Job interview at a dot-com
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How the New Economy turned me into an old capitalistby
by SARITA BROWN
For a while there, it seemed they had discovered the secret of eternal youth--or at least the secret of the eternal youth market--the way they were selling you on the profitability of the Net.
Texans in 10-gallon hats poured oil money into the closest dot-com start-up they could find. Eighteen-year-old programmers with no experience started job interviews by saying, "Let's get one thing settled right away. I won't work for less than $80,000." Even people with anthropology degrees found themselves gainfully employed in the multimedia field, the promise of stock options dangling just out of reach.
So why, oh why, did I give up my chance to be a part of the New Economy, to be a foot soldier in the information revolution while picking up a few bucks along the way? Even against a backdrop of plummeting tech stocks, I am still asking myself that question.
Allusions of adhocracy
Shift back to six months ago. I'm sitting in a massive loft in a slacker neighbourhood where a lot of Montreal's vegetarians live. The loft is mostly empty, and the man I am meeting for a job interview tells me the office is soon moving to a better locale downstairs but, like the Web site he is pimping, it's not "ready yet." There's space enough in this unfinished room to accommodate 10 times the number of people working here--there are a few techies doing some E=mc2 stuff in one corner, whom everyone ignores, and a couple of hipster types wheeling back and forth between computer terminals.
"So what's your job here?" I ask the guy working at the desk next to where I am sitting, whom I know from around, in the kind of way you know people in this city of .5 degrees of separation.
He is evasive, hemming and hawing, yet he has two screens ablaze with information, a tape machine digitizing some music and a pad of paper full of jotted-down notes.
"I mean, what kind of stuff do you do?" I ask again, trying to laugh off the disquietude the question has created. He avoids eye contact. There is a palpable tension in the air. Is Paul about to be fired? Has he been released from a mental hospital on some make-work program?
"Paul?" the big boss guy interjects finally, as he boots up his laptop to take me on a tour of a Web concept so virtual that it is not online yet. "He does... well, lots of things." He laughs a bit uncomfortably too.
I find out later that in the New Workplace, you don't talk about jobs in the traditional sense. That's very Old Economy. Here, everyone just pitches in, doing their thing, filling in where it is needed in a shared cesspool of brainwaves and responsibilities.
"We're very open to ideas," says the guy who seems to be in charge but whose position and role remain undefined.
Finding dotcommon ground
Now the laptop screen is displaying the splash page--very appealing, actually, in olive green and dusty blue, soft lines and subtle graphics.
"Nice colours!" I say, innocuously.
The big man's expression brightens more than it should. I feel like a team player all of a sudden. Seems I did good, despite my lack of comprehension of how this all works.
"I don't need to tell you everything you see here is confidential," the anti-boss tells me. "I know I don't need to tell you, we trust you."
We look through the site, which--I tell you confidentially of course, but don't worry, I trust you--is aimed at young alterno types who are into techno, indie film and cool books. And--strictest confidence because this has never been done before--it's going to be "international" in scope, but "local" in production. That's all I'm saying, out of respect for trade secrets, and also because I am too much of a Luddite to even understand how to reveal the specifics of this project.
Coolness and co-opetition
The cursor points to an italicized slogan at the top of the screen: "The revolution is over. We have won."
Not-the-Boss looks over at me sharply as I inhale a chortle escaping from my throat. There is no room for sarcasm here, I realize. The man with the briefcase and the cell phone, who I'd have thought would be jaded from years of work in the entertainment industry, is dead earnest about this.
"And here, they can upload samples of their own work, which can be showcased or be accessed from our site..." he is saying in a monotone while clicking away like a fiend. Maybe he can't bear another non-committal, non-techno, "Neat!" or "Cool!" or "Look at that!" from me.
"So how often will the content change?" I wonder aloud.
"At first monthly, then we'd like it to go weekly and then..."
"Daily?"
No response. He's on to some other incomprehensible part of the site, where visitors can exchange their theories of coolness.
"So, uh, what other sites are out there that are like this one?" I ask.
Again with the silent tension. Is it such a crazy question to ask someone who is offering you a full-time job?
"We don't really like to compare--nothing compares!" he shudders the words out in my direction. I have obviously put my foot in it again.
Turns out, in the New Economy we talk about "co-opetition," which, unfortunately, is just what it sounds like: cooperation between competing companies in order to push the technology--or in this case, the value of the whole house of cards it holds. No competitor is the enemy, only the big corporations and people who think like Henry Ford. People who think you have to sell a product. You see, the bigwigs, who've been controlling things for so long, are down on their knees in the face of the New Economy.
For the next while we check out different aspects of the site, which takes some time because not all of the pages are linked together yet and only a few are final. By now I am craving a cigarette, coffee (no cappuccino machine here--yet! But you can bet there will be one before the IPO) but when I ask if I can smoke in the office the response is a doubt-tinged "People do..." Fine, forget it.
Hit me baby one more time
Later, when I have been shown similar sites that are "really just being used as a reference," I ask how this dot-com will make money.
At least this time I was prepared for some discomfort as the question hung suspended in the air like funds on hold in a bank account. Silence falls over 4,000 square feet save for the shifting in seats of asses made soft by too much sitting and staring.
The un-boss mumbles something about subscribers. Something about how they want loyal users, but he had a better term for it.
"I mean, uh, are hits worth a lot? Or, no, I guess, like, if you have members that's worth more?" I say awkwardly.
"Subscribers are definitely worth more," he says, looking straight ahead. This is slippery ground, the kind of thing he doesn't want to talk about with untrustworthy cynics like myself.
"There is a sales aspect to the site," he explains expansively, "in partnership with labels and things so people can get the product. But that's just a small part of it, whatever, that's not what it's about."
"Oh, you mean using Shopping Cart?" I throw in a term I picked up from a Web-savvy friend the night before.
He nods vaguely.
His tone is a conversation-ender, but there is more I want to know. Who would he sell his subscription list to and how would that company direct market these kids all over the world? How do cookies work? What if a cloaking software like Freedom became the norm? How would lists of members be worth anything? How is a targetted demographic worth something unless you have an ad there selling Ford cars, for example? Won't the big companies like Nike start designing tons of their own pseudo-grass-roots, edgy, alternative, just a bunch of cool guys doing this outta their basements type sites so that they seem street level--but all designed and owned by Nike, with original content that may not even mention the merchandise, just hints at it or just happens to show someone wearing that brand of running shoe? Do all the anti-establishment, WTO-protester types think that branding is so obvious? When you can't tell where it is from, how can you separate the wheat from the chaff?
Grey goo in a miniskirt?
"Doesn't it all boil down to search engines?" I ask Paul out loud, when we are left alone for a moment. "Isn't that the limitation on this supposed anarchy? Isn't that what determines the information you are getting out of this big free-for-all? Isn't that how they are going to find your site in the end? Don't you need to get them on your side?"
He comes right back with Dogpile, the ultimate search tool. But what if Dogpile got into the hands of Nazis, I wonder.
"No, you see, anyone can use this technology so no one entity can control it," he says patiently. Corporate control is the least of his worries--monopolies are, like, so over. The only threat to a glorious digital future, he says, is "grey goo." Apparently, machines might start to emit their own bacteria, a byproduct of this wonder developed by geeks with vision rendered myopic by sitting too close to their computer screens.
"Basically, they may not have realized that the technology they created will become too smart for itself and..." he trails off.
The scenario he describes reminds me of the first Star Trek movie, where the abandoned computers of the space-wrecked Voyager ship spend years whirring and clicking a series of zeroes and ones in an attempt to understand who created them. That's why they keep hassling the Enterprise when it passes through their solar system. Of course, this harassment comes in the form of a bald chick in a short skirt, not a bad result of a computer geek's wet dream.
The Bionomic woman
When the non-boss leaves to attend to his "other job," everyone relaxes a little more. I tell Paul I'm not sure I want to be a soldier in the information revolution. First of all, I can't comprehend where my paycheque would come from, much less why no one seems concerned that I don't know html.
He tries to alleviate my cynicism about the economy of ideas. Even though I have no idea what my responsibilities would be, he's sure I would just love working here. I really should join the revolution. The benefits package is great too, he adds.
Anyway, society is already evolving towards the New Economy, he says, looking at me with pity. There is no point in fighting it--it's natural, it's bionomic. And even if I don't take this undefined position, I will eventually become the Bionomic Woman. Like the refrain of "Hare Hare," I will find myself singing its praises in the shower sooner or later. "The only thing that will distinguish the rich and powerful from the merely struggling is what's in their heads," he says, quoting some article in Wired magazine.
"You sound like Anthony Robbins or something," I plead. "You're freaking me out."
"You may feel overwhelmed now," he says to my back as I blow smoke sickly out the window. "But it is never too late. That's the beauty of it. Since time is always moving up on this axis, and if your knowledge starts here--" He is holding up his hands in a cross. He sees my mystified look. He leans towards the computer keyboard and I am certain that in a moment that he is going to create an instantaneous graph showing my personal time-managed learning curve--something I'm not sure I could stomach. But no, he is reaching for a piece of paper, to draw it for me. And when the very old-economy-style graph is done, I feel strangely better and maybe even hopeful. A buck-fifty pen and looseleaf--finally something I can relate to.
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