The Brilliant Boy Billionaire - 76. Summer Retreat

“We’re here today with Dr. J.J. Jeffries, the infamous, brilliant, boy billionaire and CEO of Applazon’s super­conducting-ceramics group,” the CNN reporter began. “As you can see, we’re in front of a long row of what were previously vacant storefronts that are coming back to life. Bright yellow logos are being painted on the windows, proclaiming the new tenant to be the Applazon Emporium. Inside, everything is being painted, new lighting, shelving and displays are being installed, along with new computers and other paraphernalia. Dr. Jeffries, can you explain what’s going on here?”

“Certainly, Lana,” I responded as she held the microphone under my nose. “After years of being accused of being responsible for all the vacant storefronts, we’ve decided to do something about it. Not that Applazon’s the reason behind the loss of mom-and-pop stores from our communities. Consumer buying habits have changed regardless of whether or not they buy from Applazon. I think that everyone who lives in New York, in particular, realizes that with increasing property values and increasing rents, independent stores are struggling to survive. Many of them are barely making it as it is, and they simply can’t afford to pay more rent when their leases come up for renegotiation. Landlords have gotten greedy, preferring to let a storefront go vacant for prolonged periods while holding out for tenants who can afford to pay what the market will bear.

“Personally, I think landlords should be prohibited by law from kicking an existing tenant out until they actually have a new tenant for the space. In other words, if an existing tenant cannot afford a rent increase, then they should be allowed to continue to pay rent on a month-to-month basis until the landlord has another tenant who’s willing to pay the full increase.”

“That sounds like common sense, but what does that have to do with Applazon?” the reporter asked.

“Well like I said, a lot of people blame us for the demise of brick-and-mortar stores, so we decided to do something to give back to the communities that have been hit the hardest by the move to online commerce. We’ve had great success with our Applazon Shoppes and Applazon Organic Markets. Now, it’s time to do for third-party merchants in brick and mortar what we’ve done for them online. The idea’s quite simple, really. Mom and Pop can’t afford skyrocketing rents. Individually, they have no clout. It’s one store against what’s usually a huge corporation, and Mom and Pop can’t even afford to hire a lawyer to fight it much less negotiate for more favorable terms. What mom-and-pop stores need is to band together to negotiate as a group for fair rent policies, but the law works against them. There are no store-owners’ unions to fight on their behalf the way labor unions fight on the behalf of ordinary workers. Every shop has its own lease with its own terms and different renewal dates. There’s just no way for them to fight collectively for what they deserve.”

“I didn’t think Applazon was too fond of labor unions,” the announcer related.

“That’s a completely different situation, Lana,” I replied. “Labor unions were critical in establishing safe working conditions, and they remain an important force in ensuring that workers are treated fairly. I’ve worked with unions all over the world and seen what a positive force the unions can be, but sadly, they can also play a very negative role. In Germany, where workers are treated well, labor unions serve more like trade unions, helping the workers as much as the employers to do their best. In France, by contrast, the unions are constantly striking for workers to work fewer hours and retire earlier with generous pensions the companies can’t afford, and then they wonder why the unemployment rate is so high. In America, the civil-service unions are often self-serving and seem to forget that their employees are there to serve the taxpayers. Likewise, the politicians often forget that it’s the taxpayers’ money with which they’re negotiating.

“Applazon believes strongly that if you pay workers a fair wage and give generous benefits, unions will only get in the way. Work should be a partnership between employers and employees. All too often, unions turn that relationship into an adversarial one, and productivity can only suffer. Applazon has long supported raising the Federal minimum wage to fifteen dollars an hour, and we practice what we preach.”

“But what about the allegations of unsafe work environments in Applazon Fulfillment Centers?” she asked.

“My adoptive siblings all worked for Applazon, and we all felt we were treated exceptionally well,” I replied, “including those of us who worked in the warehouse, which isn’t to say it isn’t hard work, but their workers are paid well, and it’s a great way for kids to put themselves through college. Applazon’s tuition benefit is second to none. It got me where I am today. Sure, there are people who will complain in every job, and those are the ones who’ll come to you and whom you’ll interview. The vast majority of Applazon workers aren’t complaining.”

“But in opening the Emporium, aren’t you, in effect, skirting labor laws by hiring gig workers to sell products you don’t offer in Applazon’s own brick and mortar stores?” She actually had a valid point, and I had mixed feelings about the rise of the gig economy. With a laugh, I replied, “Don’t tell Jeff Barlow I said this, but Applazon can’t sell all things to all people. Just as the labor unions benefited all workers, both union and non-union, the Applazon Emporia, in forcing landlords to negotiate better terms with us, will give mom-and-pop stores more leverage to negotiate better terms themselves.

“Mom and Pop can’t compete with the big chains when it comes to negotiating the terms of a lease, nor can they fight City Hall when it comes to dealing with burdensome regulations, and there’s the high cost of advertising to consider. Target can afford to pay more in rent, knowing they’ll have a stable relationship for perhaps decades to come, and they have the clout to resist future rent increases. Applazon can do that, too, and I think we have an obligation to do so on behalf of all the little shop owners who can’t do it for themselves. That’s really what the Applazon Marketplace is all about. We provide an opportunity for anyone to sell anything over the internet with the same ease of access that made Applazon the go-to destination for everything a person could want. In addition, we market and sell those products side by side with our own. All we ask in return is a modest portion of the profit. That way, merchants only pay us when they make a sale. And for a little bit more, we’ll even take care of the payments, shipping and handling, even providing Applazon Plus service to our third-party merchants.

“With the introduction of the Applazon Emporium, we hope to do for brick-and-mortar, mom-and-pop merchants what we’ve done for them on the internet. We’re setting up a large number of storefronts for them here. All a merchant has to do to claim one is to submit an application, sign a lease agreement and move in. We take care of everything else, from advertising to payments and, if the customer orders from them online, to shipping.”

“Knowing that nothing is free, how much are you charging merchants to use your storefronts?” she asked.

“As with the online marketplace, we take a percentage of each sale,” I replied. “Obviously, we can’t let merchants take up space indefinitely without selling things, so we do charge rent. The first three months are free, to give the merchants a chance to get on their feet. After that, we charge a flat rate based on our costs. However, the percentage we collect from each sale contributes to that rent, so if they’re profitable, they don’t have to pay any rent at all.”

“Are you just doing this in New York?” she asked.

“We’re rolling it out first in New York, which has a lot of vacant storefronts and a long history of mom-and-pop stores. Independent, brick-and-mortar commerce still thrives in New York if not at the same level it did a few years ago. We already have businesses committed to filling this entire block,” I related. “If it does well, we’ll open up more shops and in different neighborhoods. We already have a waiting list with enough businesses to fill more than a mile of storefronts, and that’s all from sending a single email to our New York-based merchants. We haven’t even begun to advertise our availability to the general public. I’d very much like to see the program spread to other cities and towns. We have plans on the drawing board for a nationwide rollout, and I look forward to making them a reality.”

“Thank you very much, Dr. Jeffries,” the reporter concluded. “This is Lana Reskin, for CNN.”

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It was amazing how quickly things came together once I had the president of Columbia University on board. Henry, Nithya and I poured our hearts and souls into writing a proposal to redevelop Governors Island as an environmental, tech-research hub. Governors Island was a large island off the tip of Manhattan in New York Harbor. Originally a military installation, it dated back to the original Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam. The island had long ago been abandoned as a military post as it was small and isolated and had been supplanted by Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn. The north end of the island was operated by the National Park Service as an historic national monument. Since 2010, the remainder of the island was under the auspices of the Trust for Governors Island, which leased parts of the land for an experimental urban farm as well as a garden teaching center. The rest of the land was used as an urban park. There was still some limited housing on the island, and there were minimal facilities, including a food court.

There had been many proposals for the redevelopment of the island over the years, including as a technical-research hub and most recently as a laboratory for the study of climate change, but they were all solutions in search of a problem. The real issue was what to do with an island, much of which was protected for ecological as well as historical reasons. The city and the state could keep inventing problems for which use of the island was a perfect solution, but because it could only be reached by ferry, it was a non-starter when it came to any kind of commercial development. It was a decent tourist destination because of the national monument and its proximity to the Statue of Liberty and was often seen in conjunction with the latter.

The idea for a laboratory for the study of climate change was actually a very good one, but it needed sponsorship from industry and buy-in from the area’s top academic institutions. I saw the development of energy-efficient super­conducting ceramics as highly relevant to dealing with climate change; thus, Applazon was a natural partner for funding the development of an independent research center on climate change. The center could help turbocharge the invention of new applications to the energy infrastructure. It was so worthwhile that I was willing to fund it personally, kicking in some of my own money to build the proposed laboratory for the study of climate change.

After word leaked out about what we were doing, I had academic institutions from all over the world expressing an interest, but we decided to limit participation to regional universities. By the time our proposal was ready for submission to the state, I had commitments from Rensselaer Polytechnic, SUNY Stony Brook, CUNY, Brooklyn Tech., Yale, Stevens Institute of Technology, Princeton, U. Penn. And, of course, Columbia and NYU. The New York City school system asked to be involved, and we thought that it would be outstanding to open up participation to local high-school students. Henry and I kicked in a billion dollars of our own money from our corporation, as did Nithya. Jeff kicked in two billion of his fortune as did Bill Gates, bless his heart, and Elon Musk kicked in an additional billion. Thus, the Center for Environmental and Energy Studies was chartered. Seven billion might sound like a lot of money, but building state-of-the-art laboratories would be expensive, as would the funding of an endowment for ongoing research and a full time-staff. In addition to the research facilities, we proposed to install two wind turbines to supply the energy needs of the entire island in perpetuity. Any excess power would be sold to Con Ed at the prevailing market rate.

The proposal would still need state and city approval, as the state owned the land, while the city exercised jurisdiction over it, and the plans would have to undergo an environmental-impact analysis, particularly given the ecologically sensitive nature of the island. I didn’t anticipate any serious obstacles, though, as we were providing all of the funding ourselves, but right away there were allegations that Applazon intended to use the lab for its own purposes. The charter therefore spelled out strict rules for corporate involvement such that we could only fund projects in which there were no strings attached.

The wind turbines also became a flashpoint for criticism of the project, as the two towers would be nearly as tall as the World Trade Center and only slightly over a mile from the Statue of Liberty. We assuaged most people’s fears by pledging to open the design of the towers to an international competition. Two submissions in particular stood out – one an homage to the Twin Towers and one that was modeled after the helical structure of double-stranded DNA. I tended to favor the latter, but local sentiment clearly favored the former; however, the competition would remain open through the end of the year.

With such a large investment in a nonprofit research center, there were immediate requests for interviews from the mainstream media as well as from independent podcasts. Jeff had experience with this sort of thing, and he suggested we get out in front of the requests by holding a press conference, so we did just that. For Nithya, it was her first experience of being in a press conference, and she found it as intimidating as I did when I was in front of the press in Cuba.

Although Henry was the youngest among us by ten months, it was I who was asked my age. I replied, “I’m seventeen years old. I’ll be eighteen on November 22, but I’ve been on my own since I was twelve and have been granted emancipated minor status retroactively to my fourteenth birthday. I obtained my GED when I was thirteen and invented a revolutionary, data-center design, completing my Ph.D. in computer science shortly before I turned fourteen. During the pandemic, I traveled the world installing data servers, returning to the States when I was sixteen. At last count, have more than three hundred patents to my name.”

“I’m the youngest one here,” Henry interjected. “I’m sixteen and will be seventeen in September. I completed high school and my undergraduate degree in mathematics one year ago, and I expect to defend my dissertation on computational mathematics on my birthday, so I hope to have my Ph.D. by the end of the year. I first met J.J. Jeffries when he roomed with my family, and it was he who recognized my mathematics abilities and helped me to bypass the regular school curriculum, allowing me to reach my full potential. In time we both came to acknowledge that we’d fallen in love. We’ll be married on December 28 this year. I have over eighty patents in my name, but J.J. and I truly are a team, developing each new idea off of each other’s work.”

“I might also mention that in spite of my young appearance, I also have a string of more than a hundred patents to my name,” Nithya added. “I developed a method of 3D printing for ceramic elements that made the manufacture of our super­conducting, quantum-based devices feasible. My husband and I are very recent transplants from the Bay Area and are still experiencing a bit of culture shock. New York is very different from India or California.”

Of course, we had to expect the unexpected, and sure enough, the next question was just that. “Dr. Jeffries, is it true you’ll be using cyanide gas on Governors Island, less than a half mile from Wall Street and mere steps from the air vent for the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel? Isn’t it true that a gas leak could cause widespread poisoning of everyone in the tunnel?” Well, that question was unexpected.

“First of all, I want to emphasize that there won’t be any manufacturing facilities on Governors Island. Second, although there will be a small facility for building prototype devices using super­conducting ceramics, the quantities of hydrogen cyanide will be minuscule. I could release the full contents of one of the cyanide canisters we’d use in making a prototype into this room, and it wouldn’t kill anyone. You’d get more cyanide exposure from taking a dose of Viagra. Third, even in places where we have a manufacturing center, the risk is tiny, and we’ve taken extraordinary measures to prevent cyanide poisoning to our workers in any case.”

“What if the cyanide crystals burn?” she asked.

“The cyanosilicate ceramics are stable at temperatures of several hundred degrees and won’t burn until you get up into the thousands of degrees. However, they can oxidize in the presence of iron to form ferrous cyanate, which is a natural metabolite and is harmless.”

“Is there a reason you’re pushing wind energy over solar?” another woman asked.

“We’re actually exploring a design for a super­conducting solar panel that’s nearly 100 percent efficient. It would only make sense to use solar panels on rooftops, highways and other open structures that provide a usable surface for solar energy. However, the environmental impact of large solar arrays on otherwise open land cannot be overstated. Even in the desert, which appears to be barren, there’s a delicate ecosystem that would be affected. There is life in the desert and in blocking so much sunlight, there would be serious environmental consequences, including drought, flash floods and dust storms.

In space, however, solar panels have always been an effective source of power and with super­conducting solar panels, they’ll be even more so. Wind turbines, by contrast, have a minimal environmental impact, especially with our design that minimizes the land area needed, a drawback of current wind farms.”

“Dr. Jeffries, what are the consequences of extracting so much energy from the wind?” a man asked. That was something I’d barely considered, but the consequences of ignoring it could be just as dire as it was with the burning fossil fuels. I was aware of studies suggesting that conventional windmills could affect local temperature and rainfall, but that was thought to be due to the mixing of atmospheric layers.

“Your question is a perfect example of the reason why the Center will be so important. Because wind energy is so cheap, it will be deployed, but to suggest that it will have no impact on the environment without first collecting the data to prove it would be no less naïve than it was with the burning of coal and oil. Obviously, the energy we extract from the wind must come from somewhere and the bulk of that is from the sun. Could wind turbines extract enough energy to cool the planet and trigger an ice age? We’ll never know for certain unless we study it. Could they alter weather patterns or have an effect on the earth’s rotation? Again, we won’t now unless we study it —”

“Our quantum computers have the raw power to mathematically model the impact of wind-energy extraction on the environment as has never been possible before,” Henry interrupted. “Indeed, doing so would make a perfect research project for one or more Ph.D. dissertations. Our partnership with institutions of higher learning and with area high schools will be a key component of the center. It will also allow us to train the next generation of energy and environmental scientists and engineers.”

As the conference went along, Jeff deferred to me for most of the questions – even those that were directed to him. He really did trust me, and I’d never let him down. I only hoped that would continue once he heard me speak at the upcoming retreat.

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I’d never been to a senior-executive retreat before. Fuck, I was only seventeen, and although an emancipated minor, that still didn’t make me an adult. On the other hand, it wasn’t evident that people three or four times my age were adults, either. My official title had been in flux until now, but according to the documentation provided at the retreat, Jeff had apparently settled on my title being CEO of Quantum Electronics. I liked the sound of that. It seemed that Henry had been promoted to the position of Senior Vice President of Computational Mathematics, although the promotion didn’t come with an increase in pay nor did it earn Henry a seat at the table of the summer retreat. Apparently when Jeff was himself the CEO of Applazon, nearly everyone in the executive staff was referred to as a senior vice president. With his elevation to executive director of the board of executives, he made us all CEOs, reflecting the increasing role each subdivision played. I suspected it was to stroke the egos of people who could easily go off and start their own Fortune 500 corporations.

Embarrassingly, at least to me, they were an all-boys club of the first order. It seemed shocking that there was not a single woman or African American. For a corporation that served such a diversity of the world’s population, our senior executive board was anything but diverse. Hell, more than half of our engineers were Asian, yet among the senior executives, only Jitendra was a South Asian and not one was an East Asian.

Directly under Jeff and overseeing Applazon’s executive structure was Andy Jenkins, the Senior Chief Executive Officer of Applazon, who was formerly the Senior Vice President of Applazon Cloud Resources. The other corporate executives included Tom Saltsburg, the Senior Chief Financial Officer; Tony Gallagher, the Senior Chief Executive of Human Resources; Warren Vale, the Senior Chief Technology Officer; Jared Black, the CEO of Business Development; Johnathan Wilks, the CEO of Consumer Services; Brian Vincent, the CEO of eCommerce; Diego Patricelli, the CEO of International Consumer Operations; Jitendra Moorthy, the CEO of Cloud Resources; Steve Kessler, the CEO of Digital Media; Charlie Kline, the CEO of Special Projects; David Landry, the CEO of Digital Book Services; Tim Cooper, the CEO of Consumer Electronics; David Zalinski, the Senior Chief Executive of the office of General Council, and Drew Henley, the Senior Chief Executive of Public Relations. Also relatively new to the organization was Vincent Gallagher, the CEO of Health and Wellness. Applazon was getting into the healthcare industry in a big way, opening an online drugstore and partnering with local providers in many cities to market virtual patient care aggressively.

Unfortunately, I saw the Health and Wellness initiative as being the most likely to run afoul of federal regulators. From an antitrust standpoint, I feared it could drag the entire company down. Jeff thought we were safe because there was competition from the likes of CVS, Walgreens and Walmart. Beyond a doubt, CVS was hobbled by one of the most poorly designed websites in the industry and by incredibly buggy smartphone apps. Undoubtedly, the head of IT at CVS was a nice guy – but incompetent. That said, CVS didn’t have Applazon Plus, nor did they produce their own TV programming, their own smartphones or their own computers. Applazon’s presence across multiple retail spaces would give them an unfair advantage in the healthcare marketplace. Maybe it would do CVS some good to have online competition. That said, Applazon phones came bundled with health apps, and those would now tie directly into their own healthcare services. A line had been crossed that I feared would destroy the company, yet Jeff thought it was going to solidify Applazon’s place in every American household and in the world. I had to tread lightly.

When I set off for Traverse City, Michigan, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was still flying only by corporate jet as it wasn’t clear that I was out of danger. Although the feud with Culver Diesel was over and the kook who’d twice shot Henry was in custody and in a work-release program for the summer, there was still the issue of the slashed tires that hadn’t been resolved. Derek Winslow had been well-paid to cut all the tires for our Indy cars, but he’d been unable to identify the person who’d paid him, even with an offer of a reduced sentence for doing so. It seemed there was someone else who didn’t want our team to win the Indy 500, which meant I might still be in danger. Most of the other chief executives flew in a chartered jet from Seattle, with the exception of Tim Cooper, who flew in his own corporate jet from Cupertino. From Traverse City, we boarded a nondescript, cargo-transport plane with jump seats, landing on a tiny island somewhere in the middle of Lake Michigan.

While on the cargo plane, I actually wondered if we were going to have to skydive into our destination; fortunately, that wasn’t the case. I’d heard stories of corporate retreats that were designed to bring about bonding among the executives and how some of them involved activities like skydiving, backcountry hiking, mountain climbing and extreme sports, to name a few. My relief was short-lived, however, as upon our arrival, we were asked to check our phones, our personal belongings and all of our clothes. All of them. I had wondered why we were told specifically not to bother packing anything to bring with us, but I’d assumed we’d be provided some sort of specialized clothing for the occasion. Apparently, this was to be a nudist retreat. I certainly hoped the press didn’t find out, as they’d have a field day with it, especially if they managed to get photos of us in the altogether.

The theme of the retreat apparently was rustic as we were staying in a group of what looked like log cabins. However, inside, the cabins were nicely finished and larger than I’d expected, each one with a living room, three bedrooms, each with its own bathroom with a shower, and a terrace with a hot tub outside. I was assigned to share a cabin with Jitendra Moorthy and Tim Cooper, thankfully, as they were the two executives I knew the best and with whom I felt the most comfortable.

There was an A-frame lodge right on the water. Inside, there was a circular fireplace surrounded by comfortable leather chairs, each with its own small table. Although some people had fetishes for leather, I found it to be sticky against bare skin, and I couldn’t help but wonder how many other bare asses had been in the chair before mine. At least, there were name tags on the tables, so I’d hopefully not be sharing my chair with any of the other executives during the retreat. While we waited for things to begin, we naturally tended to separate into groups and attempted to make idle chatter, but there was little chance of ignoring the fact that we were all naked.

Noticing that everyone was surreptitiously checking each other out, as we all did in high school, I raised my voice and said for all to hear, “All right, young men, please be sure to note the number of your locker and be sure to bring a lock tomorrow. Remember that you must wear a jock strap starting tomorrow. There will be periodic checks throughout the school year, and if you’re ever caught not wearing one, you’ll be doing laps throughout the gym period. Showers are mandatory. Anyone caught skipping their shower will spend the next gym period doing laps.

“You’re all boys, and you all have the same equipment. Some of you have the body and physique of a man and some of you have yet to start puberty. You’ve all had sex education, and you all know that puberty happens when it happens, on its own schedule. You will all be respectful of each other. Bullying, including making rude comments about one’s lack of development, and fighting will not be tolerated.

“Another thing is that boners happen. You all have sex on your minds, and sometimes your little head has a mind of its own that has nothing to do with what your big head wants. Just because someone gets a boner doesn’t mean they’re gay. That said, a few of you in here are gay, and that’s perfectly normal. No one is to ask if someone’s gay or to imply that someone’s gay. A person’s sexuality is their own business, as is whether or not to tell others about their sexuality.

“Now dress out and be in the gym in five minutes!”

As everyone started clapping, I took a bow, and then Jeff started to speak. “Very good, J.J. That was amusing and just what I think everyone needed. For those of you who don’t know him, J.J. Jeffries is our newest and youngest CEO. He invented super­conducting ceramics and was responsible for the design of the motors that propelled the Rogers Team to the winner’s circle at the Indy 500. We’re calling him the CEO of Quantum Electronics.

“I realize that for some of you, it’s getting to be time for dinner, and for others, it’s time for lunch. In case you weren’t aware of it, we’re convening on Eastern time, although it’s only a short boat ride west of here to the Central time zone. It’s 3:18 Eastern Daylight Time, which makes it 12:18 back in Seattle and Cupertino. Actually, J.J., I think you’re the only one here who actually lives in the Eastern time zone, so you’re probably the only one of us who isn’t hungry.”

“I’m always hungry,” I responded. “I hear that’s common in teenagers.”

“As many of us know from having our own,” someone remarked.

“So, the staff will be bringing us all a light lunch except for J.J., who’ll be getting a light afternoon snack that looks remarkably like lunch,” Jeff continued. “I imagine you’re all wondering about the attire for this retreat. Studies have shown that when everyone’s nude, it tends to level the playing field, eliminating the usual caste system that plagues most corporate organizations. As J.J. noted so eloquently a few minutes ago, we all have the same equipment and without our clothes, we’re all the same.”

“The same race and gender, anyway,” Charlie Kline noted, echoing my own thoughts.

“Actually, when Tony retires next year, we’ll be promoting his second-in-command, an African-American woman,” Jeff noted.

“So out of sixteen senior executives, you and Andy excepted, we’ll have one black and one woman, who happen to be the same person, and one South Asian,” Steve Kessler chimed in. “That’s pathetic.”

“I agree that we’d undoubtedly better serve our customers’ interests if we had greater diversity in this room. Who among you would be willing to step down so that we can replace you with a woman or a person of color?” Jeff asked, and the room was silent.

“Ah, I see that the food is here,” Jeff reported as the smell of food permeated the room. “While you eat, I’m going to continue to lay out what I hope to accomplish over the next few days.”

A server placed a plate on the table next to me and removed the cover to reveal a grilled salmon filet covered with what smelled like hollandaise and topped with asparagus. A pile of sweet-potato fries accompanied the salmon as well as a small bowl filled with what looked like tartar sauce. The server placed a small Caesar salad next to the plate as well as a cup of what smelled like lobster bisque. Finally, she set a serving of New-York-style cheesecake down, which was covered with blueberry sauce, set a glass down with a pitcher of iced water, and a mug down with a thermos from which she poured coffee. The distinctive smell told me the coffee was Deadman’s Reach. If this was a light snack, I was afraid to see what dinner would look like.

I blushed when it dawned on me that I was naked and was being served by a naked woman. Then it hit me that the meal was exactly the sort of thing I would have ordered from a menu at a fine restaurant, which made me wonder why everyone was being served a meal that catered to my tastes. My brain finally kicked into gear, and I noticed that the food was different at everyone’s table. Jitendra, for example, had what looked to be eggplant Parmesan. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to research our individual preferences and to prepare individual meals for each of us.

“Please dig in,” Jeff continued. “I’ve already eaten. Undoubtedly, you’ve noticed that your meal is specific to your tastes. A great deal of effort has gone into the planning of the retreat, and everything, including the people seated next to you and those sharing your cabin, have been carefully chosen.” It was then that I took a moment to actually notice the men on either side of me and identified Charlie Kline, the CEO of Special Projects, on my left and David Zalinski, the chief counsel, on my right. Charlie was eating what appeared to be a gourmet hamburger that was too loaded to actually fit in one’s mouth and steak fries with ketchup. David had what looked like an open-faced turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and fresh green beans, with a side salad of mixed greens. I thought it curious that I was seated with a lawyer on one side and the CEO of special projects, whatever that was. I was meeting both men for the first time.

“We have a lot to talk about during the next few days,” Jeff continued. “Andy and I will be switching off on running things, but you’ll spend most of the time working in small groups. It’s been a while since we had a retreat away from the mother ship in Seattle. We chose this venue because it’s isolated and quiet, and they serve some of the best food on the planet. We considered a number of different ideas for themes for the retreat,” he went on. “You’ve undoubtedly heard of corporate retreats that involved a number of extreme activities that are supposed to help people bond with each other. Andy and I rejected most of them because we didn’t see the need to bond as an issue. Everyone in this room I count as a close friend, and I dare say and hope you feel the same about me. Most of you don’t know J.J. yet, but his youth belies his intelligence. He always tells me the unvarnished truth, and I value him for that. I think you’ll all agree as we proceed through the exercises.

“We found the idea of a nudist retreat intriguing for the reasons I already mentioned. Initially, we rejected it because of the risk of it being leaked and then misconstrued by the press, but we kept coming back to the role that clothes play in building the façade we all present in public. Removing clothes from the equation tears down that façade and forces everyone to interact as equals. It allows us to become closer than ever before. It might be different if we had a woman in the group, although it really shouldn’t make a difference. You probably already noticed that half the servers are women, after all. The perception of being exploited, however, might have become an issue. The sexual aspect should not have, however. After all, there are three among us who are gay.” That made me wonder who the third person was, besides Tim and myself.

“The main reason for the retreat is to take a hard look at what is happening to Big Tech under the Biden Administration, not that Biden is himself responsible. We would have likely seen much of this happening under Trump as well, and of course, there’s the matter of the E.U.,” Jeff continued. “What’s happening to Google and to a lesser extent, Facebook, is turning out to be one big clusterfuck, and it’s doubtful Google will ever be the same nor that its parent company, Alphabet, will survive. Much of what’s happening to them has direct applicability to us, so we need to prepare for the scrutiny we’ll soon be facing. This afternoon and evening, we’ll be taking a closer look at the cases against Google and Facebook and at what’s actually in the regulations and in antitrust law. We can’t exactly plan a strategy without knowing the nature of the dangers we might face —” At that point I raised my hand, which quite obviously took Jeff by surprise.

“J.J., you already have a question?” he asked.

“Not so much a question as a comment or a concern,” I replied. “Would you prefer I wait until you finish your opening comments before I ask it?”

Pausing to think for a moment, Jeff answered, “No, why don’t you tell us, and then we can decide whether we need to discuss it now or later?”

“Okay,” I replied. “My concern is that if we focus on the issues facing Google and Facebook, we could well fail to address issues neither of them is facing but that are central to the antitrust case against us. Although Google and Facebook have storefronts and engage in eCommerce, neither of those is anywhere close to being in our league. The primary argument against Applazon is that our business practices are anticompetitive and that by restricting access to our site, by virtue of our size, we effectively control most sales on the internet. We can pick and choose which merchants to allow into the marketplace, shutting out those who might actually pose serious competition. We are able to shut out some publishers and engage in price fixing, setting the price at which all media must be sold. In effect, we have become the gatekeeper for nearly all eCommerce. Google and Facebook don’t face the same pressure from the regulators in the E.U. and the U.S. in terms of eCommerce the way we do.”

“But the gatekeeper issue is key for all three companies,” Andy interjected. “How does what we do differ compared to Google gaming search-engine results or Facebook controlling what content is seen?”

“Quite a bit, actually,” I countered. “While both Google and Facebook use obscure algorithms to steer people to pages that generate the most revenue, they don’t actually exclude material, even if it’s offensive, unless it contains dangerous misinformation. Even then, they err on the side of inclusion. However, not only do we choose which items to list in our search engine, which items to advertise and which items to compare to each other, but we choose what items to sell in the first place. Using books as an example, not only do we set the price and the terms for print media, we also control ninety plus percent of the digital book trade. There are sellers who can’t sell and buyers who can’t buy at the price we set, and, of course, the same principles apply to other media, brands of clothing, kinds of tools, et cetera. When it comes to the phones and computers people use to access our site, we have the advantage of being able to push our own products. Ditto for food when you throw in our organic markets.”

“Granted, there is the potential to game the system, but we don’t,” David Landry countered. “Our digital-media platforms are more open than any in history, and by carrying a limitless collection of digital books at prices well below what they would have cost in print, how does that harm the consumer? Our online publishing tools let anyone publish, so authors are no longer at the mercy of traditional publishers. How does that hurt authors or readers? Hell, a reader can even order a printed copy of a digital book. It’s a true democracy.”

“Thank you for making my case, David,” I responded. “There are countless countries in the world that call themselves democracies. They hold elections, count the votes and declare a winner with eighty to ninety percent of the vote, yet when they control the ballot box and the press, how can the outcome possibly be free and fair? Democracies can’t be democratic without being transparent. Transparency is the key, and it’s transparency we lack. What good is publishing a book online if no one knows it’s there nor can find it in their search results?

“You know, I recently flew from Omaha to New York with Enrique Gonzalez, the Senior VP of Computational Mathematics. Since I sent all of you invitations to the wedding in New York this holiday season, I’m sure you’re all aware that Henry’s my fiancé. Anyway, Henry flipped through the entertainment system on the airplane and exclaimed, ‘hundreds of movies and hundreds of TV programs, and not one of them is something I want to watch.’” There was much laughter, including my own. “I have it on good faith that the airlines’ strategy for entertainment programming is to create the illusion of passenger choice, but at minimal cost, and then they claim they’re competitive based on quality and price. My point is that unless you allow open, fair competition, you will end up gaming the system and, as a result, fail to give the customer what they want. If I had access to my phone, I’d show you dozens of examples of how Applazon has done just that across a wide variety of services. I can’t say whether it was unintentional rather than deliberate, but I think it’s telling that the area where we do our best is where we face the stiffest competition –in the streaming of digital media.

“Sorry if I’m stepping on toes here, but there are real problems in the Applazon Marketplace. We all know that there are unscrupulous merchants who sell plagiarized and counterfeit items on our site. There are merchants who hijack an existing listing to take advantage of the positive reviews. We’ve addressed those with Project Zero, and I commend eCommerce for that, but the bottom line is that we make it easy for fraudulent merchants to thrive in the Marketplace. The regulators might conclude that we do so because it benefits our bottom line regardless of whether or not that’s the intended result. We amplify the effect by not making it clear that a product we list is from a third party, and we’ve been caught substituting products from third-party merchants without offering the customer a clear choice in the matter. Any day now, I expect the Supreme Court to rule against us and hold that we are responsible for the products sold on our website, even when we’re not the seller, much as social media are being held responsible for content posted by their subscribers. Except for that one commonality, the issues we face in eCommerce are issues Google and Facebook don’t have to face.”

Everyone started to talk at the same time, but Jeff managed to silence the room without even raising his voice. “This is a great example of what I meant about J.J. giving us the unvarnished point of view. He doesn’t hesitate to tell us what we need to know, whereas others will tell us what they think we want to hear. That inevitably backfires, usually at substantial expense. So, what J.J.’s trying to get us to realize is that studying the antitrust cases against Google and Facebook might miss the central issue in the Justice Department’s case against us. We’re going to have to brainstorm that one a bit further.

“So, here’s what we’ll do,” Jeff continued. “We’ll spend the afternoon studying the antitrust cases against Alphabet and Facebook. As J.J. so eloquently pointed out, our central issues may well be different, but there are important lessons to be learned from the way other large technology companies are being treated. Tomorrow, we’ll break into smaller groups and spend the morning brainstorming ideas for challenging the case against us in court. We’ll then discuss those ideas in the afternoon and evening. On Saturday, we’ll break into smaller groups again to consider structural changes that might forestall the Federal and international regulators, and on Sunday we’ll do the same to consider political strategies as we enter the 2024 election cycle. There may be serious opportunities to target specific people that could change the outcome of the legal case against us completely. On Monday we’ll put together two draft statements regarding the outcome of our deliberations here, one for external circulation for all who wish to know our official position on the antitrust case, and one for our eyes only, outlining what we intend to do about it.

“Now as your servers clear away your lunch dishes, they’ll be passing out tablets with which to record your ideas during the brainstorming sessions.”