start-up?”
“It’s a new platform for geo-location mobile advertising.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a variation on the whole instant coupon thing where you walk past a store or a restaurant and deals pop up on your phone.
A lot of people have been trying to do it for a while. But it’s very difficult to do without being intrusive. The messaging
part is a challenge.”
She grows more focused and energized as she speaks. She clearly enjoys showing her knowledge and appears to have spent some
time thinking about the topic. Carolyn wonders whether she’s ever done any formal presentations for the company.
“Mark was working on something that made it more of a game,” she goes on. “You know, more incentive-based and social. He had
something called ‘deal docents.’ He was essentially bringing multilevel marketing to geo-location advertising. You know what
multilevel marketing is, right?”
“Yeah, Amway. Pyramid stuff.”
“Right. Well, what a lot of people don’t realize is that social networking is built on a multilevel marketing foundation.
For a lot ofpeople that’s a dirty word. But if you stop and think about it, that’s what a lot of this is about—the psychological underpinnings
anyway. There’s all this talk of building a network, then leveraging the network. Well, what do you think Amway is about?
Network marketing folks were talking like that before there was the Internet. The Internet just accelerated the concept.”
“And how far along was the company?”
“Well, they were in trials in the Bay Area. They had an app that was in private beta. It was taking longer than they’d hoped
to get to the public beta stage but they were planning on extending it to Seattle and LA.”
“What was it called?”
“The app was called Francis,” Beth explains. “The bigger platform had a code name but no real name yet. That was part of the
hype.”
“What was the code name?”
“Sinatra.”
“Like the singer?”
“Yeah. But they couldn’t use that name for commercial purposes.”
“Okay. So, whatever he was doing wasn’t going well, as far as you could tell?”
“My sense was that it was going well but it wasn’t, if that makes any sense. They had an issue with another company offering
a similar service. Mark had to buy the company out. But it burned a lot of their capital, so he had to go back to his investors.”
“And did they give it to him?”
“They gave him some but naturally it cost him a piece of the company. He used to say that the best time to raise money was
when you didn’t need to.”
“Did you talk about divorce?”
Beth starts to shake her head then changes her mind. “He would bring it up sometimes, but it would always be on me.
You want to divorce me, don’t you?
He’d always put it on me. And I’d say, no, I don’t want to get divorced. But he wouldn’t see a marriage counselor. He didn’t
like talking to anybody about his problems. He saw it as a weakness.”
Her face changes as a wave of emotion overcomes her. Her lipsstart to quiver a little and she clasps her hands tightly together and puts them up to her mouth, as if to pray.
“Who would do this?” she murmurs, quietly beginning to sob.
Carolyn can’t help considering the answer. Mark McGregor, charismatic and wealthy, had always struck her as a very sharp guy
who wasn’t quite as brilliant as he thought was. He was someone who believed he could charm or bully his way through any predicament.
No matter how hairy things got, he thought he’d come through unscathed, maybe even better off. But not today.
“Beth,” she says. “I need to know something.”
She looks up.
“Beth, have you spoken to Richie Forman? Do you know where Richie is?”
6/ ODDJOB
R ICHIE WAS STARING OUT THE WINDOW OF HIS APARTMENT . H E couldn’t remember the exact moment the car really registered, but he looked out his blinds that morning, the Saturday before
McGregor was
“It’s a new platform for geo-location mobile advertising.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a variation on the whole instant coupon thing where you walk past a store or a restaurant and deals pop up on your phone.
A lot of people have been trying to do it for a while. But it’s very difficult to do without being intrusive. The messaging
part is a challenge.”
She grows more focused and energized as she speaks. She clearly enjoys showing her knowledge and appears to have spent some
time thinking about the topic. Carolyn wonders whether she’s ever done any formal presentations for the company.
“Mark was working on something that made it more of a game,” she goes on. “You know, more incentive-based and social. He had
something called ‘deal docents.’ He was essentially bringing multilevel marketing to geo-location advertising. You know what
multilevel marketing is, right?”
“Yeah, Amway. Pyramid stuff.”
“Right. Well, what a lot of people don’t realize is that social networking is built on a multilevel marketing foundation.
For a lot ofpeople that’s a dirty word. But if you stop and think about it, that’s what a lot of this is about—the psychological underpinnings
anyway. There’s all this talk of building a network, then leveraging the network. Well, what do you think Amway is about?
Network marketing folks were talking like that before there was the Internet. The Internet just accelerated the concept.”
“And how far along was the company?”
“Well, they were in trials in the Bay Area. They had an app that was in private beta. It was taking longer than they’d hoped
to get to the public beta stage but they were planning on extending it to Seattle and LA.”
“What was it called?”
“The app was called Francis,” Beth explains. “The bigger platform had a code name but no real name yet. That was part of the
hype.”
“What was the code name?”
“Sinatra.”
“Like the singer?”
“Yeah. But they couldn’t use that name for commercial purposes.”
“Okay. So, whatever he was doing wasn’t going well, as far as you could tell?”
“My sense was that it was going well but it wasn’t, if that makes any sense. They had an issue with another company offering
a similar service. Mark had to buy the company out. But it burned a lot of their capital, so he had to go back to his investors.”
“And did they give it to him?”
“They gave him some but naturally it cost him a piece of the company. He used to say that the best time to raise money was
when you didn’t need to.”
“Did you talk about divorce?”
Beth starts to shake her head then changes her mind. “He would bring it up sometimes, but it would always be on me.
You want to divorce me, don’t you?
He’d always put it on me. And I’d say, no, I don’t want to get divorced. But he wouldn’t see a marriage counselor. He didn’t
like talking to anybody about his problems. He saw it as a weakness.”
Her face changes as a wave of emotion overcomes her. Her lipsstart to quiver a little and she clasps her hands tightly together and puts them up to her mouth, as if to pray.
“Who would do this?” she murmurs, quietly beginning to sob.
Carolyn can’t help considering the answer. Mark McGregor, charismatic and wealthy, had always struck her as a very sharp guy
who wasn’t quite as brilliant as he thought was. He was someone who believed he could charm or bully his way through any predicament.
No matter how hairy things got, he thought he’d come through unscathed, maybe even better off. But not today.
“Beth,” she says. “I need to know something.”
She looks up.
“Beth, have you spoken to Richie Forman? Do you know where Richie is?”
6/ ODDJOB
R ICHIE WAS STARING OUT THE WINDOW OF HIS APARTMENT . H E couldn’t remember the exact moment the car really registered, but he looked out his blinds that morning, the Saturday before
McGregor was
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