Page 6 of Cocky Nerd
“Must be tough being acelebrity.”
“You tellme.”
“Hah. I mean, little girls ask me for my autograph after the shows, but they just hold up their notebooks to anyone who comes out frombackstage.”
“That’ll change soon, I’msure.”
I look over at him to check his facial expression, because he sounds completelygenuine.
“Brainy Biz,huh?”
“Unfortunately, ‘Nerdballs, Inc’ was alreadytaken.”
“Really?!”
“No.”
“Wow. Did you just make a joke? Who areyou?”
He smiles. What a smile. He so rarely smiled growing up, it makes me sad for little Johnny Brandt. Although, it probably didn’t help that a small sassy ballerina was always belittlinghim.
“So tell me about Brainy Biz. My brother was talking about it once, but I wasn’t really paying attention.Sorry.”
“It’s LinkedIn meets Match dot com for people in the computer and applied science fields. Matches tech nerds and geeks with employing companies and investors, and vice versa, and also offers services to help techies optimize their job seeking and marketingskills.”
“Sounds like a highly necessaryservice.”
“Actually, I’m very grateful toyou.”
“Grateful? To me?Why?”
“In a way, you inspired me to come up with the idea for Brainy Biz. Because you were always telling me how bad I am at connecting with people and so are all brainy nerds. I decided to help guys like meout.”
“Oh. Wow. So in a way you owe me, what, half of your massivefortune?”
He grins and saysnothing.
“So you’re…a tech guy? What do you do,exactly?”
“I’m primarily an investor and entrepreneur, now that I have the financial resources. That was always thegoal.”
“So why did you go to MIT and not HarvardBusiness?”
“It’s my understanding of the tech world that gives me an edge. I’m an idea guy too. A facilitator. I’m not just a guy who looks at the numbers, that’s why certain—tech guys, or girls—trust me more than other VCs. I speak bothlanguages.”
You just don’t speak mine.“VCs? Virgin Computernerds?” He smiles. I don’t even get a laugh for that, just asmile.
“Computer Nerds is two words. And no. Venture capital. Private equity. The people or firms who fund startups. And you may be pleased to know, Olivia, that I haven’t been a virgin for quite sometime.”
“Why, Johnny, I am terribly pleased to knowthis.”
Also I may beblushing.
Am Iblushing?
Holy shit, I’mblushing.
“Um. I didn’t know you could be an investor and an entrepreneur and a startup founder at the sametime.”
