Alec gave me access to a new world, and precocious as I was, I gave Alec some intellectual credibility there. We trained one another in the process, and became best friends and roommates—up-campus, of course. I didn’t even have to apply for membership at the 300-year-old Eaves House. When the time for “bickering” arrived—I had been dreading the grueling process for months—Alec got me waved in.

  I knew that Alec’s dad was an investment banker, but hadn’t put the whole picture together until I was invited that first time to the family’s compound in the Hamptons for spring break. These were the Morehouses of Morehouse & Linney—one of the top twenty financial firms in the country. Alec had told his parents about the boating accident, and even embellished it a bit so that the Cohens of Whitestone’s absence from the social register would never be an issue. Not that the Morehouses were prejudiced, but a week is a long time at the beach, and balancing an entire guest list is a delicate art. I charmed them in spite of myself, and within a few days they were almost proud that they owed the life of their sole heir to a rabbi’s son from Queens like me.

  It was not the only reason Alec’s dad, Tobias, asked me to join the firm—but it was the one still foremost in my mind as I tried to determine just what role I was supposed to play at the Silicon Alley Reader’s monthly soiree. I was only a game designer, after all. And not really a game designer, but a conceptualizer. I dreamed up fictions while other people, real programmers, actually implemented them.

  This was no time to lose heart. Most of these people hadn’t even heard of HTML 11 a decade ago, and here they were prancing around as if they had invented the thing. They didn’t know a search engine from a portal, even if they had made more money in a year investing in those buzzwords than my Uncle Morris did in a whole lifetime importing counterfeit chandeliers for the prefab homes of Levittown.

  No, I had nothing to fear from the wealthy. Their money didn’t make them confident; it made them scared. Every seven years they lost it all. Seven years of feasting followed by seven years of famine. And these people had mortgages and lifestyles to protect. Personal burn rates that would make a dot-com 12 CEO shudder. Net worths tied up in NASDAQ 13 portfolios that were worth no more than what people were willing to pay at any given moment for the highly speculative securities in them. The superrich were only as wealthy as other people perceived them to be. But that was pretty damn rich, all the same, and I wanted to win some of that perceived worth for myself and then cash in my chips before the game was over again—which I figured would be pretty soon.

  • • •

  “Have you met Jamie Cohen? He’s just joined us at Morehouse,” Alec told the tall young man in an Armani suit and turtleneck who was shaking my hand.

  “Didn’t I see you at Comdex earlier this year? Weren’t we on a panel together?” he asked. I didn’t know him, and he didn’t know me. But you could never be sure. “Ty Stanton. IDPP Partners.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” I said, slipping into the shmooze groove. “IDPP’s an incubator, 14 right?”

  Ty snorted as if this were an insult. Alec laughed nervously.

  “The age of incubators is over, Jamie.” Ty fanned out a multicolored deck of business cards.

  I felt my intimidation flip into aggression. “Is this a magic trick?”

  Ty was unfazed.

  “It’s meant to demonstrate our one-to-one philosophy, Jamie.” He used my name at the end of every sentence—a technique straight out of the NLP 15 business books. “Each person gets the kind of card they choose—just like each of our clients, if you can call them that, gets the company they choose. It symbolizes and even actualizes our corporate philosophy: multidimensional, improvisational, and environment specific.”

  “Clever,” Alec said, taking a card. “Hmph. I got pink.”

  “You chose pink, Alec,” Ty corrected him in the manner of a New Age guru.

  “I’ll just take a white one.” I put it in my pocket, and handed Ty one of my own freshly embossed M&L.

  “No thanks, Jamie,” Ty said, waving it away. “I never take them. They just make clutter. And I’m good with names, Jamie. Besides, we’re in a lucky position. Any time we need to contact someone they usually find us first.”

  I didn’t know whether to take this guy seriously or not. Alec resolved the issue.

  “How many of IDPP’s companies have reached IPO,” 16 he asked. “Fifty?”

  “Closer to a hundred, actually, Alec,” he replied. “But our function goes well beyond incubation. Each company we launch serves a different and synergistic role in the IDPP family. We have firms that make everything from chips to routers, others that do branding and strategy, some shared-satellite plays, a couple of wireless portals, and of course a full spectrum of e-commerce and shopping aggregators.”

  The shotgun approach.

  “I guess you’ve got the bases covered.” I tried to be polite.

  “That’s just the point,” Ty continued. “We had the same bases covered as everyone else. Our business plan used to be unique. Now it serves as the template for incubators around the world. They’re all getting the same ROI.”

  “ROI?” I was expecting a ploy that had become popular in hacker circles in which programmers use fake acronyms to test one another’s BS quotient. If you pretend to understand an acronym that has no real meaning, you expose yourself as uninitiated.

  “Return on investment, Jamie.” Ty smiled. “And you’re the one who’s supposed to bring Morehouse into, what was it, the 1980s?” Ty’s barb was delivered perfectly—dangling between insult and humor.

  “So you’ve been unsatisfied with your returns?” I offered.

  “They’re great, of course, but everyone else is catching up. Besides, once you’re looking at ROI, it means you’re done for. That was the great lesson of 2001.”

  “Is that what we learned?” I asked.

  “You have to keep your eyes on the prize. It’s our competitive advantage that keeps us in a leadership position. That’s why our CEO conceived the next phase.” For drama as much as sustenance, Ty grabbed a baby quiche off an hors d’oeuvres tray that was floating by him.

  “Which is?” Alec took the bait.

  “Well, the press release isn’t going out until tomorrow,” Ty said as he picked a tiny bacon bit from between his teeth. “I’m not sure it’s kosher.”

  “That’s okay,” I called his bluff. “You better not reveal privileged information.” Companies like IDPP announced earth-shattering paradigm shifts at least twice a week, especially when they had no real news of mergers or acquisitions to report.

  “I suppose it’ll be all right . . .” Ty pretended to relent.

  “No, really,” I needled him. I was having a good time now. “I don’t want you to break any rules on my account.”

  “Look.” Ty tried to retain some intrigue for his revelation. “As long as you promise not to act on anything until the market opens tomorrow.”

  “I don’t know, Ty,” I said hesitatingly, as if it pained me. “It’s hard for me to make a commitment like that. At a party and all. I have been drinking, and there’s other people in my firm to think about.”

  Alec shot me a harsh glance, like I was pushing this too far. No one spoke for a moment.

  “Not bad, Jamie.” Ty took a step back, regarding me as a pecking-order competitor for the first time. “Not bad at all.”

  “Thanks.” I was actually grateful to him for helping me get my sea legs. “Now tell me what the hell your CEO decided, okay?”

  “Well, since it’s too late to make any real advances in the incubator game, we decided to take it one step further. Basically go ‘meta’ on the whole proposition.” He looked deep into my eyes. “We’re going to be incubating incubators.”

  “What?” Alec was confused. “You just said incubators were over.”

  “Which is why we took it to the next level,” Ty finished the syllogism.

  “I get it,” I said. And, much as it pains me to admit it now, I did. “The struggle is against commodification. The bright idea you have today is the repeatable, mass-produced commodity of tomorrow. Microchips used to be cutting edge—now they’re designed by computers and churned out in Singapore. Then it was computers, then networks, then e-commerce sites, and so on.”

  “Right,” Ty chimed in. “Look what e-commerce did to everyone who tried it. Once there was more than one company selling the same thing online, those aggregator sites could create side-by-side comparisons. Prices went down, taking margins with them.”

  I felt propelled by something outside myself—like I was on speed. “The whole trick is to get yourself situated in an area with endless novelty,” I raced ahead. “Unique ideas. That’s why incubators became all the rage. Firms dedicated to hatching ideas and spawning them off into new companies. Keeps you ‘in the new.’ ” 17

  “Until everyone starts doing incubators, that is,” Ty steered the conversation back toward his paradigm shift. “So we realized we could be the next big thing by generating idea generators, systematically. We’re going to churn out three new incubators every month.”

  “And what if someone else starts making incubators?” Alec asked.

  Ty seemed stumped by the possibility of infinite regression.

  “Well,” I rescued him. “I guess that’s when you go ‘shift paradigms’ again, Ty.”

  All three of us laughed. For different reasons.

  “So what do you at IDPP?” I asked. “Strategy?”

  “Heavens no,” Ty snorted again, and I couldn’t help but notice how huge his nostrils got when he did. “I’m like Alec, here. I do PR.” Then he was off.

  That explains it, I thought, as Ty sidled off to glad-hand the marketing director of a banner ad company. He’s just a PR guy. But what made “strategy” any better? This industry wasn’t even running on fumes anymore, but perception. Strategy had more to do with predicting and tweaking image than it did with technology. And the technology that did exist was dedicated mostly to creating images anyway. Another infinite regression. Did anyone really think this would work, or were they only trying to find an easy exit before the next burst of the bubble?

  Alec didn’t waste time pondering all this. While I mulled, he snared another executive.

  “Was that Ty Stanton?” asked Alec’s next catch—a bald, stocky man in a crisp ventless suit. “He’s with an incubator, now, right?”

  “If that includes pretending you’re not an incubator,” I said, holding out my hand.

  “Jamie Cohen is our new technology strategist, Karl,” Alec said, elevating my title in the process. “Karl is CFO at Consumer Solutions International.”

  “Jamie Cohen, the hacker?” Karl inquired suspiciously.

  “In a former life,” I answered as we exchanged cards. The back of his was in Japanese. “You guys have done some great work,” I said, hoping to compensate for my dark-side reputation. “You’ve really made e-commerce sites a joy to use. Put some fun back into the whole genre.”

  “Well, thanks,” Karl grumbled, “but who said fun ever fed the colonel’s cat, eh? The more fun they have, the fewer transactions they’re making. There’s only so many eyeball hours 18 in a day, if you can get my drift. No room for growth. The consumer sector is saturated.”

  “Better not say that too loudly,” Alec joked.

  “So where do you go then?” I wanted to know.

  “B to B. Business to business. 19 Exploit margins, create efficiencies, disintermediate all along the supply chain.”

  “B to B peaked in ’99,” Alec said. “And again in 2004. Then B to G, then C to C, P to P . . . the cycle is almost over.”

  “But there’s a twist,” Karl said. “We call it ‘B to C as B to B.’ Hell, everybody’s in this business, anyway. Look around you. Even people are businesses, so why not treat them as such? It shows them more respect than if they were consumers, lets them participate in the profits, and stimulates brand loyalty that goes off the charts. This way we can focus entirely on reducing risk, enhancing deal flow, and networking externalities.”

  “How?” I asked. “I mean, are you making business transactions more like consumer experiences, or the other way around?”

  “There’s no difference! That’s the point! In the new model, every consumer earns a fraction of a share in the network each time they make a purchase. Buying from a CSI-affiliated website—and we’ve got companies selling everything from airline tickets to automobiles—earns you shares in the CSI network. You can keep the shares in your CSI e-trading account, or use them toward other CSI purchases.”

  “Like a frequent-flier program,” Alec said.

  “Except it’s not just miles you’re earning, Alec. It’s shares. The consumers are the shareholders. It’s their own company they’re buying from. And they can track their own share value as they make purchases, right on their browser or Web-phone. They can even earn shares by including our advertising in their personal e-mail. Then it gets viral. You should see the user tests we’ve done. They’re through the roof.”

  I was appalled and intrigued—a cognitive dissonance I would learn to get used to. On one level I hated this guy. He wasn’t in the technology business at all, but the business of business. At the same time, this hack of business networking fascinated me. I couldn’t help but wrap my own brain matter around the concept—in the spirit of play, of course. Then, out of nowhere, I got a tremendous urge to fuck with this guy.

  “Have you considered creating more than one network?” I asked.

  Alec shifted uncomfortably, afraid of where I was going.

  “Why would we want more than one network?” Karl asked.

  “Well, let’s say you’ve got the lead players in each category—American Airlines, McDonalds, Coke, Hertz.”

  “We do.”

  “Right, well what if someone is already brand loyal to some number-two brand, like Continental, Burger King, Pepsi, or Avis?”

  “Then they’ll switch to the CSI affiliate. The program is magnetic.”

  “Yeah,” I was in full gear, now, “until Burger King and the others create their own network.”

  His eyes began to wiggle. I was freaking him out.

  “We’ll beat them. That’s why we’ve chosen number-one brands exclusively.” Karl laughed proudly, repeatedly scuffing one of his Bruno Magli loafers against the parquet dance floor as he did.

  “But why don’t you just bring them in?” I asked.

  “We can’t have competing brands in the same network.”

  “That’s why you create a second network,” I said, slapping his shoulder. “If the first has Kellogs, the second has Post, and so one. Create another network with all the second brands. If the prime network has AOL/TimeWarner, Crest, Microsoft, Coke, GM, AT&T, Nike, and Wal-Mart, then your secondary network can have Disney, Colgate, Macintosh, Pepsi, Ford, MCI, Reebok, and Kmart. Then you can have an alternative ‘People’s’ network for people who don’t like to think of themselves as brand conscious. Say, Miramax, Tom’s of Maryland, Linux, Dr Pepper, Volkswagen, Working Assets, Air-walk, and, gosh, I dunno, Price Club. And maybe some portion of their kickback shares go to some charity so they feel good about the whole thing. You could do another with deluxe brands, like Sundance Channel, Mentadent, SGI, Mercedes, Lucent, Donna Karan, and Neiman Marcus.” 20

  Karl had pulled a tiny leather-covered palm device out of his jacket pocket and was scrawling notes—entering one character at a time with a tiny plastic stick, desperate to keep up.

  “What were the brands for the alternative network, again?” he asked. I couldn’t believe he was taking me seriously.

  “That’s not the point,” I said. I was lost myself. I had spent most of my energy trying to keep the lists of brands in the same order. I knew I could wrap it up by throwing some of the guy’s own terms back at him—chances are he didn’t understand them, anyway. “It’s about enhancing your ROI by networking externalities. Look, does Morehouse & Linney do your mergers and acquisitions? You can just come down to the office and we’ll go over the whole thing.”

  “No,” Karl smiled weakly. “We’re with S and S.”

  “Well,” Alec sidled in opportunistically, “maybe you should consider . . .”

  “That’s okay,” Karl said, putting his palm device back in his pocket. “I think I got most of it. Thanks. Please give my regards to your father.” And then he was off.

  Alec was fuming.

  “What the fuck was that, Jamie?”

  “Huh?”

  “Whose side are you on, anyway? They’re going to go do what you said, man. And make a ton of money at it.”

  “We’re not in that business, Alec.”

  “We’re supposed to be. That’s what you were hired to do. This isn’t some shareware convention.”

  “Gimme a break. It was a fantasy biz plan. No one could execute it.”

  “Who said anything about executing it? Nobody executes anything around here. It’s just ideas, Jamie. Ideas. You get people to invest in an idea, take it to IPO, and then get out before anyone tries to do it for real. Your ideas belong to us.”

  Alec’s eyes had turned red with something approaching rage. He was breathing hard, like a miniature beast of burden.

  “I’m sorry, okay?” But before I could gauge Alec’s response, I heard a voice so familiar I couldn’t even place it at first.

  “Assembly of the corporate machine’s incarnate manifestation is proceeding on schedule, eh?”

  I swung around and saw him. It was Jude. Three years older than the last time we’d met—at a computer-game developers’ convention in Atlanta—but looking pretty much the same. His bushy red hair was a bit thinner and his wiry red beard a bit thicker, but this was the same angry, inspired, and manic Jude. I felt an urge to cover myself up. My suit made me feel nude.

  “Well that’s what’s going on here, right?” Jude gave one of his Jack Nicholson glints. “The conversion of the communications infrastructure into a physical home for the corporate life form? So it can have eyes and ears?”