Chapter 225: The Document II
He set a price discipline and worked within it. Small blocks at intervals. Nothing that would move the price significantly in a single session. He was accumulating rather than acquiring, the distinction being that acquisition was visible and accumulation was not, at least not until the position was large enough that it had to be disclosed.
By noon he had added two point three percent.
[Combined Vertex purchases: $1,840,000 spent]
[Balance: $62,557,597]
[Combined rebate at 2x: $3,680,000 received]
[New Balance: $66,237,597]
He was at four point one percent total and the price had moved less than half a percent, which meant the accumulation was working the way it was supposed to work.
Marcus texted at twelve fifteen.
I’m watching Vertex volume this morning. Something is moving but I can’t tell what. Is that you.
Some of it, Sean replied.
How much are you planning to buy, said Marcus.
Still deciding.
Sean. That’s a company in the middle of a hostile acquisition. Buying into that situation is.
What, said Sean.
A pause. Either very stupid or very confident.
Which do you think, said Sean.
I think you don’t do very stupid things, said Marcus. Which is making me nervous about what you know that I don’t.
Come to the investment club meeting next week, said Sean. I’ll explain what I can then.
You’re going to do this regardless of what I think, said Marcus.
Yes, said Sean.
Fine, said Marcus. But you’re explaining it to me eventually.
Eventually, said Sean.
He put his phone away and went to his afternoon class.
=======
The call from the founders came at three forty-seven.
It was the other two, both of them, on a shared line, which told him something about how they’d decided to approach this. Not separately. Together.
Their names were David Chen and Rachel Moore. David was the technical co-founder alongside Thomas, the product side. Rachel had built the business development function from nothing. Both in their late thirties. Both had been in the company since the first day.
David spoke first. Direct, slightly formal, the tone of someone being careful. "Clara briefed us about the analysis you put together and the document that went to the shareholders this morning. Thomas spoke very highly of both."
"Thank you," said Sean.
Rachel came in before he could say more. Her energy was different from David’s, less formal, more forward-facing. "How much of Vertex are you planning to own."
He liked her immediately.
"I’m not going to give you a ceiling number," he said. "What I can tell you is that I’m not accumulating to sell. I’m accumulating because I think Vertex is worth being part of long-term."
"Long-term meaning what," said Rachel.
"Meaning past this vote," said Sean. "Past the funding round that comes after this vote. Meaning I’m interested in what Vertex is in three years not what it’s worth in three months."
A pause. David and Rachel were clearly doing the thing where they communicated with each other without speaking.
"Why," said David.
"Because the product works," said Sean. "And because products that actually work are rarer than the market generally understands."
"Most investors say things like that," said Rachel.
"Most investors say it about products that have good metrics," said Sean. "Your eighty-seven percent renewal rate is a metric. What I’m saying is that behind the metric there are three hundred and forty businesses that have organized real operations around what you built. That’s not a number. That’s a dependency. Companies don’t maintain dependencies on things that don’t genuinely work."
Another pause.
"You’re eighteen," said David.
"I know," said Sean.
"Clara mentioned that," said Rachel. "Several times. With an expression I couldn’t read over the phone but that I’ve learned to pay attention to."
Sean said nothing.
"The document," said David. "The section on the client outcomes from Meridian’s previous acquisitions. Thomas said you built that overnight."
"My colleague Max built most of it," said Sean. "I assembled the pieces."
"Your colleague Max," said Rachel. "The one who finds things."
Clara had apparently briefed them thoroughly.
"Yes," said Sean.
"Is Max available on an ongoing basis," said Rachel. "If we stay independent and go into the funding round, we’re going to need competitive intelligence on the landscape."
Sean thought about Max at his laptop with seventeen browser tabs open and Amara reorganizing his files.
"I’ll ask him," said Sean. "He’ll tell me his own answer."
"Fair enough," said Rachel. She paused. "Sean. The document you wrote the summary for. Two pages at the front. Thomas said it was the clearest thing he’d read about what was at stake."
"He mentioned that," said Sean.
"He doesn’t say that kind of thing lightly," said Rachel. "He thinks most writing about business situations is either too emotional or too clinical. He said yours was neither."
Sean looked at the window.
He thought about all the conversations he’d had in the last few years of his first life, the ones where he’d managed the language carefully to avoid saying the true thing. The specific cost of that. How much energy it had taken and how little it had produced.
"I tried to write it the way I’d want to read it," he said. "If I was one of the seventeen people trying to make a decision."
"That’s all writing is," said Rachel. "Trying to write the version you’d want to read."
"Yes," said Sean.
"Alright," said David. "We wanted to understand who was buying our shares and why. We understand now." A pause. "We’re going to fight this."
"Good," said Sean.
"We’re going to need you in some of the shareholder conversations," said Rachel. "Thomas can speak to the personal relationships. You can speak to the analysis. Clara will speak to the financials. Between the three of you we have the full picture covered."
"I’ll make myself available," said Sean.
"We know," said Rachel, and something in her voice when she said it carried the specific warmth of someone who had just decided something about a person. "Talk soon."
The call ended.
Sean sat at his desk in the late afternoon and looked at the shareholder analysis still open on his screen and thought about three people who had built something real and were trying to keep it and a document that had gone out to seventeen other people that morning and was probably being read right now in offices and homes across the city by people who had put money in before there was anything to put money in for.
His phone buzzed.
Not a call. A text from Clara.
David and Rachel called me right after they finished with you. David said he was impressed. Rachel said she liked you.
Then a second text immediately after.
Rachel doesn’t say that about people.
Sean looked at both texts.
Then he typed back. Good. What’s tomorrow look like.
Thomas has four shareholder calls scheduled, Clara replied. I want you on at least two of them. Are you free in the afternoon.
Yes, said Sean.
Two PM and four PM, she replied. I’ll send the shareholder profiles so you know who you’re talking to.
Send them tonight, said Sean. I want to read them properly.
You read everything properly, she said.
Yes, he replied.
That’s either a very good habit or a very exhausting one, she said.
Both, said Sean.
Both, she agreed, and he could hear the wry quality of it even through text, the specific register of someone who had been running on the same thing for long enough to have opinions about it.
He put his phone down.
He made coffee and started reading the shareholder profiles Clara had sent.