The Thief in the Corner Office - Pt 1
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There was nothing unusual about the theft of Bill Haldeman's invention. Big corporations regularly reverse-engineer the work of independent inventors and steal it. Things changed when Haldeman found a way to fight back. In Part One of this 10-part story, Haldeman recovers what was taken - then gets a lot more.
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"Good morning, sir. My name is Bill Haldeman, and I'm from the White House. It's urgent that I speak to Alice Waresmith, your chief executive officer. It's a matter of national security. Please arrange for me to see her immediately."
The young man behind the reception counter gave me a wide-eyed look. "Do you have any identification?" he asked.
"Here it is," I said, showing him my driver's license. "This is my White House identification card." It was no such thing, of course, but the young man accepted my statement without hesitation. "I'll call Ms. Waresmith's office and tell them you're coming."
"Don't do that," I said. "This is a top-secret meeting. Instead, have a member of your security staff escort me upstairs." The receptionist did not recognize that what I said had to be a load of bullshit, so he called a security guard and instructed him to take me to Waresmith's corner office suite on the top floor of the building.
By now you must be wondering what the hell is going on. It's kind of complicated, but I have no connection to the White House, and there was no truth to my claim that I was visiting the headquarters of Scient Analytica Corp. for reasons of national security. I just needed to have a face-to-face meeting with the bitch who runs the company so I can get my revenge on her for stealing my patented invention.
Ordinarily, there was no way anyone could walk into the corporate offices and expect to see the CEO of a big company like Scient, but I was not an ordinary guy. I possessed a cool little piece of technology I'd just invented. It is a mind-control device. I know that's an unbelievable claim. I'll explain later.
For now, just trust me when I say the young receptionist believed every crazy claim I made. He summoned a security guard and told him, "It's urgent that you escort Mr. Haldeman to Ms. Waresmith's office immediately. He's from the White House."
And that was all it took to begin my campaign to make Alice Waresmith regret her decision to steal my work. I felt pretty smug during the long elevator ride to the top of Scient's high-rise office building. I'd crafted a step-by-step plan to transform the CEO of this multi-billion dollar global corporation into a stooge who'd do anything I wanted.
I was going to make a lot of money, and it was going to be loads of fun.
"Who did you say you are?" Waresmith asked when I was escorted into her office. As you'd expect, it was palatial. Located in the corner office on the top floor, the windows provided a stunning view of the bay region, with the Golden Gate Bridge visible in one direction, and the tall buildings of San Francisco in the other.
In the middle of the office was the mighty Waresmith herself, sitting behind a massive desk that probably destroyed at least an acre of old-growth hardwood. In the popular media, Waresmith is nicknamed "War Horse" because she is so powerful and so fond of launching attacks against her victims. Like me.
"My name is Bill Haldeman, ma'am. I'm the director of the White House office of advanced strategic technology." After I shook her hand I aimed the speakers of my cellphone directly toward her so she'd hear the high-frequency sound waves that removed her ability to resist my suggestions. The sound didn't affect me because I wore earplugs that blocked high frequencies while allowing me to hear the middle frequencies of conversation.
Very quickly I saw her facial expression go slack, indicating that I had gained control of her mind. Everything was working perfectly.
"What can we do for you here at Scient, Mr. Haldeman?" she said. Her voice was unnaturally neutral, another indication that my mind-control device was working.
"The president has asked me to inform you of a top-secret project," I said. "Your company can play a vital role in advancing the national interest."
"We'll be happy to serve the nation any way we can," she said.
"I knew we could count on your cooperation," I said, barely able to keep myself from laughing. I took a few seconds to look at Waresmith and admire her. I imagine that most of you have seen her on the covers of
Forbes, Businessweek
, and
The Economist
, so you know that she's an unusually beautiful woman.
She was wearing a designer suit that made her look powerful, and also showed she had the face and body of a supermodel - a fact she never failed to prominently display. You've probably read that she believes people underestimate her because they don't expect such a beautiful woman to be so ruthless and predatory.
It has been reported that she works out daily with an athletic trainer, that her meals are prepared by a personal chef who specializes in healthful cooking, and that she's availed herself of a wide range of cosmetic procedures ranging from botox and liposuction to rhinoplasty, orthodontia, lip plumping, and breast implants.
From my perspective, she'd done everything she could to enhance her natural beauty. If her goal was to make herself look like a goddess, she'd succeeded. Of course, it's well-known that Waresmith succeeds at everything she attempts. It's one of the reasons the
Wall Street Journal
calls her "the most effective female CEO in the world." She has never hesitated to destroy anyone who stands in her way. The list of her victims is long.
My name is the most recent addition to that list.
I realize that this story must be getting confusing. You must be wondering why I went to so much trouble to get face-to-face with one of the most predatory corporate sharks in Silicon Valley. I'll try to explain as concisely as possible.
I didn't pick a fight with Waresmith or her company. She came after me. I am an independent inventor; I don't work for a big corporation with a bunch of patent lawyers to defend my work. I have multiple degrees in science and engineering, and I've created several innovative advances that earned me 17 patents and some very nice profits. Like everybody else in Silicon Valley, my dream is to come up with an idea good enough to make me a billionaire and disrupt industries. I want to be like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk.
The good news is that I thought I'd finally done it. I wrote a computing algorithm that analyses financial markets and uses artificial intelligence to look for smart opportunities to buy and sell. It works so well that a group of venture capitalists gave me the funding to create a start-up that was intended to commercialize my product.