PART TWELVE  – Corporate Conundrum

Chapter 5: Politics and Peril

It was after seven o’clock, and the session was still going strong. Dinner wasn’t scheduled until eight o’clock, with the program continuing until 11:00 PM. I guess that was reflective of the fact that everyone else beside me was coming from the Pacific time zone. I’d long ago stopped thinking about the fact that I was naked or that everyone else around me was naked. Not even the nudity of the servers registered anymore. What was registering was my distended bladder, which was full, due to all the coffee I’d drunk. The breaks were infrequent, and with the next one not until around dinnertime, I couldn’t wait. I therefore excused myself and headed for the nearest restroom.

Because it was a nudist facility, the restrooms were unisex, and not even the urinals were shielded from view the way I’d seen done in most unisex restrooms around the world. I walked up to one and, with nothing to unzip, simply let loose with my stream. Boy, that was a relief! Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that someone else was approaching and then stood in front of the urinal next to mine and let loose with his own stream. Curious as to why he took the urinal next to mine rather than being polite and taking one at least a few down from me, I glanced at him briefly and recognized him as one of the servers. He’d been working on the other side of the room, so this was my first chance to see him up close. He seemed to be close to my age, nearly as tall as I was and quite good looking in a rugged, handsome way. If I were single, I might have even called him cute and considered him as date material.

“Hey,” he said as he glanced back at me. “I hear these sessions are rather grueling.”

“You’ve no idea,” I replied.

“Oh, I think I do,” the guy answered. “I’ve had some pretty grueling lectures that seem to go on for days,” he added with a grin. Man, did he look amazing when he grinned.

“University of Michigan?” I asked, taking a wild guess.

“Ready to start my junior year in electrical engineering next week,” he confirmed.

“You’re nineteen?” I asked.

Shaking his head, he answered, “Eighteen. I graduated high school a year early and had enough credit from my advanced-placement courses to start as a sophomore last year.” Then he asked. “You look awfully young to be a corporate executive. Can I ask how old you are?”

“You can always ask, and you may, too,” I replied. “I’m seventeen, and I got my Ph.D. in computer science when I was fourteen.”

“Damn, a true genius,” the guy responded and then flushed the urinal, as I did mine. We both headed to the sinks to wash our hands, and as we did so, he added, “I’ll ignore your comment about being underage when it comes time to serve wine with the meal. At eighteen, we’re allowed to serve it – just not drink it. You have to be at least eighteen to work in the nude. Technically, I should ask for a signed release from your parents for you to be here on your own.”

“Not necessary,” I responded. “I’m an emancipated minor. I ran away from home when I was twelve, when the man I thought was my father tried to kill me.”

“He wasn’t really your father?” the young man asked, and I suddenly realized I didn’t even know his name.

“Could I ask you your name?” I responded.

“My name’s Josiah,” he replied.

“That’s actually my first name, too, but with the middle name of Joshua, I just use J.J. To answer your question, I was kidnapped by a pedophile when I was two. He raised me in a tiny shack in Southern Indiana and had regular sex with me for years, I guess until I got to be too old for him.”

“Fuck, that musta been awful,” Josiah responded.

“You have to remember that he raised me as if I was his own son, so I didn’t even know that he wasn’t my dad,” I explained. “I grew up thinking it was normal for fathers and sons to have sex. Not that it had anything to do with me being gay, mind you. I’m certain I’d have turned out gay no matter what. Let’s just say I got lucky and was taken in by an amazing family with an amazing little brother who’ll become my husband on December 28.”

“Is he seventeen, too?” Josiah asked.

“Actually, he’s sixteen, and he’ll finish up his Ph.D. in computational mathematics next month,” I answered. “The funny thing is that we had to get legal emancipation for him in order for it to be legal for us to live together. Consensual sex between a seventeen-year-old and a sixteen-year-old is perfectly legal in New York, even though the age of consent is seventeen but not if one of them is emancipated. It’s a bit of a legal gray zone with different laws in different states, but the bottom line is that an overzealous prosecutor could charge me with statutory rape unless Henry was seventeen or emancipated, too.”

“I wouldn’t have thought of that,” Josiah interjected. “I mean, I’m in with classmates who are two years older than me, and my boyfriend is twenty. Neither one of us gave any thought to whether or not sex was legal between us last year.”

“Almost certainly, it was,” I remarked. “So, you’re gay?”

“Nearly all the men working here are,” he explained. “I think that gay guys are much less self-conscious than straight guys when it comes to being naked in front other guys – and particularly in front of women.”

“I can understand that,” I replied. “It makes perfect sense.”

As I turned to leave through the open entryway to the restroom, Josiah put his hand on my shoulder and stopped me. “Listen, J.J., I have a message for you. It was relayed to me anonymously, so I don’t know who it’s from, but the message is: be careful. You have good friends here, but their first loyalty is to the company. If it comes down to doing what’s best to save the company or to follow you, they’ll choose the company.” Swallowing hard, I realized that he was undoubtedly right. Jeff would sell me down the river to save Applazon, and I wasn’t sure Jitendra wouldn’t do the same in spite of my years of loyalty.

Josiah continued, “There are also people here who are determined to see you fall. They’ll stop at nothing to see you fail, even at the risk of sacrificing the better welfare of the company. The advice I’m supposed to pass along to you is that you need to watch your back and assume that everyone else here is your enemy, including your closest friends.”

“Fuck, what am I supposed to do with advice like that?” I said to no one in particular.

“I’m just glad I’m not you,” Josiah responded, and then he walked out the doorway. I followed and took my seat just as David Zalinski was starting his presentation. It didn’t take long to realize we were running behind and dinner would be delayed.

<> <> <>

It had been a grueling few days, as I’d spent countless hours arguing with David Zalinski and Charlie Kline. Both of them were substantially older than I, yet Jeff had put me in charge of our little group of three. Special Projects, it turned out, was a rather secretive branch of Applazon that investigated, developed and tested ideas for new projects. Charlie had been the one to propose Applazon Plus, the Applazon TV, the Applazon eBook reader and the eBook store. His most revolutionary product, however, was Alesia, which was becoming ubiquitous in American homes and in homes around the world. I’d long ago proposed upgrading our smart speakers with a quantum computer, making it possible for Alesia to listen to and interpret spoken commands without having to send everything said to a central server where others could potentially listen in on entire conversations. Alesia was no longer within the purview of Special Projects. As the resident expert on the technology behind her, Charlie vetoed the quantum-computer idea under the guise that it would have increased costs.

More than that, it quickly became obvious that Charlie saw me as his adversary. I’d gone out on my own and developed my own special projects, bypassing his authority entirely. Every major development at Applazon during the past three years, including most recently the Applazon Emporium, had come from my efforts and not his, making him look obsolete and making him feel vulnerable. Before the retreat, I’d not realized how much I’d antagonized the man, and although Jeff had probably hoped that we’d work out our differences by being in the same group, clearly the opposite seemed to be true. Charlie was a small-minded, ego-driven man who’d come up with some really good ideas but resented anything for which he couldn’t take credit. He could take credit for the ideas hatched by those working under him, but he couldn’t’ take credit for my ideas nor those of Henry or Nithya. As such, Charlie was dangerous to the organization and especially to me personally.

David was a rather strait-laced attorney who’d made a name for himself in corporate law. My pop of course had experience with him as they were often on opposite sides of legal battles, and he’d warned me about him. David had a true photographic memory and could pull up obscure bits of corporate case law that had eluded everyone else. No one was better at bending the law to fit the reality-distortion field generated by Jeff Barlow, which was why Jeff liked him so much, but he also shielded Jeff from the way that such distortions left Applazon more and more of an outlier, vulnerable to the vagaries of politics. Given the bizarre nature of my situation growing up and then escaping from my father, I was all too aware of things that were not as they seemed.

Jeff truly saw Applazon as a god-given savior of society, failing to notice just how severely it had distorted the marketplace. He couldn’t fathom just how many people had been hurt as a result. Because of the effect he’d had on retail and the jobs market, he’d played an indirect role in the election of Donald Trump. Trump in turn had rewarded him by using his connections to lure Jeff into a sex scandal that cost him his marriage. Why? Because Jeff owned the Washington Herald, which had been extremely critical of the Trump administration. Because Trump still had a lock on the Republican Party even as he faced criminal charges in multiple courts, his hatred of Jeff might yet play a role in trying to bring Applazon down, and Jeff was oblivious to it.

There was no doubt that Jeff wanted things to remain as they were, so both of the other men in my group started with the premise that we should hunker down and resist any and all antitrust actions, regardless of how well-founded. I wasn’t having any of it, believing that burying one’s head in the sand only made it difficult to breathe. I insisted on looking at every aspect of case law as it might be applied to Applazon’s operations. By all rights, the two men working together should have worn me down before lunchtime on Friday, but that wasn’t what happened. When it came to case law, I’d never studied it, but I’d done my homework, and although I couldn’t recite court rulings verbatim, David couldn’t help but be impressed by the way I knew the outcome and ramifications of every case he threw my way. I could even come up with cases of my own that supported the opposite conclusions. Grudgingly, by the time we began the presentations after lunch, he accepted that my approach was equally valid to his own. Hence, we presented both strategies when it came our turn. Apparently hearing it for the first time, Jeff was shocked by my assessment of the ways the Justice Department could take a hatchet to our business model. It was tough love, but he needed to know.

The last thing I needed, however was to have Jeff be afraid of me, and so I spent Saturday focusing on ways to mitigate our monopoly status that avoided splitting the company up into tiny pieces. The main thing I suggested was to separate the online marketplace into a separate business entity with a firewall that prevented the eCommerce site from having any influence on what, when and how things were sold in the marketplace. I also recommended that the marketplace have its own website, separate from Applazon’s main site, so that shoppers would clearly know from whom they were making the purchase. Tabs on both sites would make it easy to switch back and forth between the two, and a common search engine would facilitate searching on both at the same time as well as shopping on sites outside the Applazon empire. The search engine would be overhauled to ensure the sorting of listings by relevance, with similar products grouped together and identical listings consolidated. Nested searches would further ease the customer’s ability to find what they wanted, even if it was from a competitor. I might be stepping on toes making these suggestions, but if a redesign of the website to avoid inherent bias could prevent the company being split up, it would be worth mashing a few toes.

In terms of showing that we could act responsibly in regulating ourselves, I thought that A.I.-driven policing of the online marketplace would make a huge difference. More importantly, we needed an independent oversight board funded by Applazon but consisting of qualified auditors from outside the company, to review and make recommendations on eliminating anti­competitive practices. Finally, I thought it important to explore what would happen in the worst-case scenario and how we might proactively split the company into independent units to forestall the regulators doing it for us in ways that were disastrous. Although the strategy I proposed, subject to review by an expert panel, would have disrupted our existing operations very little, Jeff and Andy didn’t want to give up their empire.

<> <> <>

I knew that politics was a dirty business and that corporations spent billions collectively to lobby national, state and local governments on behalf of their interests. Nevertheless, Sunday was a revelation as to just how far a major corporation could go. I’d naïvely thought most corporate political spending went for lobbying to pass or defeat specific legislation and only rarely to supporting political campaigns. If I’d thought about it, I’d have realized that buying the influence of one senator was worth far more than thousands of hours spent lobbying for legislation. Far too many politicians were willing to sell their souls to ensure their reelection.

The morning started out innocently enough with a review of the members of the Biden cabinet. Attorney General Merrick Garland was a given, but most of the oxygen in his room was taken up by dealing with the aftermath of the insurrection and tracking down and prosecuting white supremacists and other domestic terrorists. Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen was another story with her commitment to fighting Big Tech. She would bear close scrutiny in the days ahead. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh didn’t have enough of a track record on Big Tech, but I thought it likely they would understand the role Applazon played in generating jobs in America rather than overseas, as was the case with so much of the tech industry. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm came from political backgrounds in business-friendly states and had favorable track records. I’d met with Ms. Granholm regarding plans for deployment of wind turbines and was scheduled to meet with Mr. Buttigieg regarding the infrastructure for both electrically powered trucking and high-speed rail. I thought it likely they could be convinced to look favorably at the role we were playing in combatting climate change.

Of course, short of bribery or blackmail, not much could be done to redirect or replace any of them until the next administration took over in January 2025. However, I soon discovered how naïve I’d been to assume that bribery and blackmail were off the table. Blackmail, in particular, was considered a standard operating procedure as we reviewed where each cabinet member was vulnerable and how we might exploit those vulnerabilities. Opportunities to buy influence were also explored, via such things as a spouse in need of a job or a kid who was trying to get into medical or law school. We didn’t stop there, however, as we drilled down to look at deputy secretaries and high-level staffers who would likely still be there during the next administration. I was shocked to learn of the extent to which Applazon had already gone in developing relationships with key players in the Biden Administration.

The elephant in the room was who would be the next President and what that might portend for us. Biden claimed to be running for reelection, but he’d be over 80, and it seemed likely he’d step aside in favor of younger blood. A number of the Democrats who looked like they’d run were already campaigning on breaking up Big Tech. Bernie Sanders was considered so dangerous that Jeff even said he’d support Trump over him, which was a very scary thought, indeed. As old as he was, it seemed unlikely he’d get the nomination even if he did try to run again. Elizabeth Warren was seen as much more of a threat because she was a legitimate contender and was solidly in favor of breaking up Big Tech. She also favored a wealth tax that Jeff railed against. Personally, I thought it was a reasonable proposal except for the fact that it was clearly unconstitutional. A constitutional amendment similar to the one that had allowed a personal income tax was destined to fail.

Kamala Harris was certain to run, and as a moderate, would probably continue a cautious approach when it came to investigating Big Tech. However, she’d done little to distinguish herself during the Biden presidency, which didn’t bode well. My personal favorite among the Democrats was Pete Buttigieg, not only because he was gay, but because he was sensible and incredibly smart. His youth and sexuality probably meant he wouldn’t be the nominee just yet. I also liked Amy Klobuchar with her moderate approach, but she’d written a book, Antitrust, available in hardcover and as an e-book in the Applazon eBookstore. It was actually one of the best-researched books I’d ever read and was the basis for many of the arguments I made. Unfortunately, she was outspoken to break up Big Tech. The extent to which that would color Jeff’s thinking when it came to her continued role in politics would soon become glaringly apparent.

On the Republican side, it was clear that Trump intended to run again, even though he was facing numerous criminal and civil charges in state and federal court. His whole family was, but that didn’t mean that one of them wouldn’t make a run for the presidency. Even if they didn’t, Trump would have a hand in picking the Republican nominee. Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley seemed likely to run as Trump loyalists, and I saw all three of them as dangerous opportunists for whom democracy took a back seat to power. Mike Pence would almost certainly try to run, but Trump would never forgive him for failing to overturn the election results on January 6. “Hang Mike Pence” could still be heard from hecklers, wherever the former vice president went. Ted Cruz would also run, but he’d effectively removed himself as a serious contender by going to Cancun during one of the worst weather disasters in Texas history. Politicians had made comebacks from worse, but Cruz was already deeply unpopular in the GOP, and he lacked the political instinct to recover from his stupidity.

Ron DeSantis was a popular favorite who’d managed to court the Trump base while projecting a more traditional conservative image that businesses tended to favor. The Florida governor had repeatedly shown a ruthless willingness to put business interests ahead of the public health. Keeping the beaches and theme parks open was good for the tourist industry and it avoided sacrificing jobs, but it came at the expense of spreading the coronavirus and its variants far and wide. His attempts to ban mask and vaccine mandates, even in the face of some of the worst coronavirus statistics in the nation, to me were unforgivable. Initially, I thought Jeff would want to support DeSantis because of his pro-business stance, but not even Jeff could overlook the way his policies had cost Applazon hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue.

Susan Collins and Mitt Romney were likely to run as anti-Trump candidates, and there was even talk of forming a third party, but that seemed unlikely in the current political climate. Although I leaned toward the Democrats, I could have supported either one as a moderate GOP alternative. Jeff clearly favored Romney’s policies, but he preferred to support candidates with whom he could buy influence. Hence, he was primed to use Applazon’s resources to fund Lindsey Graham’s campaign because he saw the senator as someone who was flawed, to be sure, but highly malleable. In other words, he was a politician who could be bribed, blackmailed or influenced through clandestine means. Jeff didn’t elaborate just how he knew Graham was vulnerable or to what degree, which was probably just as well. As far as I was concerned, his lies, flipflops and support for Trump made him unacceptable to me.

After listening to all of the discussion, I rose to speak my piece of mind. Jeff recognized me. and I began to speak. “Gentlemen, I know I’m young and naïve and, frankly, a bit shocked by what apparently happens in politics behind the scenes. For those of you who don’t know my history, I was kidnapped out of daycare when I was two and raised by a pedophile in a dilapidated shack in Southern Indiana. After putting up with daily physical, mental and sexual abuse, I finally managed to escape when I was twelve and started working for Applazon under an assumed identity when I was thirteen. Suffice to say, with a background like that, there isn’t much that shocks me. However, I must take exception when it comes to playing with fire.

“Any ascendency of Trumpism in the U.S. is dangerous, and actively supporting a Trumpian candidate, although prudent from a business standpoint, puts the future of American democracy in doubt. As an aside, there were a small number of prominent Jews in Weimar Germany who supported the Nazi party. They saw the rise of Hitler as a positive business development, and they assumed that because of their prominence and early support, they’d be immune from any actions taken against the Jews. We all know how well that turned out. I would strongly recommend remaining neutral when it comes to the Republican nominee. We can deal with a President Graham, if necessary, but if we must support someone, I would recommend Mitt Romney, as he clearly supports business interests, and he always puts the Constitution first.”

“We’ve always donated to both parties, J.J.,” Jeff countered. “It’s a hedge in case one party pulls off an upset, and we’d much rather have Lindsey Graham than Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton or Ron DeSantis in the White House. Only Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren would be more dangerous than those three —”

“Bernie Sanders isn’t going to get the nomination, and Elizabeth Warren can be managed,” I countered. “We’ve seen her flipflops on the campaign trail, and it wouldn’t take much to tie her legislation up in knots for the entire four years. That’s infinitely more desirable than the prospect of another autocrat in the mold of Donald Trump.”

“I wouldn’t count Trump out, either, but barring a last-minute acquittal on all counts, it’s far more likely he’ll be tied up with his legal troubles and unable to run. That said, no Republican is going to get the nomination without Trump’s support, which is why Romney doesn’t stand a chance in hell. I don’t trust Hawley or Cotton, and DeSantis is an opportunist who could do us great harm. I know Graham, and I know I can manipulate him into doing our bidding. So, who would you suggest we support?” Jeff asked.

“I like Pete Buttigieg, but he doesn’t have much of a chance,” I replied. “Still, I expect to build a relationship with him as I’m doing with Jennifer Granholm, and he could be ideal when he’s a bit older. I like Kamala Harris because in many ways, she’s the devil we know and she’s a moderate.” The groans that I heard from all around the room told me that my support for the Vice President wasn’t popular, to say the least. I feared I’d just effectively ended my career in senior management at Applazon, but I needed to try to explain myself. “I know she’s a bit of a political opportunist, and her background as a prosecutor would give pause for some. However, she’s repeatedly championed moderate issues, and, more importantly, she’s voted as a moderate. She tends to be supportive of business interests, and unlike most of the other presidential candidates in 2020, including some of the Republicans, she didn’t campaign on breaking up Big Tech. I believe she’s actually the least likely candidate to split us up.

“Cory Booker and Beto O’Rourke are also excellent candidates, although they’re not as well positioned as Harris, nor are their positions as well known. Had he not self-destructed, I might have suggested Andrew Cuomo. There are others, but I suspect they wouldn’t be of interest to you in any case.”

After I sat back down, the subsequent agreement of all the other executives to support funding Lindsey Graham for the Republican nomination and then the Republican candidate for the presidency spoke volumes as to how much my opinion was valued in the organization. Never mind that I was right. The bigger surprise was that Jeff didn’t even suggest supporting any of the candidates for the Democratic nomination, even though in my opinion, Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker or Beto O’Rourke would have made exceptional candidates. The question was, was I willing to sacrifice my loyalty to Jeff and the company for the sake of the country, if necessary. I hoped I’d never have to find out.

The afternoon was even worse as we scrutinized every major committee assignment in the Senate and the House and the impact on potential actions against us. In a way, I could see the necessity of doing so, but the plan of action was enough to make me retch. The objective, apparently, wasn’t to influence the committee members, but rather to eliminate them. For example, Amy Klobuchar was on the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee and was the head of the subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights. Although a moderate, her book showed her to be a potent foe and she needed to be eliminated. She was from Minnesota and considered vulnerable, and she was up for reelection. We would be supporting her opponent, which was a shame because I really liked her.

More to the point was the perception that the Democrats were much more hostile to Big Tech, and that by doing our best to ensure Republican majorities in both houses of the Congress, we could eliminate the likelihood of any adverse legislation being passed. Frankly, a Republican majority in either house of Congress would eliminate the likelihood of any meaningful legislation being passed at all at a time when we were still trying to climb our way out of the economic abyss spawned by the pandemic. I might be an independent, but I couldn’t support a Trump-dominated Republican party having any role in the Administration or as the majority party in either house of Congress. It was bad enough that Trump had appointed so many of the judges in the judiciary. Although I didn’t like their viewpoints, at least most of them were true conservative ideologues chosen by the Federalist Society and not by authoritarian fascists.

On Monday morning, we summarized the activities of the retreat, producing a document for public consumption with an on-line version as well. Absent in the document was any mention that the retreat was held at a nudist facility nor of the political discussions that were held. There were even photos of all of us fully clothed, engaged in thoughtful discussion and team-building activities. I was astounded that although the photos were entirely fake, I couldn’t tell. It would have been so easy to have had us bring dress clothes with us and to have taken real photographs of all of us in similar poses. The fact that PR would resort to faking all of it spoke volumes. It was as if I’d been seeing Applazon with blinders on for the last 3½ years and was now seeing the unvarnished truth for the first time.

There was also an internal memo produced that summarized the aspects of the retreat that decidedly were to be shared with no one outside of the participants. We were all expected to sign off on it, providing our unanimous support for the business plan developed and the secret political agenda, and then return it before boarding the plane back to Traverse City. Of the ideas I proposed, none of them made it into the finished memo. My recommendations were summarily ignored as Applazon’s executives dug in their heels and decided to fight for the status quo. In principle, I understood the need for the executives to speak with a single voice, but I couldn’t bring myself to sign off on the memo, so I returned it unsigned.

Jeff came up to me as our clothes and personal effects were being returned to us, and he patted me on the shoulder and said, “J.J., I understand how strongly you feel about your positions, but signing the draft memo is not optional. Just as we always present the official corporate policy whenever speaking to the press, which up until now, you’ve done admirably, we have to close ranks when it comes to making corporate decisions.” Jeff was now fully dressed, and I was still naked, which made for an interesting dynamic between the two of us.

“In other words, this whole retreat was about helping us to reach the same decisions that had already been made, regardless of whether we believed them or not,” I responded. It was a comment I’d heard on a number of occasions from Jerry after he got home from a Strat Com meeting.

“You obviously understand how corporate leadership works better than most, my friend,” Jeff replied. “I’m glad you were here, even if your ideas are a complete 180 compared to our official policies. I think we all needed to hear what you had to say. I just hope you don’t turn out to be right in the end.”

“Jeff, I think you already know the answer to that,” I responded. “I just fear that a tremendous opportunity has been lost to save Applazon as a series of independent companies that could have carried on your original vision. We had a chance at longevity; instead you chose to bury your heads in the sand and hope for the best. Worse still, your actions will only serve to hasten Applazon’s demise. Applazon will almost certainly be split up and in an inept way that guts the very nature of what we are.”

“I can only hope you’re wrong about that. Microsoft survived an onslaught of antitrust litigation from both the E.U. and the Justice Department,” Jeff pointed out.

“And with the introduction of the smartphone and the rise of Google, Microsoft fell into consumer obscurity,” I replied. “Not to negate their continuing role on the desktop nor their second life as a hardware company, but they certainly don’t have the influence they did, and Bill Gates is better known for his philanthropy now than for founding the company.”

“Even after AT&T was split up, it still came back, stronger than ever,” Jeff related.

Looking at him askance, I responded, “I hope you didn’t tell me that in seriousness, Jeff. We both know that the AT&T name and what was left of the company was bought out by Southern Bell, one of the Baby Bells that resulted from the breakup, and that it’s a completely different company now.”

“That was before your time, and I hoped you didn’t know. It would have made a great example if you’d bought into it. I should have learned by now that there isn’t anything I can slip past you,” he added with a weak smile. The implications were shocking; Jeff was willing to tell an outright lie to make his point. I’d never be able to take him at his word again.

“Yes, the new AT&T is a major player in the telecom­muni­cations and entertainment industries, but it competes directly with Verizon, another of the Baby Bells, as well as Comcast, Time Warner and others. Sure, it would have faced similar competition had there been no breakup, but it would probably have had at least a fifty-percent market share, and the original executives would still be around to enjoy it.”

“Point well taken,” Jeff replied, “but the future direction of Applazon’s not open for further discussion. I want you to know that no matter what, I’ll remain your close friend, but I really do need you to sign that memo. I can’t leave it with you, but I’ll send you a draft letter of support that I expect you to return by the end of September. I hope that you can find a way to reconcile the greater good you’re doing here with the need to present a united front. However, if you’re not comfortable with that, I’ll expect a letter of resignation in my hands in place of the support letter with a planned departure by the end of the year. I’d hate to lose you, J.J., but your prominence in the news media makes it impossible for you to step down as CEO and still remain with the company. Just remember that you already signed a nondisclosure agreement and any violation could result not only in termination but legal redress as well.”

With that, Jeff simply walked away, leaving me with my mouth hanging open. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been surprised by the turn of events, and there was much now to think about. As much as I’d have liked to reform Applazon from the inside, that no longer seemed to be a possibility, which made my resignation the only logical response, but what would I do now?