Page 86 of Broken Brothers

“But…” I said, finishing the thought for him.

“But your father has made an incredible sweet deal.”

Damn. Damnit. The worst possible thing he could have said. Of all the competitors, of course it fucking comes down to Edwin Hunt.

“He said he would do $5 million for 25 percent and offer us mentoring.”

I nearly choked on the last bit of pizza I was having when I heard him say that. Now, the negotiation was no longer aboutconvincing Andrew to sign with us. It was about convincing him that my adoptive father was a manipulative liar.

“Andrew, this is me being as honest as I can be with you,” I said, and I prayed that this work. “If Edwin Hunt does mentor you, he would be ahead of me and Morgan. If he follows through on what he said, then yes, you should invest with him. I have little doubt—none, actually—that by experience alone, he can teach you more than either of us came.”

Now it’s my turn to give a but.

“But that’s assuming that he ever follows through on that.”

The wide eyes on Andrew’s side suggested that he was not used to manipulative and tricky investors. That told me that while I could convert him, I had to go hard before Papa Hunt took him to town.

“Think of Edwin Hunt’s portfolio. He has an entire company based around all of the companies he invests in. Do you really think he’s going to have the time to mentor you? Do you think he’s going to ever reach out if your stock isn’t catering?”

“I mean… sure, he said he would.”

Oh, Andrew.

“He says a lot of things,” I said.

I decided to try something risky, maybe something not entirely appropriate for business, but something that I hoped would seal the deal.

“I know this as his son, OK, and Morgan does too. Mr. Hunt as a father was rarely there for us, and when he did teach us stuff, he would teach us things like art of the deal, or squashing the opposition to make more money. He didn’t care about our baseball games, he didn’t care about our fights, he didn’t care about anything other than raising us to be walking magnets for cash. If he did that to his two boys, what makes you think he’s going to do that for you, an entrepreneur from small-town India across the country?”

Andrew clearly didn’t know how to react to what I had just said. I might as well have told him that ghosts were real and that he had lived in the Matrix his whole life. The poor guy had the genius mind of a programmer but the childlike mind of a five-year-old boy.

“You’re serious?” Andrew said.

“I don’t say this to mock my father,” I said. “It’s not like if he invests in you guys and you guys take off, we’ll never see that money. We’re his heirs. But I’m not interested in that. Don’t get me wrong, we’re investing in this because it provides us a benefit too, but we only benefit if you benefit first. And you’re not going to benefit from having Edwin Hunt as your primary investor.”

I knew, though, even with everything I was saying, the math still favored Mr. Hunt. I had to bring our deal down—and this was where I had an appreciation for Andrew not being able to keep his mouth shut. It would make our negotiating lives a hell of a lot easier.

“I know we had said $5 million for 30 percent,” I said. “Let’s change that. We’ll go $5 million for 27 percent. And we promise to offer at least an hour a week of our time, up to five hours a week of finance and decision making consulting. If we fail to meet that—and we’ll make sure it’s contractually stated—we’ll let our percent drop to 22 percent. We’ll just give you shares back, no questions asked, no paperwork, no legalities. It’ll just go straight to you. That will hold until you go public or until you get completely bought out.”

I really wanted to become CFO or COO of this company, for how little leadership Andrew actually had, but that felt like too bold of an ask this early in the game. Better, I thought, to put my foot in the door, make Andrew realize over time our value, and then position myself for such a role.

None of it would happen, though, if Andrew didn’t agree to this.

“I just don’t like saying no,” he said. “It’s down to you two but I had about six different capitalists and investors on board. The rest I had to have a colleague reach out to. I felt like a coward, but…”

“We all do at times,” I said, thinking about the many times I wish I had stood up to Edwin Hunt—and how, even now, to a certain extent, I was taking advantage of Andrew’s personality for my own gain. “But being a coward doesn’t prevent you from having to make a choice. We’re putting it on paper that we will mentor you. If you still want to go with Hunt Industries, so be it. But know, Andrew, that this is the real deal. This is us putting our stake on the line. That’s not insignificant.”

Outside, the bustle of San Francisco had begun to pick up. The sun was beginning to dip toward the horizon, and soon, the Bay Area would light up into a new kind of night life.

But in here, it just felt like things were getting started.

“OK,” Andrew said. “Give me some time alone. I need to think of some things.”

“Understood,” I said. “I’ll call you in two hours.”

“OK.”

I left and took a stroll to my hotel. I had no idea if what I had just done would work or not, but in telling Andrew what was essentially the unvarnished truth, I had taken a swift bat to my adoptive father’s ideas and smashed them to smithereens. I would not engage in questionably ethical behavior. I would not lie and promise the moon when I couldn’t even give or care to give a rock. I would not act in my own self-interest, at least not to the degree that the other person would suffer.