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He took a large audible breath. “There’s another part to my marketing plan, something I want to work on now, something to get ahead of, so to speak.”
I remained fixated on the people below. I was only halfway listening to him. I had emails to send, reports to consider, hands to shake... “What’s that?”
“Well, it has to do with...you.”
“Me?”
He nodded. “Saw your latest post on Chatter this morning.”
“The meme about the price of Bitcoin?” I laughed again. “Good, huh?”
My most trusted advisor didn’t reply for a long beat, the silence making it clear he didn’t find the graphic as funny as I did. “You know how I feel about your online presence.”
“You hate it.”
“It’s not...it’s not becoming of a CEO like you.”
I shrugged. “Part of me, part of my brand.”
“Oh right, yourbrand.”
Hearing something in his tone of voice I didn’t like, I narrowed my eyes at him. “Something wrong with it?”
“No, but I think it’s time we show the world something...different,” he replied. “And we got a media request the other day for an interview with you.”
“So?” I was already tired of this conversation. “We get those all of the time.”
“This one is different. Have you heard ofAmerican Profile?”
“No.”
“It’s a new media publication with a pretty good following. A newsletter with around eighty-five thousand subscribers.”
I turned to Robert and raised an eyebrow, nearly adding a sneer to go with it. He knew better than to toss crap like this my way. “Did you saynewsletter?”
“The writer used to work forThe New York Times.”
I snorted. Robert was smart, but he was also prone to hairbrained schemes, ideas he liked to call his “projects.” This sounded like the start of one. I was almost certain I wouldn’t have time for whatever he said next.
“I know, you hate theTimes.” Robert opened the folio and revealed a few hard copies of emails. “But Rebecca Owens is a bit different than their usual reporters. She left to start her own publication.”
“So?”
“So, I’ve read a few pieces of her recent work. It’s good.”
I raised my eyebrows. “What the fuck are you trying to sell me?”
Robert laughed at my change of tone. We’d worked together for ten years, ever since he was one of the first hires I made at U-Trade. When I sold that company, he benefitted too, cashing in his early shares for under seventy-five million. Over the time we’d known each other, he earned my trust and I considered him more than an employee. He didn’t have to work at SI, but I was glad he’d stayed on, still reporting to work every day, as if he needed the salary that we paid him.
“An interview,” he replied. “That’s what I’m trying to sell you. She’s young. Smart. Has a way of speaking to an audience you sometimes can’t reach.”
“I don’t do those kinds of interviews.”
He grinned, and the smile pulled at the corners of his eyes, which had larger bags underneath them than there had been the last few years. Like me, he’d put in long hours recently. But unlike me, Robert went home at the end of the night. I preferred to sleep on the pullout couch I had installed in my office for the nights I needed to stay in Melbourne instead of returning to Palm Beach. Simpler and easier.
“I’m not talking to a random blogger,” I said.
“She’s not a blogger. She has a podcast too.”
