The Interwise Story - Chapter 2
In a stern-looking all-glass skyscraper at the heart of the Boston business district, an unconventional board meeting was underway. Outside, it was raining cats and dogs. Inside, a celebration. Not only was the company about to close an important round of financing with tier one investors, at the very last moment, Accenture decided to jump in as well. Accenture is the epitome of a strategic investor hence the heady atmosphere in the room. The road to heaven was wide open, and in the air hung the sweet intoxicating smell of success accompanied with a hint of the sour scent of greed that usually insists on also being present in these situations.
President Harry S Truman used to say that "it is amazing what can be accomplished if nobody cares about the credit." Instead of putting people to this inhumane test, I learned that it is much more effective to simply dish out a lot of this stuff and, not the least important... dish out to everyone. I worked my way around the table, not leaving even one ego unserved. As the meeting was drawing to an end, with inflated egos floating around merrily, and the level of self-satisfaction sky high, the strategic investor (Accenture) asked that we push the closing three weeks out so their lawyers could catch up and get things squared away. We agreed instantly. What's a few weeks between friends when a strategic investor wishes to climb aboard.
We were standing in formation, ready to move, rain pouring down on our faces dripping from the edges of our helmets, weapons at the ready. It was crack of dawn, twenty years prior, the final week of the grueling infantry hardening phase of the IAF flight academy. It did not take more than a few minutes of marching in the rain and mud to eliminate any trace of a difference between the cadets that just returned from a weekend back home, fresh and Jinger, and the poor bastards who spent Shabbat on the muddy hill like me... I made a deal and switched weekends with someone who wanted this weekend home in return for a better longer weekend due next week. This impromptu transaction had a side effect that literally touched me in a rather sensitive spot. I was marching in my last clean pair of underwater. Somehow I failed to take this little detail into account and was now finding comfort in the fact that, with the pouring rain, I will now be laundering them as I go.
On the last night of this brutally cold and dump week, we dug foxholes on top of a high mountain in the freezing air. The trucks with the fresh provisions and dry close got stuck in the mud on their way up, and we were all left to our own devices in sub-zero temperatures and howling wind. After we completed yet another illustrious victory over an imaginary enemy who failed to learn his lesson, we were left with the lovely dilemma of what is better (or less terrible) to fight the cold naked or dressed in rain-soaked uniforms. For me and a few other cold-stricken cadets, this ordeal ended in the hospital after having suffered a severe case of hypothermia. I was in the good hands of nurse Olga, and by the time she took over, there was nothing to complain about but one thing. She kept me at the hospital for supervision... I kissed my weekend home, the one I traded for, goodbye.
This incident taught an important lesson for life and gave me a broader deeper understanding of the term supervision... It also gave me the nickname "Frozen Frank" that went along with me in the Air Force for quite some time until Tom Cruise showed up with Top Gun and upgraded me to "Iceman."
I did not sleep much the night after the Accenture celebrated board meeting. In truth, I did not sleep at all. The next morning I got up with a pounding headache, and as I was fighting it off with a warm cup off coffee, gazing out the window trying to understand what does the pouring rain trying to whisper in my ear... it suddenly all came together. I summoned another Board meeting for that evening and closed the round without Accenture leaving the door open for them to join later. Three days passed and the money landed. Two days more and the date showed 9/11, the twins fell, and all economic activity, including investments of any kind, were brought to a complete halt. It is superfluous to say that Accenture froze in their tracks and disappeared from view.
Intwrwise, with all its employee's dreams and expectations, then still dependent on external funding for its survival, was on the brink of extinction right there and then at ground zero. What saved it was an old fundamental truth not taught in Ivy League fancy MBA programs, something that not Olga nor I will ever forget - never switch weekends. Take what's coming when it is coming, leave the door open for more... but take it!
Chapter - (Not) Acquired by Microsoft
חכמת הבייגלה , בדיעבד , רובנו היינו נופלים למלכודת הדבש שהיתה בתחום הירוק