Page 4 of Swiped
A few days later, Nat was bumping along in the backseat of a ride-share on her way to downtown San Francisco. Traffic was as thick as usual, and the car slowed to a crawl every few minutes, but Nat was secretly grateful for the delay. Normally, she’d be squished against the other commuters on the bus, but today, she was on her way to do some press for BeTwo and needed to arrive sweat-free and relatively at peace with humanity — two things that the San Francisco transit experience could never guarantee. Press was the part of her job that filled her with thick, existential dread. She hated being in the public eye. To cap that, no one ever asked her any decent questions about the app, and it wasn’t always easy to hide her impatience, not when she really didn’t want to be there at all.
But this time she wasn’t heading to just any old interview or meet-and-greet.
Nat was speaking on the opening panel at the biggest tech conference in the country, Tech-Talk. She’d be sharing the stage with five other creators of the year’s top apps, a fact that convinced her that maybe — just maybe — this event would actually be one where she could talk about her work rather than forced, blithe opinions on love and romance.
She decided to do a mindfulness exercise, while also hoping she would remember the steps correctly. Nat took a deep breath, mentally acknowledging the natural world, rather than the tight ache of nerves creeping into her stomach as they inched along in traffic. She focused on the morning sun sparkling on the skyscrapers. How it glared off the dozens of tech billboards with taglines that most people outside of the Bay Area would not recognize as coherent language. And there was the BeTwo billboard (comparatively normal tagline “The only modern way to date!”), shining in the navy, rose pink, and deep teal that hadbeen workshopped ad nauseum by the board of investors that kept her app financially afloat. They were extremely hands-on with marketing, but hands-off with the code, and that suited Nat just fine. She had thought that adding a digital ticker of users to the BeTwo billboard was a little gimmicky, but seeing it in person, she had to admit it was pretty cool. As her ride-share pulled off the highway and into the dense grid of city streets, she watched the count go up a few numbers under its pink cursive header,More users looking for love every second!The figure was in the two-million range — a number she never thought she would hit in her wildest imagination.
For all her nights staying in to burn the midnight oil, BeTwo was a full-fledged business, albeit with a small but scrappy staff, and a small but scrappy office in a converted warehouse shared with a dozen other tech companies. Once she’d gotten approved for funding from the group of app investors looking to strike gold, she’d hired her two in-house employees full-time, outsourced some of the production tasks, and focused on perfecting her code and satisfying her board — the latest version of the San Francisco dream. But BeTwowas still an indie app, and the investors funneled in cash for the sole purpose of being bought or going public, and them making bank on their investment either way. Until that time, Nat had to spread their money as far as she could to grow her users, lure advertisers, and justify a subscription model with ever more enticing features. That meant BeTwo wasn’t currently turning a profit, and if she couldn’t meet the board’s numbers, she could lose her funding at any moment. And, poof, no more BeTwo.
Her phone buzzed with an incoming text. It was Jo Kwon, one-half of her assistant duo.
Jo:Boss, you good?
It would have been sweet of Jo to check in before the big event, but since “sweet” wasn’t actually a part of Jo’s personality, it was probably her way of doing pre-emptive damage control. But to Nat, that was more valuable than any sugary words of affirmation. No one knew how much Nat hated doing press more than Jo. Once upon a time, she had begged Nat to do more — until she saw how truly awful Nat was at it. Then she promptly “pivoted” to a new media strategy without once asking Nat to “step outside her comfort zone”, or imagine audiences in their underwear, or change anything about herself. For that, Nat was deeply grateful.
Nat sent back a thumbs-up emoji and took a deep breath.
Jo:The most hostile emoji
Why?
Words please
The other assistant, who was Jo’s twin sibling, Justin, started typing in the thread. Jo managed publicity, and Justin took on UX/UI design — between them, all of Nat’s blind spots were covered.
Justin:What we mean is good luck! You’re gonna crush it
Justin:Or kill it
Justin:Or some non-violent way to say you’re going to do great
Nat:I’m not nervous! I’m fine.
Nat sent it before she could really think if it was true. The problem was that she tended to speak frankly when questioned by reporters. Concisely, factually. She was a coder,not a touchy-feely love guru after all. But her responses weren’t always enough for everyone. In the rare times she had given an interview, Jo’s feedback tended to include words like “hella blunt,” sweating emojis, or simply “Mark Zuckerberg: human or robot?” memes. Then Justin would chime in with copy-pasted personality descriptions of Cancers (Nat’s sun sign) and angry crab GIFs, until Jo would end the discussion with not-so-subtle asks if she could follow up with the reporter herself.
Jo:Just stick to the talking points and it’ll be over before you know it
Justin:
“Here we are. Moscone Center.” The car pulled to a stop in front of the gleaming glass doors. A huge banner reading “Tech-Talk 2025” fluttered in the breeze. “Excited for the conference?” the driver asked.
Nat shook herself out of her reverie. “Kinda.” She held up her badge, emblazoned with a yellow ribbon that read “SPEAKER.”
“Oof, public speaking,” said the driver, turning to face Nat rather than look through the rear-view. She was a petite Chicana woman with a shock of purple hair running through a shaggy wolf cut. “Not for me.”
“Me neither, really.” Nat eyed the crowd. The sidewalk was already filled with people lined up around the block to register.
“You’re gonna be great,” said the driver, winking. “Trust me, I can tell.”
But before Nat could utter any thanks for this kindness, the backseat door yanked open.
“Yo, for Anthony?” said the voice attached to a muscled, Omega-watch-wearing arm that now motioned for Nat to get out.
She shot the driver a look meant to conveyThank you, I’m sorry,andTHIS GUYall at once. Gathering her bag, she scooched by him as Anthony barked into his phone.
“So, I sent a DM like, ‘Bro, you know I was the one who told you that STOICoin was going to blow up!’ No cap! Yo, that’s why I’m the CTO, dawg!”
My people, thought Nat as she grimaced and looked for the speakers’ entrance. At thirty-five, she was old enough to remember the screech of the dial-up modem handshake, mix CDs, and making it a Blockbuster night. Majoring in Comp Sci had still been decidedly uncool for the Indiana University Class of 2012, and being a twenty-something woman with ideas for computer programs hadn’t made people think she was gonna be the next big thing. It had made people think she was odd, especially in Indiana.
