AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Let me show you the ropes,” he began.
For ten minutes, I felt like Charlie being shown the inside of Wonka’s chocolate factory. The only thing missing were purple Oompa Loompas jumping out of the ceiling and singing about Javascript. The source code for their exchange was a sight to behold. Simple, yet complex. Functional, but beautiful. Every line of code was like the brush stroke on a Caravaggio painting; insignificant in isolation, but part of a larger work of art when one understood the full picture.
“You know that we’ve developed a new kind of cryptocurrency exchange,” Jude explained, adjusting his glasses on his nose. “One that’s simple and straightforward enough for even the least-technical people to understand and use. Here’s the code for the UI…”
As he leaned across the desk and everything, it struck me just how knowledgeable Jude was. As his eyes cut between me and the computer screen, there was the fire of genius behind his blue orbs. This wasn’t his job. It was hispassion.
It reminded me of why I had immediately liked him when we met the other night. He definitely didn’t seem like the stereotypical billionaire.
Then I remembered what else I had said to him at the bar.
“Any questions so far?” he asked.
“No, everything’s pretty straightforward. Especially with the comments within the code.”
“Documentation is key,” he said. “Now, next we—”
“Wait,” I cut in. “Before you go on, I wanted to… apologize.”
Jude chuckled. “I know he doesn’t make it easy, but if you want to apologize to Owen, you’re going to have to do it to his face.”
“No, I mean—I wanted to apologize toyou.”
He blinked behind his glasses. “Why? You didn’t call me a cunt-waffle. At least, not to my face.” He smiled.
“I went on a long rant about billionaires,” I said. “Carnegie and Rockefeller, and how modern billionaires are gold-hoarding Smaug-dragons.”
“I did think that was funny at the time. I certainly didn’t take personal offense to it. Generally, I think you’re right about that. Besides, all of my wealth is tied up in unvested stock options which are frozen for two more years. The pile ofactualgold that I sleep on is quite small. I’m only a billionaire on paper.”
“My sister’s student loans are juston paper,” I replied. “That doesn’t make them any less real.”
“Good point,” he said. “But your apology is not accepted, because it’s not needed. I want my employees to never be afraid to speak their mind to me.”
My employees.It was a harsh reminder that the well-dressed geek across the table wasn’t someone I was dating. He was myboss. I needed to start thinking of him that way.
“Owen doesn’t seem to like me speaking my mind,” I said.
“Owen’s opinion doesn’t matter. He’s here to handle the business side of things. I’m the one getting my hands dirty in code.”
“He’s Steve Jobs, and you’re Steve Wozniak,” I said.
Jude chuckled and scratched the back of his shirt collar. “I like the comparison. But Owen’s no slouch. Back in college, he did plenty of his own coding. At least half the PayScale infrastructure was written by him.”
I barked a laugh and said, “Now I know you’re just being nice to defend him.” There was no way the cocky asshole in the other office had ever been a coder. He didn’t even have multiple monitors on his desk.
Jude’s smile faded as he regarded me. “While we’re apologizing… I’m sorry for your sister’s birthday party. I should have tried to stop Owen from kicking you out.”
“Yeah, you should have,” I said pointedly.
Jude shook his head. “I was sort of stunned by the whole thing. I didn’t know what to do. Now that you have met him, you can see what Owen is like. He’s a force of nature. Trying to argue with him is like trying to fist-fight a hurricane. Especially when he has an audience, and that night he had Mr. Rossi with him. I still wish I had said something, but…” He shrugged awkwardly. “I’m sorry, is all.”
It didn’t make up for what had happened. And it didn’t heal the wounds, financial and emotional, from being kicked out in front of everyone. But Jude’s apology went a long way toward making me feel good about being here, at his desk.
“Thanks,” I said.
He nodded, and we shared a quiet moment together. The only sound came from the clicking of his computer hard drive.
“So, the core infrastructure is all there,” he said, turning his attention back to the monitor. “The next step is expansion. That’s what we need more people to help with. Right now, we only support Bitcoin. The most pressing need is to expand to support Ethereum. Beyond that, we need to support as many other cryptocurrencies as possible. I have a list here of the top hundred.” He tabbed over to a spreadsheet.
