the company for $50,000 valued the business at somewhat over $300,000. Kevin believed in Fishbowll and its potential – $300,000 was nothing. If they did things right, he calculated that it would be worth a whole lot more than that.
‘I’m in,’ he said.
‘Can you get fifty thousand?’
‘I’ll tell my parents any lie I have to. I’ll tell them I got a girl pregnant.’
‘Tell them something they’ll believe,’ said Ben.
‘Funny. Very funny.’
‘Ben?’ said Andrei.
‘I’m not sure. My folks don’t have that much spare cash. Stanford’s stretching them to the limit.’
‘Call them. I want you in. You guys should get your own attorneys. I don’t want you to feel there’s any problem in the future. I’ve got my guy to draft an agreement, but we should make sure everyone is happy that this is absolutely fair.’
‘I’m OK,’ said Kevin. ‘I’ll talk to your guy.’
‘I’m OK with that,’ said Ben.
Andrei nodded. That was what he wanted to hear. He had felt he had to recommend that the others get their own lawyers, but if they had taken him up on the suggestion, he didn’t know if he would have gone ahead with the deal. If they didn’t have trust amongst the three of them at this stage, he didn’t think it would work.
Andrei put out his hand. ‘Welcome to Fishbowll, gentlemen!’
‘Dude, we are going to make something awesome,’ said Kevin.
Andrei nodded. ‘I hope so.’
Ben and Kevin talked to their parents. Ben was able to raise only $30,000 and received 9 per cent of the company. Kevin produced $50,000 and received 15 per cent. The legal papers were signed a week later. Andrei Koss, Kevin James Embley and Benjamin Shapiro Marks became the founding owners of Fishbowll Inc., incorporated in Delaware.
Two weeks after the papers were signed and the money was handed over, Fishbowll hit a wall.
8
OUTSIDE THE SUITE in Robinson House, no one knew what was happening. Users only ever saw nine names at a time, out of lists that usually reached into the thousands, and often many thousands. So if those lists were reduced by 40 per cent, or 60 per cent, or even more, it wasn’t apparent to them. But Andrei had detected that the list numbers had contracted dramatically.
A little more investigation revealed that names from Homeplace, the world’s biggest social network, were no longer coming up on Fishbowll searches.
In an all-night wheelspin, Andrei and Kevin independently checked the relevant coding to see if a bug had crept in. Considering the tiers of functionality that had now been layered over the original Fishbowll search algorithm, it was possible that a piece of coding had been introduced that inadvertently had the effect of excluding the names. There was nothing. When they were finished – with a couple of dozen empty Coke cans scattered on the floor between them – they looked at each other wearily, knowing that they were going to have to check it all again.
Ben appeared, looking obscenely fresh after a full night’s sleep, and asked what they had found.
‘You know,’ he said, when they told him they had drawn a blank, ‘I was thinking, what if it’s not us? What if it’s them?’
‘Homeplace?’ said Kevin. ‘They’ve got a bug? Is that what you mean?’
‘No, I mean, what if they’re keeping us out on purpose?’
‘Keeping us out?’ said Kevin incredulously. ‘Dude, you think Mike Sweetman even knows we exist?’
‘Well, maybe not us. I mean, maybe they’re keeping everyone out. Anyone who’s accessing them. Could they do that?’
Andrei and Kevin exchanged a glance. It was possible. There was constant tension between social networks, which wanted to keep people within their sites for as much of their online time as possible, and search engines, which wanted their users to be able to search social networks from outside. Technically, it would be a relatively easy thing for the networks to shield themselves from the web crawlers that the search engines – and Fishbowll, as well – used to access them. A cold war existed between them, with the potential to turn hot at any time. There was an unspoken understanding that Mike Sweetman, the CEO of Homeplace, and the CEOs of the other social networks weren’t going to shield their services entirely. But it was a step that was just waiting to be taken.
And, naturally, if the war had broken out, as in any conflict there was going to be collateral damage.
There was a glum silence.
‘If Homeplace gets away with this, every network is going to do it,’ said Kevin eventually.
‘But we