting technology.’

Which is half true. The investors
are
excited by the company’s technology. It’s the people they could do without. Indeed, if there were some kind of capitalist neutron bomb,
a device that could make people disappear, but leave a company’s intellectual property intact, the venture capitalists behind Tao would surely have deployed it, in this very lunchroom.

I continue: ‘I know a lot of you are nervous. You see a new CEO. You don’t know what to expect. You wonder if Tao will survive. You wonder if your job is safe.’

Finally, my words gain traction. People look at me expectantly. They
do
wonder. ‘Well, I’m not going to lie to you. There
will
be changes. There have to be. We need
to work harder. And we need to work smarter. We need to – let me be blunt – we need to make more money.’

I say these words slowly, and let them sink in. It’s a simple point – that a business needs to make money – but you’d be surprised how often it’s overlooked. After
working in the same job for a couple of years, people tend to forget. They stop thinking about their company as a business, and see it more as adult daycare. It’s the place they go to keep
busy between weekends. They forget a business has only one purpose. Not to entertain them. Not to fulfil them. But to make money. For someone else. That’s all.

‘But there is good news,’ I say. ‘The fact that I’m here means that important people believe in Tao. If they didn’t, the investors would not have hired me. They
would have given up. They would have shut the place down and called it a day.’

Which is not exactly true. In fact, they almost did shut the place down. When Charles Adams, the previous CEO of Tao, failed to show up for work one morning, and then disappeared without leaving
a forwarding address, the investors in Tao came
this
close to closing the company. It was only because I managed to run into Tad Billups at Il Fornaio, where he couldn’t hide behind
his secretary, and where I could relentlessly beg him for a job –
any
job – that I’m here. Tad is the Chairman of the Board at Tao, and a partner at Bedrock Ventures, the
VC firm that owns most of the company’s stock, and which supplies its capital. More importantly, Tad was my roommate at UC Berkley. We go back. Tad owes me.