The Monk and the Riddle: The Art of Creating a Life While Making a Living Read Free Page B

already set up shop. I could tell by his amped up confidence that he was probably not an engineer. Too outgoing. Too well dressed. So it's not a technology pitch, I said to myself.
    I looked at my watch on the arm he didn't have in a power lock. Nine o'clock exactly.
    “I hope I didn't keep you waiting,” I said. “I had this down for nine.”
    “Nine is right. Come on,” he commanded. “I'll get you some coffee. My treat. You take cream, sugar?”
    “Thanks. I don't know what I'll have. Why don't you sit down while I decide.”
    He started to resist, but I retrieved my arm and walked to the counter. He took one step to follow but then turned and sat down. I let out the breath I'd been holding since he grabbed my arm.
    I watched him askance as I waited for my low-fat chai latte, putting his age at twenty-eight. I took stock of his thick, blue-black hair and his pale and drawn face. He looked like he'd been pulling some all-nighters, and by noon he would need another shave. Beneath two smudges of eyebrows, his dark eyes gripped his target like his double-lock handshake—no gazing off and gathering his thoughts. He sat with his body coiled, tense, ready to spring. At me.
    Lenny's standard-issue corporate uniform — navy blue suit, crisp white shirt, tie a rich mosaic of reds and yellows— pegged him as not from the Valley: sales guy, I'd guess. The only one in the Konditorei wearing a suit and tie. Personally I hadn't worn a suit in years. When I was at GO Corporation a few years ago, spending several months negotiating an investment in the company by IBM, my opposite number was one of their seasoned negotiators, Dick Seymour. He was a classic IBM fixer. The equivalent of Foreign Service diplomats, these fixers knew how to manage both the internal IBM organization — all the different inside stakeholders whose interests could often be at odds—and the outside oddballs like us at GO. Seymour was probably in his fifties, fit, highly articulate, utterly professional, and impeccably dressed in a blue suit and crisp white shirt. There I was, in my thirties, in my jeans and T-shirt and florid socks and skateboard shoes, going nose to nose on complicated deal points. Dick treated me like a professional through all our wrangling, not as if I were a creature from a valley of lunatics. GO accepted some tough terms to get IBM's support, but I came away with nothing but admiration for Dick. He had class. He was the consummate deal guy. For all his professional savvy and maturity, though, I couldn't ever imagine a guy like Dick founding a startup.
    Now I'm wondering whether Lenny is the corporate type, just younger than Dick and not yet so polished and accomplished.
    Connie leaned over the register as she handed me my chai.
    “Your friend want another cup of coffee?” she asked.
    “I don't know. Sure. You know what he takes?”
    “You bet. French roast, black.” She whispered, “He's had five cups in the last hour. I'm surprised he can sit still at all. I hope you're wearing your surge protector today.” With her sleeves rolled up to handle the morning onslaught, Connie still had time to offer some neighborly advice.
    When I rejoined him at his table, Lenny glanced at the coffee I put in front of him and laid a black three-ring notebook in front of me. “Thanks” was obviously not in the script.
    “I usually make the presentation on a computer, you know, throw it up on a screen, if I can. That's how Frank saw it. But I checked it out earlier. Too much glare in here. So we'll use the dead tree version.”
    Here it comes. The pitch. People present ideas for new businesses to me two or three times a week. If I chose to, I could hear a pitch every day—all day, every day. Just as everyone in L.A. has a screenplay, everyone in Silicon Valley has a business plan — most of them nowadays for Internet businesses. I've been around Silicon Valley and involved with young companies since the early ‘80s — startups, spinouts,