The Startup Wife(25)

“And patriarchy.”

“Fuck patriarchy,” Destiny says. “But seriously, though, why has no one invented something else we can do with our mouths that socially signifies that we are calming our nerves and makes us look super-cool while we’re doing it?”

“Huge market opportunity,” I agree. “What would you call it?”

“Poking?”

“Stroking.”

“Let’s figure out the business plan later. Now I have to fix this slide.” And she marches off in search of the Wi-Fi password. Li Ann floats away to scan the room.

Jules and Cyrus have dressed up. They’re wearing shirts with buttons. They have combed their hair.

“Who’s going to do the pitch?”

Cyrus suggests it should be me.

“Why me?”

“Because it was your idea.”

“It wasn’t my idea. Jules and I thought of it together.”

“Yeah,” Jules says. “Bottling Cyrus. Eau de Cyrus, now in a convenient spray that will turn your ordinary life into a deep spiritual experience.”

“Shut up, Jules.”

“I can’t do it alone,” I complain. “What if no one likes it?”

“No one will like it,” Jules says. “And then someone will, that’s just how it goes.”

“Fine, I’ll do it if you come with.”

“Sit at the bar and eat olives,” Jules tells Cyrus. “We’ll point at you so they know what they’re bottling—I mean getting.”

I disagree. “Not olives. Olives are messy. Nuts. And a short drink, like a whiskey.”

“Go,” Cyrus says, shooing us away.

The problem is, there is room for only two people at each table, so every time the buzzer rings, Jules has to carry an extra chair with him, and we spend a lot of time explaining that we are co-founders and that Cyrus, over there in the long hair with the martini, is also a co-founder but isn’t really willing to talk to investors. We cycle through seven or eight white men in suits who appear interested for the first fifteen seconds and then start crossing their legs and leaning back in their chairs to discreetly yet clearly look over our shoulders at who might be next. Then we meet Harriet, who appears with a truly excellent blow-dry, and I’m crushing on her so hard I completely flub the pitch. Jules takes the next one, another man in a suit, somewhat older, with a weak chin and a thinning patch of blond hair. He speaks in a low, almost sweet voice when he asks Jules to repeat the name of the company.

“WAI,” says Jules. “Pronounced ‘why.’?”

“Why is it called WAI?”

“Because we want people to ask something fundamentally different of their online experience. Not what—as in what can I get from this moment, what can I buy, sell, display, say about myself. Not who—as in who am I following and who is following me, and who likes me and who is indifferent. But why, as in why am I here, and what am I doing with the small amount of time left to me on Planet Earth?”

“Also,” I chime in, “it stands for We Are Infinite. And it nods to the AI framework that’s at the heart of the platform.”

The man—I see from his tag that his name is Frank—turns to me and asks about the framework, and I start talking about the Empathy Module.

“You seem to know a lot about the engineering side.”

“I coded it, so, yeah.”

“Ah, I see.”

“She’s from MIT,” Jules says.

“Media Lab? What year?”

Jules says, “When we realized the commercial possibilities of the platform, it seemed a shame not to monetize sooner rather than later.” How does he do that, I wonder, how does he make being a dropout sound so desirable?

Frank nods. “What are you looking for?” he asks, and Jules launches into the valuation, the team size, and our expected launch date. I wonder if one of them might turn to me and ask what I think is a realistic timeline, given that I’m going to be the one to deliver it, but they don’t, so I look over at Cyrus, who appears to be on his second martini. Then the buzzer rings, and we go through the rounds with two other people I wouldn’t be able to distinguish in a lineup except that one has a slight paunch and the other boasts that he only eats in a two-hour window in the middle of the day and that it makes his head clearer than the bells chiming in St. Paul’s Cathedral. That’s in London, he says, as if I hadn’t aced AP Geography.

“It was the martini,” I say to Cyrus when it’s all over. “I told you it had to be a highball, and you went off script.”

“Such small things our fates depend on.”

“Actually, it was me. I sucked.”

“You were great,” Jules says, patting me on the back.

We both know that isn’t true. “You should do them yourself. I just don’t have the charm.”

“You’ll get the hang of it.”

Destiny bounds up to us. “I think I did it,” she says, brandishing three business cards. “How’d you make out?”

“Zero.”

“Oh, shit, did you fall flat?”

“Like a vegan pancake.”

“It’s not you,” she says. “It’s the system. It’s rigged against you. Look at you, your fucking nose is pierced. And your name is Asha.”