Learning Curve Read Online Free PDF Page A

he did anywhere else.
    He should have known better. Four months after the successful offering, Cosmo Validator called one more time. This time there was no larger-than-life personality on the other end of the line, no reference to birthday boy, only a collection of carefully measured words, no doubt written by an attorney, whose meaning was designed to be legally clear: “Dan, I’d like to offer you the position of Executive Vice-President at Validator Software.” Then, as if reading off a prepared script, Cosmo read the duties, salary, and stock options and other perquisites of the position.
    Dan had come to expect the unexpected from Validator; but this time he was dumbstruck. Finally, he managed to say, “I’m sorry, Cosmo, but I don’t understand. I’m a banker, not a software guy. And you want to put your company in my hands? What do I know about software?”
    Only now did Validator go off script. “Aw, for shit’s sake, Dan. What does anybody know about software? It’s just a bunch of fucking lines of code. And you get a bunch of really smart code writers to write them. That’s it. And you don’t even have to worry about that, because I know who all the great code writers are… and I hire them.
    â€œNo, what this industry needs right now—what I need—is smart financial management and disciplined operations. Nobody else seems to have noticed it, but our industry is moving into a new phase. It’s not going to be about big-time, game-changing innovation anymore… well, at least not for a long time… but about holding onto what you’ve got, consolidating markets and customers, cutting costs a little more every year. That and marketing. Great fucking marketing, like the kind that Apple’s doing in computers and Intel in semiconductors. We don’t know a goddamn thing about any of that stuff. You do.”
    â€œA lot of people do,” said Dan. “A lot of them more than me.”
    â€œMaybe,” said Cosmo. “But I know you. You’re family. And I trust you.”
    I am? Dan thought. You do?
    Three weeks later, he and Annabelle were living in an apartment in Sunnyvale, signing up Aiden for pre-K at a local private school, and looking for an Eichler to buy so they could live the full glass-house and atrium California lifestyle. Looking back, what happened in those three weeks was almost as much of a blur as the Validator road show had been.
    It was almost as if the deal had been done without him—and that Dan was the last to know. Apparently, Cosmo had already talked with the chairman of the bank, and the two men had already agreed that while Dan’s departure would be a loss for the firm, that sacrifice was worth the reward of having Validator as a guaranteed client in perpetuity. The underwriting department head, Dan’s boss, also knew about it before he did, and had already found Dan’s replacement. The going away party had already been reserved that morning at a local restaurant by his secretary for ten days hence, HR had already begun preparing the paperwork… and even Annabelle knew when he arrived home that night, having been called by Validator that afternoon.
    It was like the most genteel firing imaginable: Dan was kicked out of one company to tears and congratulatory handshakes by the very people firing him, and instantly catapulted into another job with more power, more money, and more fame. And all he had to do was not say no.
    And he didn’t. He didn’t even have time to hesitate. Dan Crowen’s jump to Validator Software did not go unnoticed by either Silicon Valley or Manhattan. The tech media, long accustomed to Cosmo’s mercurial hirings and strategic moves, once again asked a question as old as the industry itself: Could an Old World finance guy ever really adapt to the wildcatter lifestyle of the Valley? And, of course, they repeated Dan’s own question: “What