him that hiring her had been one of the best decisions he had ever made.
Didier Broule took his place at the lectern when Jenn had finished. The banker was smooth, practised, credible, utterly at home in front of a crowd of investors. Careful to avoid saying anything that strayed outside the realms of permissible future projection, he put up numbers and sliced and diced them with ease, converting them to price to earnings ratios and earnings per share and other metrics that were grist to an investor’s mill. For fifteen minutes he steered slickly through a stream of figures. Then he unexpectedly shut down the slides on the wall behind him and paused for effect.
‘Now, here’s the thing,’ he said. ‘Let’s think about risk. I bet a lot of you are saying, fundamentally, this is a network. Networks come, networks go. Does anyone remember Homeplace?’ He waited for the laugh he always got when he said that, whether it was in Chicago or Sao Paolo or Frankfurt. ‘No, but, seriously, they come and go. People are fickle. They join one network today, they switch tomorrow – not that I think that’s going to happen to Fishbowl, I hasten to add. Not with one point five billion users – that’s a quarter of the human beings on the planet – and a growth trajectory after eight years that’s still heading up. No, personally, I don’t think Fishbowl’s going anywhere in a hurry. By the way, that’s not a forward-looking statement.’ He paused for the laugh again. ‘But I’m serious. You’re investing for the long term. You should be asking yourself one important question. What makes Fishbowl different from the others?’ He paused again. ‘Here’s the answer. Fishbowl is not a network. What do I mean by this? We’ve heard Andrei speak about Deep Connectedness. Fishbowl offers that. That’s been the vision from day one. But let’s say someone offers a better form of Deep Connectedness. Let’s say one point five billion people run off there. Andrei,’ he said, glancing at him, ‘I’m not going to say it’s going to happen, but let’s say it does.’ He looked back at the audience. ‘Worst case.’ He shrugged. ‘Who cares? Fishbowl … is not …a network. Fishbowl is a program. That’s the core of this business. The intelligent adaption program – or Farming, to you or me. Let’s look at what one interested party had to say about it.’
Didier pressed a button. The screen came alive again. Andrei turned to watch.
It was a clip from the Senate hearing. McKenrick’s face was on the screen.
‘Let me help you, Mr Koss. Your Farming program, or IAP, or whatever you want to call it, is an immensely powerful program. Would you agree?’
‘I think it is a major advance. I said that before.’
‘Immensely powerful in selling products. Almost unimaginably powerful.’
‘That’s Senator Diane McKenrick, Chair of the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security. Not known for exaggeration.’
Didier played another clip.
‘I understand you’ll license it, won’t you? Of course you will. Everyone knows you stand to earn an enormous amount of money if you do.’
‘Now,’ said Didier, ‘imagine Fishbowl without its network, if you will. Take away the network, take away Deep Connectedness. What have you got left? That’s right. The IAP. The most sophisticated, most targeted, most influential, most effective way of reaching a consumer ever – ever – developed. A program Fishbowl can use on its network, sure, but, more importantly, a program it can license to every network, every search engine, every chat room, every online publication, every place where people go on the net and reveal their needs. Which is everywhere. That’s what you’re buying, ladies and gentleman. You’re buying Fishbowl. Great. You’re buying a network of one point five billion people and rising, with all the opportunities that gives to direct advertising at them and all the revenue that brings. Great. But that’s just the icing on the cake. What you’re buying – what you’re really buying – is a universal advertising application. Think about that. Do the math. Global advertising spend is 600 billion dollars. How much of that spend will a universal advertising application capture? The figures I showed you before, the projections, the cash flow – they’re before that. Do the math.’
He waited, as if really expecting everyone in the room to be doing some kind of calculation. ‘What you’re thinking about now, the number in your head – that’s all upside.’ He paused, nodding. ‘Upside. A universal advertising application. Not an