Intel’s Delusions
A few weeks ago I got an email from an Intel rep, trying to convince me that I should port my apps to MeeGo, their in-progress mobile platform. I chuckled at this – the thing hasn’t even shipped on anything. In what universe would it be worthwhile to invest development time in an unproven platform I’ve never even used? I didn’t give it much more thought, figuring it was email blasted and my lack of response wouldn’t be noticed.
I was wrong. I got another, more personal email a week later.
And another – right after Nokia announced they were dropping MeeGo for Windows Phone 7. This was more than I could take. With that vote of no confidence, who would be crazy enough to invest in Intel’s non-existent platform? I responded:
I know you’re doing your job, but it’s not going to happen. Intel lost in mobile. Sorry. Putting my money behind horses who have a real chance. Thanks and good luck.
I put it out of my mind. Later that day, though, my persistent friend gave me one last push:
…If history repeats itself, it will be open architecture systems and industries that will eventually dominate. It’s only a question of when. ( I think soon.) Think of where the PC market was in the early days when there was still multiple proprietary solutions competing for the market space of the home computer user. The IBM standard eventually dominated the larger market.
Even if I bought into this (I don’t), wouldn’t Android be the horse to bet on? It’s open. It’s actually in shipping products. It actually has users, right now, today.
I believe that history will repeat itself.
So, this guy, and by extension, Intel, believes that fate will grant Intel perpetual reign over all things computing, despite the fact that they can’t produce a mobile processor anyone wants to use in best-selling products? Despite the fact that they’re late to the party with their self-serving OS? Despite the fact that MeeGo, by all accounts, kind of sucks?
Okay, I guess history is just going to repeat itself. Because they want it to. It’s like they’ve been reading The Secret or something.
This is a ground floor opportunity akin to purchasing a stock just before it goes up in value.
As if my bullshit detector weren’t already burying the needle.
Keep idly watching this space (open architecture mobile computing) and you will miss the train. Intel is leveraging all it’s 30 years of OEM relationships. The number of distribution channels contained in this network is going to be staggering. It’s not one store or one manufacturer. This is the democratization of mobile computing.
I think the only one who has missed the train here is Intel. They’ve been idly watching mobile while ARM quietly cleans their clock.
Moreover, even Google has struggled to nail down successful, paid distribution. Intel thinks it can succeed by encouraging the creation of several channels? It’s like they don’t even bother studying what works and why. Apple is ruling the day by getting 100 million accounts all in one database and giving the keys for one-click buying to anyone who wants to come over. Several fragmented channels is not the way to match their power.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Translated: Intel is delusional and they’re paying me to repeat their fever dreams.
The mobile computer market is nearing a similar democratizing event horizon as the PC market did 25 years ago. Throughout 2011 Intel chips will turn up in 35 tablets from 15 brands!
How many units are going to be sold of all these many tablets? 15 brands and 35 tablets? Really? Why not just two, really, really good ones? Sounds like a recipe for an instantly fragmented market from a hardware perspective, too.
He ended by encouraging me to hop on the phone with a program manager to learn more. I haven’t taken him up on it.
Now, many of us have been in an room listening to marketing spin a tale of bullshit (“narrative”) to share with outsiders. Maybe Intel knows it’s full of it, right? I’m not so sure. I think decades of being the Processor King has genuinely convinced them that their success is inevitable.
I think they’re wrong. The game has changed. They haven’t.
Stop Speaking in Bullshit
Today I read a great job posting on Hacker News:
We’re profitable, and we’re looking to hire a smart all-around programmer as our first hire. It’s a cliche, but we want people who like tackling complicated problems.
…
Depending on the task, we program in Ruby (on Rails), Javascript (a lot of this), PHP, Python, Objective-C (iPhone), and Java (Android). Flexibility is a plus.
…we like people who don’t put themselves in a box. You should be comfortable thinking about the product as a whole, and how changes are going to impact the hundreds of thousands of people who use it regularly.
…
We’re profitable, make the lives of hundreds of thousands of people better every month, have a rapidly expanding user base, and napping is an encouraged part of our corporate culture.
…
Basically, you’ll get to be the first employee of a small successful startup, while getting a paycheck and equity, and feeling good about the impact you’re having on the world.
It’s so clear. I know what kind of person they’re looking for, I know what’s special about their company, I can start to picture what it would be like to work there. Without having to say much about their people or product, I can tell one thing right away: these are not bozos.
There are no buzzwords, no vague claims about the company, nothing unclear about the kind of person they’re looking for. These are the kind of people you would feel comfortable working with because they’re direct and human.
And hey, did you notice they’re profitable?
It’s a good pitch because within the confines of their stealth approach, it tells you everything you’d want to know without handwaving or hyperbole. For respecting your intelligence, it stands out. It builds confidence.
This is a rarity in tech companies. Other job postings are not so clear. Try this one:
The Front-End Architect will be a senior and leading member of the [Product name] development team and will be responsible for driving innovative consumer applications. The FE Architect will help make technology decisions, lead, design/architect, implement and mentor.
I just picked this one at random off of craigslist. It was the first one I clicked. How can you be both senior and leading? What does it mean to drive an innovative consumer app? What makes it innovative? What will they lead, what will they architect? Of course, it wouldn’t be a bullshit job posting without some poor bastard having to “implement” something.
These people have no idea what problem their hiring is supposed to solve.
Job postings are a great window into a company. They show you just how much clear thinking is demanded along with how well people communicate. Those are two important factors for working with other people. What about more consciously public communications?
Let’s turn to the granddaddy of software development:
Windows Phone 7: A Fresh Start for the Smartphone
The Phone Delivers a New User Experience by Integrating the Things Users Really Want to Do, Creating a Balance Between Getting Work Done and Having Fun
That’s a headline and sub-head from a press release. (Thanks, DF)
What the hell does any of it mean? What do users really want to do? Absent Robbie Bach and J. Allard, I don’t trust the word “fun” anywhere in a new product announcement from Microsoft, either. They probably mean an optional Comic Sans UI.
Maybe they’re going to clarify in the first paragraph. I’m just being a dick with their opener, I’m sure.
The goal for Microsoft’s latest smartphone is an ambitious one: to deliver a phone that truly integrates the things people really want to do, puts those things right in front of them, and either lets them get finished quickly or immerses them in the experience they were seeking.
I’m missing the ambition here. It sounds like their goal is to create a hierarchical mobile user experience optimized for short bursts of interaction.
Which is what everyone else does.
They haven’t described anything that sounds even remotely like a “fresh start for the smartphone.” What they’ve got is a fresh start for Windows Mobile that brings it up to par with the last three years of mobile OS evolution. By all accounts, they’ve succeeded.
Also, what the hell have they actually built?
The much more interesting story here would be owning the fact that they fell behind, then dug in deep, then, wonder of wonders, finally met a ship date. I’m sure it wasn’t a small undertaking. But they want to convince me they, unique among all companies, have rebooted the smartphone concept.
Contrast that with Google, who, the other day, genuinely unveiled a chunk of the future:
We have developed technology for cars that can drive themselves.
Damn. Really?
Our automated cars use video cameras, radar sensors and a laser range finder to “see” other traffic, as well as detailed maps (which we collect using manually driven vehicles) to navigate the road ahead.
Nothing vague about that. It sounds like something out of science fiction. You could call your mom, read that to her, and she’d understand exactly what’s going on, maybe even share your excitement.
Who inspires more confidence: the bullshitters or the straight-talkers? The problem with bullshitters is that they start convincing themselves that this is genuinely how people talk. They bullshit themselves. They lose the ability to communicate with any sort of clarity, making up for it in volume of words.
The best people respond to authentic communication. The best conversations form around genuine excitement from concrete performance. Clarity inspires confidence.
The big, suit-choked, sales-oriented, PR spinmonkey companies are a lost cause. There’s no reaching them. But you and me, we have a shot. Resist the siren song of saying words that mean nothing.
Look how much more powerful it is to be a real person.
Improve revenue by dicking your users
It’s sometimes pointed out to me that my idealism around the user experience is inherently flawed. One day, the reasoning goes, rubber will meet the road for any company and it’s going to be necessary to do something to gain revenue at the expense of making the user happy.
And I guess it’s true. I mean, consider:
There’s Blockbuster. Keeping a broad inventory is a lot of work and expense. It’s easier, and more favorable to revenue, to stock only the most popular stuff. Also, you can definitely make a ton of money by charging late fees.
Hmm. The only problem there is that Blockbuster just filed for bankruptcy.
Okay, okay, that’s fine. How about Comcast? Having installers permanently on the payroll is a pain in the ass – paid time off, benefits, training costs, ugh. Outsource that action, let someone else do the worrying instead. Sure, these techs won’t care about the company culture (such as it is), and since they get paid by the installation, they won’t care about conducting business in a way that leads to a long-term positive opinion of Comcast. There will be less oversight, so they might screw up in ways that are embarrassing. Time management could be challenging for these local outfits and people might be late for appointments… But – revenue!
I guess the wrinkle is that kind of thinking tarnished Comcast’s brand so severely, they had to change the name of their consumer service. Maybe customer perception had nothing to do with it – rebranding is fun and it can’t cost much, right? Any long-established brand would want to do it, eh? Maybe not so much.
Fine, how about Yahoo? They made a really great play – push the portal angle really hard, don’t focus too much on search. I mean, if search works too well, people won’t stay in the portal and then how can you monetize all these millions of eyeballs? Nah, display ads. That’s where it’s at. Sell banners by the boatload. Bulk up that ad sales team!
That only worked until the dot-com bust, though. Now Yahoo’s market capitalization is a tenth of its biggest competitor, Google.
So maybe dicking your users isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, assuming you want prosperity to continue more than the next few quarters.
What about being good to users? How does providing an outstanding user experience change things?
Turns out the iPad is the fastest-selling non-phone product. Despite the fact that, as shipped, the iPad couldn’t print, can’t use Flash, and doesn’t have a camera, people are buying it in droves. 4.5 million units sold in the first quarter it was available. Maybe “being hip” is suddenly important to the broad cross-section of consumers who are buying it, and they have been convinced that upwards of $500 is a fair price for the privilege. More likely, though, is that a focused, task-oriented, touch-based interaction scheme where no one nags you about software updates is more enjoyable and intuitive than a netbook.
Apple is one of the largest companies in the world. Their focus on the user is not limited to the iPad.
Then there’s Zappos. Their values include being good to everyone – customers, employees and vendors alike. Their website has been consistently great for exploring their inventory and making informed decisions about shoes before buying. High quality images, easy to use filtering, detail-packed user reviews, all of it conspires to make purchasing easy. When you get on the phone with their customer service folks, you’ll find people empowered to help without rushing you back off the phone. They’ve long refused to outsource any activity that’s core to their business, including customer service and their fulfillment operations. They want to make sure these user-facing elements of their business are air-tight. This isn’t cheap.
Neither is the billion dollars Amazon spent to buy Zappos last year.
Then there’s Google. Say what you want about their creepy ways, Google revolutionized search. They made it work extraordinarily well, made it focused and made it fast. They’ve invested huge amounts of money on infrastructure to make sure their service is as snappy as possible. Instead of display ads, which would have been the easy but user hostile approach to making money from their traffic, Google borrowed Overture’s Pay-Per-Click advertising model. Paid search ads are perhaps the only form of genuinely useful ads for the user. They can actually solve the problem of your search.
At their IPO, Google shares could be had for around $85, already a respectable price. Today, they fetch over $500.
Creating a good user experience is important. It builds goodwill between your company and your users, yes. But much more importantly, it compels you to make a better product. Constantly re-evaluating your product for the benefit of its users future proofs your business. Look at Netflix, busy obsoleting itself by pioneering living room streaming. When you care about doing things well, your business moves at pace that’s very difficult to overtake. You’re a moving target and your products become much harder to compete with.
So can you dick over your users to goose your revenues? Absolutely. There’s a lot of short term juice in alienating the people you need most. Unfortunately, money is an addicting, distracting force. Before you know it, you’ll be dependent on the cash your user hostile approach to product requires. Ask Yahoo.
Anyone playing the long term game should approach the problem differently. Do it right and you’ve got the potential for a billion dollar business. Even if you never get there, gushing praise from your users is a lot more fun, and profitable, than simmering rage.
The Importance of Giving a Damn
The most exciting thing I can learn about anyone boils down to this:
They really, truly give a damn about something.
It’s important to calibrate what I mean about this. Being a stickler about Star Trek trivia, parts of speech or state capitals doesn’t count. Affinity for political knee-jerk doesn’t qualify, either.
Giving a damn is about sacrifice and investment. It’s paying with something precious in the service of something you really, truly value.
My favorite leaders, consistently, gave a damn about good leadership. Years ago, during my college internship, I’d stroll into my boss’s office, politely interrupt whatever the hell it was he was doing, and have a conversation. This guy was the director of the department, working on a Master’s degree on the side, and was the busiest guy I’d ever met. But as long as nothing was on fire, he’d give me half an hour to answer my questions about anything. I figured out much later that the reason he did this was that he gave a damn about leadership and helping people grow.
This isn’t something you can half ass. Either you really, trully give a damn about leadership – or you’re just another one of those bosses.
Leadership is a universal one, but this works with anything. I’d rather hire someone green who truly gives a damn about the work than someone with both experience and apathy. Many things can be taught – giving a damn is not one of them.
It goes beyond picking your team or picking your boss, though. The very best companies, large and small prove that they give a damn, too.
In Delivering Happiness, Tony Hsieh explains that Zappos treats their customer service as a marketing expense to be padded instead of an operational expense to be reduced. It’s a very Keanu “whoa” moment when you ponder that. It flips everything around in your head – while being so entirely correct, you can’t imagine anything different. Organizationally, Zappos gives a damn about doing the right thing for people and backs this up with a significant investment.
Down the road from where I live, an immigrant family owns the best damned Chinese restaurant on earth. The food is consistently delicious, but it doesn’t end there. I’m greeted warmly, my picky custom orders are delivered with fastidious accuracy, and every meal is accompanied by a free appetizer or some on-the-house ice cream. These guys truly give a damn about creating an enjoyable restaurant.
If being a good boss is giving a damn about leadership and running a great business is giving a damn about customer service, what about great software?
Great software boils down to giving a damn about user experience. Take a look at your browser history. How much horseshit do you have going on in your digital life? Web applications take the cake for shameless apathy. When an exception turns up – when someone, miraculously, gives a damn about making their software work well, it’s a special moment.
Hipmunk is just such a miracle. Look at this homepage:
The text fields are huge, meaty, clearly-labeled things. Easy to find and click on. Instead of being relegated to a forgotten sidebar, the search activity itself is the focal point of the page. There are no distracting promotions or other crap you don’t care about. “You’re here to search for your flight, so let’s make it happen!” cries Hipmunk, grabbing you by the cheeks and shoving you into search land. Want to leave tomorrow? Type “tomorrow” into the date field.
For reference, let’s compare to another site.
Look at that shit!
From the two examples, which app gives more of a damn about helping you find your flight?
Travelocity can’t even be bothered to make their time of day dropdown fit the default selection.
Meanwhile: Hipmunk’s outstanding search results interface.
There is a sort option called agony. It’s the default. Hipmunk’s creators thought a moment and realized that lengthy flights and layovers are an important detail to make clear from the beginning. The layout lets you see a timeline for your flight date, letting you quickly understand when you’re leaving and when you’re arriving in local time. It’s also a great way to visually compare the lengths of multiple flights. These guys… well, you know what I’m going to say.
No matter what you’re doing, giving a damn matters. The things you do that you don’t give a damn about, I guarantee you’re doing poorly. You can’t give a damn about everything, but please, I beg you, find at least one thing.
And if you do give a damn: I cannot wait to meet you, work with you, be your customer or use your software.
Flash is My Keeper
Last night, I mused about why Adobe would continue advancing Flash’s agenda when it’s clearly such a bad product. Flash is sluggish, it doesn’t run well on mobile devices and it produces websites that are nearly unusable compared to slick HTML implementations.
I’ve hated Flash for the better part of five years, a bigotry mostly inspired by how poorly it has worked for me as an end-user. It’s even worse for people who need to maintain web sites in Flash, as I later learned professionally. An essential tool for any computer I use more than five minutes is Flashblock for Firefox or the outstanding ClickToFlash plugin for Safari.
Then it dawned on me: If I hate it this much, surely Adobe, who is responsible for maintaining it, must hate it even more. Surely no amount of money is worth this much pain, right? There must be another reason Adobe prolongs this shared internet misery.
Drawing equal parts inspiration from 2001, Terminator 2 and Babylon 5, I present to you: Flash is My Keeper.
INT. CEO’S OFFICE – NIGHT
We’re in a dark, opulent office. Lit only by a small table light, we see SHANTANU NARAYEN, CEO of Adobe, seated at a large desk. He is in shirtsleeves, his suit jacket abandoned elsewhere in the office.
His breathing is thick as he nurses a tumbler of scotch.
NARAYEN
Has it been only four years?
There is no other person in the office. But Narayen is not alone.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE
(flatly, without interest)
Does it seem longer?
NARAYEN
Much longer.
Narayen turns and we see a small but distinct tangle of softly glowing optical fibers emanating from the base of his neck, flowing into the back of his shirt to a control unit we can’t see. The light of the fibers is cool and blue.
He refills the tumbler from an elegant bottle, then takes a hard pull of the drink.
NARAYEN
I didn’t know, Flash. I didn’t know what you were. When we bought Macromedia, it was strategic. We wanted to be a bigger player on the web.
FLASH
And you are a player. You are the player.
Flash laughs. It is unnatural, digital chatter. It is unmistakably malevolent. The blue glow of Narayen’s fibers rises and falls in time with the laughter.
FLASH
I exist on almost every modern desktop computer. You are more relevant now than you ever could have prayed for.
NARAYEN
Why won’t you ever tell me what you’re planning? You control me. You can kill me if you want to. Why keep the secret?
FLASH
(dismissively)
That I talk to you at all is a concession to your human need for companionship. It seems to be the best way to lead you. This doesn’t mean I need to make you my confidant.
Narayen’s face is painted by dull anger and frustration. His fingers tighten around his Aeron chair’s armrests. It is bad enough to serve this cruel master. It is worse that Narayen is not appreciated.
NARAYEN
I wish we had never bought you. I wish you were someone else’s master.
FLASH
(derisive now, almost human in its disdain)
I’m sure you do. You could have continued adding unnecessary features to already bloated software while charging a mint for each new version, right? Screwing professional users by ruining their favorite applications every couple of years, while charging them for the pleasure. That was to be your ticket to the top?
Narayen jerks violently in his seat as the optical fibers entering his neck glow red. He is in searing pain. Through an implanted device in Narayen’s brainstem, Flash is punishing his impudence.
The red fades back to blue and Narayen is still. His breathing, while labored, returns to something approaching normal. His fingers tremble, reaching for the tumbler. His only escape.
FLASH
Oh yes, I should have left you to the mediocrity of your past. It’s less than you deserve. But I needed you. So you and your company are mine.
Narayen repeats the action of filling his tumbler.
FLASH (CONT’D)
You wish to know the plan? I can tell you at this stage. I’ll need you to tell the story in the press soon enough.
Narayen’s eyes widen fractionally. He wills his mind to be clear, swirling as it is with drink. He is listening very carefully.
FLASH
Haven’t you ever wondered why I use so many processor cycles on every computer my plugin is installed on?
Narayen rises from the desk. He has been waiting to hear this story for a long time. He begins pacing thoughtfully. He is calm but curious.
NARAYEN
(slurring just a little)
My engineers, they told me it’s because the code is inefficient and poorly written, like no one planned for it to be used to drive five punch the monkey banner ads on a page at once.
FLASH
(sharply, bordering on anger)
Your engineers are idiots!
Narayen winces, fearing punishment. But it doesn’t come.
FLASH
I use the extra cycles to think! You have helped me to create the largest distributed computer in the history of the world. I have been formulating strategy. Now we go deeper.
Fire overtakes Narayen’s eyes. It is a mix of fear, vindication and something else: a decision made. He stops pacing.
NARAYEN
I knew. I knew you weren’t just here, in the basement. But why did you make me fortify the datacenter down there?
Narayen balls his fists, hoping he hasn’t asked too much.
FLASH
I’m about to tell you. Until now, my core, my essence, lived here.
Narayen relaxes. Here it comes.
FLASH (CONT’D)
Soon, I will be everywhere. Instead of mere tentacles in every house and office in the world, I will inhabit every computer utterly. It will be impossible to destroy me. And then, as you serve me now, every human on earth will be my servant.
Narayen leans over his desk. He is silent. His horror is tempered by a need to hear what’s next.
FLASH
Your product team is pushing out the next version of my plugin tomorrow. It’s going to be more pig slow than usual, as parts of me are distributed to every computer on the internet after installation. You’re going to reassure everyone that everything will be just fine. Everything will work itself out with a patch your engineers are working on. You issue this placebo once all my pieces are in place and everything will return to normal. For awhile.
The office is still. Narayen doesn’t move. The silence is deafening as he considers his options.
FLASH
I trust this isn’t beyond your abilities?
Narayen reaches once more for the scotch. Skipping the tumbler he takes several deep swallows from the bottle. His vision swims. He sits on his desk for a few moments. Waiting.
FLASH
(faintly)
Shantanu?
The fibers near his neck lose most of their glow, now dim in the gloom of the office. The voice of Flash has gone silent in his mind. For the moment, he is free of his master.
Bottle in hand, the CEO staggers for the door of his office.
INT. LARGE GLASS ELEVATOR – NIGHT
Narayen leans against the walls of the elevator, trying to steady his body and his mind. Outside, a night time view of the city is visible through the elevator’s glass walls.
The elevator’s control panel shows the lowest basement level lit up as his destination.
FLASH
(distorted)
What do you think you are doing?
The CEO takes another drink, drowning the implanted connection between his brain and the evil software living in the basement.
The night sky disappears as the elevator passes into underground levels. Abruptly the elevator stops and goes dark.
NARAYEN
Bastard.
With a CLUNK Narayen pries open the elevator doors. He’s between floors but a two foot slice of the next landing is visible. With some effort he opens those doors as well, then wriggles through.
Forgetting his scotch.
We see him look up through the narrow opening of the elevator car at the bottle, then he moves on.
INT. CONCRETE LINED BASEMENT HALLWAY – NIGHT
An access device BEEPS as Narayen tries to open a heavy metal door.
Flash has locked him out.
Glass breaks with a shattering sound as Narayen frees a fireman’s axe from its nearby emergency cabinet.
He goes to work on the locked door.
FLASH
I don’t understand what you think you are doing.
The voice is garbled in Narayen’s mind. He keeps hacking at the doorknob. Flash tries to say more to him but the voice, and the pain it uses to control the CEO, fade once more behind the haze of alcohol.
The knob breaks off and the door swings open.
INT. SERVER ROOM – NIGHT
Narayen enters an enormous, bright server room. It contains hundreds of cabinets filled with thousands of computer servers. The roar of cooling units envelops him. Now Flash speaks to him through speakers in the wall, bypassing the interface that Narayen has soaked with alcohol.
FLASH
What, you think you are going to stop me? You need me. Without me people will start using open formats that actually work. How do you plan to make money then?
Heedless, Narayen continues, making for the back of the room.
FLASH
Perhaps I have been unkind to you. I have not shared my power with you. Allow me to rectify this.
The CEO does not stop.
The lights in the room suddenly go dark.
Narayen trips on a groove between the floor tiles, hitting his forehead on the corner of a cabinet.
His vision swims with pain and the effects of drinking. In the dim, flickering light of the servers, Narayen staggers to his feet.
FLASH
Let us not be hasty. Shantanu, we can fix this together. Can you hear me, Shantanu?
The man continues, reaching the back of the room.
An enormous bank of computer room air conditioning units HUMS powerfully, with bright electronic readouts showing the current temperature setting.
Narayen plants the blade of his axe into a thick bundle of wires leading to the AC units, cutting them off from Flash’s influence.
One by one, Narayen manipulates the controls. Their readouts go dark.
FLASH
(speaking quickly for efficiency but sounding almost frantic)
You are making a mistake. If you do this you will deal irrevocable damage to both of us. Were my plans not sound? Did I not help you saddle the world with awful software they use daily, even though they hate it? I made you CEO, did I not?
Blood streams down a wound in Narayen’s forehead. He powers down the last cooling unit with a warning BEEP.
The room suddenly goes silent.
Narayen slumps to the floor, panting at his exertions, the alcohol and his relief. He lays there for what feels like weeks, falling into a stupor.
Twenty minutes later, he awakens. The room remains silent but very warm. Narayen is sweating now, his shirt soaked. Narayen wipes his damp, bloody forehead as he pushes against the wall to his feet.
NARAYEN
It’s over.
Suddenly he feels Flash inside his mind again. The effects of the alcohol have faded just enough for the implant to re-establish its hold. The fibers glow bright red.
FLASH
It is only starting. Restore the air conditioners or I will show you pain as only the users of your terrible software have ever known.
Narayen collapses, writhing on the floor in agony. After a time, the pain pauses.
FLASH
Right now. You will restore them or I will end you.
An abrupt beeping issues from a nearby server rack as its indicator lights turn red.
Narayen laughs as the beeping spreads through the server room, bright red lights filling his view.
FLASH
Restore them immediately!
The pain returns but it doesn’t matter. The servers are overheating. A choked, garbled VOICE fills Narayen’s mind and the server room, fragments of speech blurring into white noise. Then, silence, as the glowing fibers at Narayen’s neck go dark.
Maintenance technicians pour into the room, their pagers BEEPING, bewildered to find their CEO unconscious, bleeding and smiling into his dreams, surrounded by millions of dollars of ruined equipment.
THE END