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 Six of this 10-part story, Bill's campaign escalates to levels he didn't imagine when he began working to wreck Alice's life.
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As I continued to destroy Alice's career, I realized I had a problem. She made Scient Analytica a global powerhouse by embracing a policy of stealing the work of creative people like me. I was confident I could get her fired, but there was nothing to prevent the board from hiring a new CEO who would continue the same way of doing business. She proved that theft was a risk-free way to generate profits. There was no reason to imagine anything would change after Alice left.
I needed to guarantee that a different kind of CEO took control. It didn't take long for me to conclude that I needed to become the next CEO of Scient Analytica.
You probably realize that this idea was crazy. Nothing in my professional background qualified me for the top job in a big corporation. The only thing that made this plan plausible was that I happened to own a mind control device. In theory, I could "persuade" the board to do whatever I wanted.
The problem is that the board wasn't the only thing that mattered. Scient Analytical is a publicly held corporation with lots of stockholders who would rebel if the board appointed someone like me to the corner office. The Wall Street types would go nuts. For my plan to work, I needed to find a way to make it appear I was qualified for the job.
Decide for yourself what you think of my strategy.
"Alice, I'd like to help you out," I said one day with my sound generator running. "You'd like to hear my idea, wouldn't you?"
"I'd like to hear your idea," she said.
"You have people working to persuade prospective clients to sign contracts, don't you?"
"I have people working to get new contracts," she said.
"I could help persuade these prospects to become your customers. You'd like new customers, wouldn't you?"
"I'd like new customers."
"Could you hire me to meet with your prospective clients? You'd like it if I persuaded them to sign contracts, wouldn't you?"
"I'd like new contracts," she said.
It was a little more complicated than that, but I got Alice to hire me as a consultant who would participate in contract negotiations. Hiring me as a permanent leader of the negotiating team would require board approval; as CEO, she had the authority to make me a consultant without permission from anybody.
Her regular negotiating team thought it was kind of odd that a person with no experience was suddenly involved in the corporation's most important contract talks, but a few minutes with the sound generator convinced them it all made sense.
You can imagine what happened.
The first time I worked a miracle was when Scient was trying to persuade the U.S. Air Force to hire us to manage a huge cloud storage project. It was a contract that would be worth billions, and the government had tentatively decided to give the job to another provider.
But that didn't happen. I went into a meeting with the Air Force, convinced them they wanted to give us the contract, and closed the deal in record time.
I did it again a week later when I persuaded Balent, the world's largest manufacturer of supercomputers, to let Scient Analytica develop the software for their next generation of systems. Balent had a track record that suggested they would find lots of clients for their new system, which meant lots of buyers of our software.
The third miracle happened when I was supposed to negotiate a contract to build an advanced new chip for the aviation industry. I sealed that deal, of course, but during the negotiation, I got one guy from Boeing to describe a project they hoped to do in the future. I convinced him to do it now - and to hire Scient to run the project.
These were all huge deals, and each time one was announced it drove Scient's stock price a little higher. Alice was smart enough to realize that it was time for her to introduce me to her board of directors and to get authorization to hire me as a vice president in charge of new business development.
Getting in front of the board had been my plan all along. Eleven directors would be sitting around the table, and I needed to influence all of them, so I got some Bluetooth speakers and put them in all corners of the room so everybody would be exposed to my sound generator. Alice started the meeting, handled some routine business, then introduced me.
"You all know that the value of our stock has never been higher. Four times in the last five weeks, we've been able to announce major contracts with some of the largest customers we've ever acquired. These deals will generate large profits for years to come, guaranteeing a bright future for Scient Analytica.
"Most of you already know that the credit for these deals goes mainly to a very talented consultant, Bill Haldeman. I asked Bill to join our team because I know he is an extraordinarily talented and persuasive individual who could help our negotiators perform at the highest level. Today I'd like you to hire Bill as a permanent member of our top management. Bill, would you care to describe the contribution you hope to make for us?"
"I'll be glad to Alice," I said, activating my sound generator. "I've always been an admirer of the work done at Scient Analytica, and my knowledge of your ongoing efforts makes me uniquely qualified to explain to prospective customers why they want to do business with you."
Blah blah blah. I went on for a couple of minutes, telling the directors that I am the smartest guy they'd ever met, that they are extremely fortunate that I was willing to work for them, and that the stock price will go higher and higher if they give me the job.
By the time it was over, all but one of the directors were big fans of mine. I noticed that one old guy near the end of the table looked at me like he could tell I was completely full of shit. He alone seemed to understand that my pitch made no sense, and he seemed puzzled that all the other directors were acting like my fanboys.
Why is that guy able to resist me?
I asked myself.
Isn't the sound generator working on him?
Then I saw the answer. The guy turned his head, and I realized that he had large hearing aids in both ears.
He's hearing impaired!
I thought.
He can't hear the frequencies that make people do what I want!
It didn't make a difference. When it came time to vote, all the directors supported hiring me. The old guy was the only one to express any skepticism. "I still don't understand what makes Mr. Haldeman so special, but I can't argue with his results. I'll support letting him try to continue his remarkable series of successes. If it doesn't work out, we can revisit the issue in the future."
I knew there was no chance that it wouldn't work out. I continued negotiating on behalf of Scient, and I continued persuading one customer after another to sign contracts. The stock price just kept going higher and higher, and some bright reporter with the
Wall Street Journal
did a story that gave me credit for what she called "a remarkable infusion of success and momentum at Scient Analytica."
It was fun, but I was doing it for a reason. In the future, I plan to get the board to fire Alice and hire me as her replacement. It would take a lot of preparation to get everyone to believe I was qualified to occupy the corner office.
By this time people were noticing that something was off with Alice. I repeatedly took her out to public places in the ultra-sexy apparel I'd convinced her to wear. Lots of people thought it was weird for a big, powerful CEO to dress like a porn star.
Still, it didn't create a serious problem for her - yet. Alice's company was more profitable than it had ever been, and that was more important than her sudden decision to wear slutty outfits. My goal was to get people to begin to have questions about Alice.
The next step in my campaign happened when Alice began to cover her body with tattoos. She found an artist who called herself Venus Van GoGo. Venus's work was extraordinary. We looked at photographs of tattoos she'd done for rock stars and pro athletes, and they were beautiful. Venus possessed incredible technical skills that gave her the ability to produce photo-realistic designs that looked three-dimensional. I've never seen such outstanding use of color. By the time we finished reviewing her work, I wanted to get some tattoos myself.
But the immediate goal was to cover Alice from head to toe with the most eye-catching ink in the history of tattoo artistry. "I've never worked with a customer who wants so many designs when they've never even had a tattoo before," Venus said. "Why this sudden interest in body art?"
"I'm sure you already know that Alice is a fashion icon," I said. "It seems to us that she has a unique opportunity. Anyone can tell that the quality of tattoos you see on people ranges from great to awful. Most people who have a lot of tattoos have designs done by many different artists who have incompatible styles. We think that by working with just one very talented artist, Alice can become famous for her tattoos."
"Yeah, I know what you mean," Venus said. "What usually happens is that a person goes into a tattoo parlor and asks for a picture of his girlfriend on his shoulder. Then a year later he goes to a completely different artist and asks to get a mermaid on his arm. A year after that he gets a third tattoo from a third artist. It looks like a hodge podge.
