Learning Curve by Michael S. Malone Page B

ETernity would become a publicly traded company—with new reporting requirements, thousands of new shareholders, and the incredible wealth that was about to be dropped on her and her team. The implications were so great that Alison—as had always been her way—had put her head down and spent all her time making sure all the steps between now and then were done to the best of her ability.
    But now it was real. The reaction at Sydney, and the growing excitement at each of the stops leading up to it, had proved that. More than, it was starting to look better than real: eTernity was not only going to go public in the new few days or weeks—depending on when the underwriter thought the market was ripe—but it also might go out in one of those supernova tech IPOs—like Apple, Netscape, Google—which had came to define its era. The company was going to be the latest phenom, the standard by which the next few years of tech company offerings would be defined. The media attention would be ten times what it was now… and so would the scrutiny.
    And not least—oh God, not least—was the fact that everybody on this plane, and nearly every one of the people back at the office in San Francisco, was about to become immensely, insanely rich. She had tried not to do the calculations for her own potential wealth, but she couldn’t help herself. Frightened, she had stopped counting at $175 million. On paper , she reminded herself. Between the employee lock-out period and the time it would take for all of the shares to vest, it would be twenty-four months before she’d be able to sell her thousands of shares of stock… if she wanted to. And why should she? Despite the impending arrival of legions of new owners, eTernity was still her company. From here on, every share she sold would be that much reduction in her power and influence over the company. Selling would be like cutting away her own flesh.
    Alison glanced over at Jenny, who was still lost in her reading. What loyalty does she have in the company? she wondered. This company is my dream; what is her secret dream that sudden riches will finally make possible? How long will she stay when she doesn’t have to stay any more? And what about everyone else? Everything changes now. Everything.
    She looked out the window again, into the endless darkness. As she did, she spotted a solitary light below on the ocean. An island? A freighter? A cruise ship? Whatever it is, she thought, it’s a sign of life.
    Forty-five dollars per share. It took her breath away. She remembered those early meetings in Arthur’s office when they were meeting with representatives from the underwriter—Dan Crowen’s old bank, ironically—and how they had predicted $22 per share at the high end. These days they admitted to being conservative at twice that amount. Forty-five dollars. It was unbelievable. At that price, eTernity—a company with $120 million in sales—would have a market cap of $2 billion. It was a value the company had planned to reach in six more years or more.
    It would be nice, Alison told herself, if this stratospheric valuation was the market’s vote of confidence in eTernity’s products and management. But she knew it was just as much a reaction to the sudden shift in Validator Software’s fortunes—and to the fact that the once invulnerable giant had made an unforced error and opened the door to this plucky young start-up.
    Why did they do it? she asked herself for the hundredth time. She was certain, despite any real evidence, that it hadn’t been Dan Crowen’s choice, no matter what the media said. No, this was Validator’s decision. But why? Why cripple the company he had built from nothing with his bare hands? Had he grown old and senile and nihilistic? Was he determined to take down his own creation and destroy his legacy? No , she thought, it can’t be that. Too many people over the