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Leonard

I walk into the conference room, and every head turns toward the door I slam behind me.

“Aren’t you a ray of sunshine this morning!” Patrisha, or Trish, as we all call her, jokes about my not-so-nice attitude.

“The air conditioning has been broken since Friday, and nobody has come to fix it!” I complain as I sit down at the table for the meeting.

Joel, the CTO of Walton Tech, Benjamin, the financial advisor, and Oliver, the head of the developers, are already comfortable in their chairs next to Trish, head of finance at my company.

“It’s the weekend. What did you expect?” Benjamin chuckles.

“That someone does their job and comes to fix this thing, so other people don’t die coming to work.” I open my laptop and start to go through the agenda for this meeting.

Trish rolls her eyes and smiles. If the people in this room weren’t my most trusted friends and employees, I would have fired her on the spot for rolling her eyes at me. But every single one of them has been with me since I founded this company, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world.

“It’s the weekend. They assume nobody is here to complain,” she reasons, arching her perfectly manicured black eyebrow at me. She is always the one with no qualms about calling me out for my shitty attitude that sometimes slips through the mask of the emotionless tycoon.

Today, I’m not in the mood for any objections.

“Well, they assume wrong. It’s June first, and it’s almost seventy-three degrees outside at nine in the morning.

It will be hell in this room with the floor-to-ceiling windows facing south.

” Downtown Los Angeles is not known for being one of the coolest places on earth.

“Then let’s get started and speed up this meeting so we don’t cook in here all day!” Joel chimes in, and everyone except Oliver smiles.

I want this meeting to go smoothly, too, but I’m not sure about the short part.

The truth is that the air conditioning has nothing to do with my mood.

We are here today to discuss whether the acquisition of HD Security is a good thing for this company or not.

Walton Tech is the worldwide leader in cybersecurity; HD Security is an up-and-coming startup that handles security hardware.

We handle the software; they handle the hardware. It’s as simple as that.

But nothing is simple when it comes to acquiring a company.

First of all, they are a startup, and we need to be sure it’s not just a fluke.

Most of the time, they have a shiny facade, but if you dig deeper, you discover it’s just that: a facade.

Full of debts with no solid plan to grow into a reliable company.

Walton Tech is my most treasured jewel. It’s the first company I founded when I dropped out of college and the one I love with all my heart. I have founded fifteen other companies since this one, but none compare with the work, effort, and sentimental value I put into this company.

“Are you sure you want to rush through something so important?” I arch an eyebrow toward him while my mouth curves into a smile.

I trust Joel with my life. I know he is as invested in this project as much as I am, and I know he is teasing me.

“I already told you. I’m on board with this acquisition. It’s the best thing we’ve done since you funded this company two decades ago. There is nothing to discuss. We should just go for it!”

His enthusiasm is what made me choose him twenty years ago.

He’s never lost the optimistic attitude of the guy who’s barely a couple of years older than me but has the vision of a seasoned CTO in this industry.

We grew up with this company, and he knows the ins and outs of it as much as I do.

If he’s this attracted to this merger, it means he’s already seen at least half a dozen new ways to grow Walton Tech to new heights.

Benjamin and Trish chuckle, used to his overexcitement, but Oliver is gloomier than usual. What got into his pants today?

“‘Just go for it’ is not exactly what I call a winning strategy for an acquisition,” I chuckle, and most of my tension slips away.

I have the best people working with me. I need to keep my mind on these steps, and everything will be fine. As it always is. I started from nothing and built an empire with the help of these people. I shouldn’t be nervous about what is coming next. We are a great team, and it shows.

Some people call me arrogant, but I’m not. I’m just aware of our potential, and I take advantage of every single skill we have.

“Think about all the new potential markets we can reach. They have impressive new technology they’re developing. I was already looking into it because I believe this is where we’re heading in the next few years, but I haven’t seen anything this advanced,” he explains.

“So why aren’t any of our other competitors interested in it?” Oliver asks, annoyed.

His tone doesn’t faze Joel but I give him a stern look, and he has the decency to look down. I don’t know why he is so pissed off today, but he doesn’t need to be rude. I’m a piece of work, I admit it, but he was plain mean, and I don’t like it.

“Because they play it safe with the technology they have. They’re making money from it and trying to milk the market the safest way they know how,” Joel explains.

“Maybe because it isn’t safe to change,” Oliver scoffs.

“He’s not completely wrong.” I play the devil’s advocate and support Oliver’s concerns, even if I do want to throw him out of the room until he calms down a bit.

“Yes and no. HD Security has a new approach that fixes most of the issues other companies have with the new hard disks,” Joel insists.

“Most of the issues are not all the issues,” I point out.

Joel nods, but he doesn’t lose his grin. “True, but they’re minor inconveniences compared to the previous companies’ results. They addressed the major concern about breaking down under high temperatures, and everything else basically just solved itself when they removed this issue.”

It’s a good start, I have to admit it. It’s been a while since Joel started to talk about the new material used for hard disks that solves the problem of the size of the disk and the quantity of data you can store on it.

It would allow us to build devices so small we can devise a new level of security cameras for use in the smallest spaces.

And a lot more. That’s just the tip of the iceberg this technology unlocks.

“What do you think?” I ask Benjamin, the financial advisor who has followed me since the first days of this adventure.

He was a bored forty-year-old working as a consultant for big companies and in search of new challenges.

I stumbled into one of his conferences by mistake, and I found his ideas refreshing.

I met him at the end of his session and blatantly laid out my idea for the company I was trying to build, adding that I didn’t have money to pay him.

He laughed for a good five minutes over my lack of filters and then agreed to tutor me.

In the beginning, he did it just out of curiosity.

He thought I was a crazy dude who believed he would be the next Bill Gates.

He stayed because I showed him I wasn’t just a dreamer; I had a clear vision and a real path to follow.

“This company reached the pinnacle of success. You can decide to stay on this level and work to keep competitors at bay, or you can decide to take a step forward and expand, reaching a new pinnacle.” He never gives me a solution; he guides me toward an informed decision.

“The plan is to expand. I don’t want this to become a stagnant company that becomes obsolete in a few years.” The resoluteness of my tone doesn’t leave room for arguments.

Benjamin nods and smiles. He agrees with me. I glance toward Oliver, and he is scowling at our financial advisor. My heart sinks a bit.

Oliver is not just the head of the developers’ team.

He is the co-founder of the company. We attended the same college, and while I dropped out, he got his degree.

We stayed friends and shared the same dream about what we wanted to achieve.

It was a natural progression to founding Walton Tech.

He never wanted a political role in the company; he just wanted to develop the product.

This is why only my last name is on the sign on the front door.

“Oliver, what are your concerns?” I go straight to the heart of the problem.

He scoffs for the second time this morning, and I have to bite my tongue not to point it out.

“You are going to put a perfectly healthy company at risk to buy a startup that’s playing with new technologies nobody trusts just because you’re bored?” He blurts it out like he was trying really hard not to tell the truth but failed.

We all stare at him dumbfounded. Where is this coming from? I can understand being careful, but this is just plain obstruction. I struggle to find the words to not cuss him out, and Benjamin comes to my rescue.

“There are ways to keep the two companies separate, so if one goes down, it doesn’t drag the other with it. You don’t have to worry about losing this company,” he explains.

We all look at Oliver, trying to figure out why he is so against this acquisition.

“Yeah, sure. In the meantime, we’re going to adapt the software to a new technology we don’t know will work in five years because nobody has tested it for that long. And if it fails, then what? I put all the team efforts into something we have to trash?” he bites out.

“We are not going to change our existing product to sell the new one. We’re buying a research team to build something new, not to replace the product we have,” Joel blurts out like he is explaining it to a five-year-old.

Oliver is not stupid; he knows what our plans are, and this is why his fight is a bit concerning. It doesn’t make sense.

“Yes, but my team has to write the software around that hardware,” he counters.