DOES STEEL-CITY Sweetheart Samantha Vine Have the Chops to Go Public?
By: Nick Ackerman, Business Analyst
Investors everywhere have one question on their mind this month as Vinea prepares for its IPO: when can I get in? The tech startup has soared to notoriety, enjoying nearly universal adoption from healthcare research institutions and biomedical companies alike. But is the company ready for the public stage? Moreover, is its leader prepared for the level of scrutiny that follows CEOs of publicly traded companies? Stay tuned as we follow the news this week on MarketView.
I don’t have the heart to read the entire media summary Audrey pulled up for me this morning. I’m sure it’s all the same thing each time: can I handle the competition in a big pond?
So, since I need a distraction and since AJ Trachtenberg never called me back, I decide to just pop by the school and hope I can catch him. I know it’s a terrible idea, and probably disruptive. But the idea that he thinks I think something just hangs over me like a cloud. And besides—aren’t kids excited about field trips? Even if he doesn’t want to forgive my little misstep, shouldn’t he just get over it to give the students a fun trip?
I also know that if I don’t take care of this now, I’ll get mired in a thousand other things at work and also stress out at the idea that my family might call me and yell at me for something else I didn’t anticipate. Honestly, the weight of this thing with AJ Trachtenberg might be the straw that breaks my back this week. And I don’t have time to find a spinal surgeon.
I approach the front doors of the school and ring the buzzer, explaining to the guard that I’m just here to talk to Mr. Trachtenberg.
I fumble my way through asking for directions to the main office until a guy in a button-down stops in his tracks. “Did you say you’re here to see AJ?”
“Yes!” I brighten up at this ally, come to save me in the middle of my ill-advised mission. “I’m Samantha Vine. AJ and I had a bit of a misunderstanding yesterday at the Vinea event and I’ve been trying to track him down.”
He holds out a hand. “Doug Rogers,” he says. “Let me walk you up to his room.”
“Oh. Won’t he be teaching in there?”
Doug grins and nods. “He will indeed. I believe you will throw him off his game entirely.”
I start shaking my head. “I can just leave him a note. It’s just that it was hard to reach him over the phone.”
“Sam. Can I call you Sam?”
“Please do.” I love when people drop formalities. I grew up with a colonel for a father. I’ve had enough uptightness to last me a few lifetimes.
“Sam,” Doug continues. “Nothing would thrill me more than to mess with AJ’s head. He thinks he’s unflappable and he drives the rest of us wild with that chip on his shoulder. Humor me, please. I’ve got three sons and I teach in a middle school.” He grins and I can’t help but like him. Apparently AJ Trachtenberg is grumpy with everyone, not just me. Whew.
I shrug. “Show me the way!”
Doug leads me up a flight of stairs and points to a door decorated with cardboard microscopes and double helixes. Doug pushes the door open a few inches, grins and waves, heading back down the stairs as I lean against the doorframe to listen. AJ is really different when he’s with his students. He seems animated as they talk about frog reproduction. I try not to laugh, remembering my own boring encounters with biology teachers. AJ seems passionate about his students, not just the subject matter.
Eventually, one of the kids notices me and I smile. AJ grimaces at me and I swear, he growls. Right there in front of his students, he growls like a wolf. Or maybe a grizzly bear. He’s a very hairy person, I observe, noting dark strands on the backs of his hands, his neck, his jaw. I have to stop thinking about his jaw.
AJ says, “Class, this is Samantha Vine. She’s come to judge your aptitude for science.”
I frown. “Actually, I came to apologize. I didn’t know I’d be disrupting your class. But I’d love to invite you all to my company, Vinea, for a tour. Once you’re done with the frog gonads.”
A girl raises her hand and says, “Mr. T, can we do whatever she’s talking about instead of dissect the frogs?”
The class murmurs excitedly. Someone says, “Yeah, Mr. T. It smells like butt in here. No offense.”
AJ just blinks and looks like he’s grinding his teeth. The girl raises her hand again. He calls on her. “Yes, Margot?”
“Ms. Vine—what do you do at Vinea?”
I push off the door and walk into the room, grinning. “We dissect frogs.” The class bursts out laughing and groaning and I wait for them to settle down. “Actually, I’m a data scientist.” I look over at AJ to see if he seems like he’ll murder me, but he’s just quietly simmering off to the side, so I continue. “I designed a software tool that helps scientists with their experiments. Have you all done experiments and lab reports and stuff like that?”
They all nod. “Okay, well, you know how you had to write down all your data and results each time? One of the things we do at Vinea is make an electronic notebook for our clients. They can keep everything in one place and also share it with other partners, even if those partners are far apart from each other.”
“Can’t they just email each other?” The girl, Margot, seems like she’s ready to hear more about my work. Which I find energizing. I really regret saying no to AJ yesterday. Why did I let that reporter knock me off my game so much?
“Well they could, yes. But with our cloud based software, all the notes are in one place. And if people make them searchable, others might not have to repeat experiments that have already be done.”
“So you made an online notebook?” Maya starts taking notes as I’m talking but AJ raises one dark brow at me, the other sinking low enough to nearly hide his dark, judgmental eye.
“Sort of,” I say, hesitating. Aha. Here’s where I was concerned initially about visiting with tweens. I don’t know how to talk about my machine learning models that I built to make data entry standard and useful for all my clients, across industries. “When I was in college, my biology class was visiting a dairy lab. They were trying to study what to feed the cows to get the most milk. I saw that they were taking notes by hand, emailing each other…there were a lot of mistakes and there was no easy way to make sense of the data. To find patterns. So I built an algorithm, a computer code, to read over the data and notice things.” I shrug. “At first it was mostly about helping scientists take notes. But I’ve added stuff since then as I built my team.”
“What kind of stuff?”
I open my mouth to respond, but AJ chooses that moment to step forward.
“That’s enough, Dante. We’ve got work to do here.”
The class groans. I smile. “I promise to tell you all about it when you come visit. I’ll set everything up with Mr. T.”
Just then, he takes me by the elbow and starts walking me toward the door. I’m so stunned by the jolt of energy I feel shooting out of his fingers that I nearly trip. So then he reaches his other hand out to steady me and I’m surrounded by a crackling current. I think laser beams are shooting out of all his many hairs, just zapping me all over the place. I stare at him, realizing I’m hot for teacher.
Once we’re in the hall, he gestures toward the stairs.
“Well,” I look around, hoping Doug will materialize to save me again. “Are you going to at least call me back?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“What? They were into it. I’ll pay for everything. I know you said funding is an issue. I’ll get Shane to put together a full day program and you can tell me if anyone has dietary restrictions and—“
“Samantha!” He uses his stern teacher voice when he says my full name and I feel it in every one of my nucleotides.
“Yes?” I whisper, shaking away the sudden fantasy I have of him rapping my knuckles with a ruler. I never even went to Catholic school, so I’m not sure where that comes from.
He rakes a hand through his dark hair, and a loose piece tumbles across his forehead. This man is a snack and he apparently hates me and that’s a really bad combination, because now I’m fully immersed in a very deep desire to make him like me. Oh god, I’m seeking his approval.
“Look,” he says. “Why don’t I connect you with someone from the high school. Like you said, these kids are young for your kind of subject matter.”
I shake my head. “I pity the fool who tells these kids they can’t be data scientists.” He raises a brow at me again. “Pity the fool? Mr. T? Don’t they tease you about that all day?”
AJ rolls his eyes. “They’re way too young for that reference.”
“Really?” He doesn’t respond. “Wow. So anyway, I was thinking about what you said during our brief, if unfortunate, encounter. And I’d love to spark inspiration for them. Give them an idea of some different career paths. Some of them might not even know—“
I’m interrupted by a shrill bell ringing above my head and the hallway is soon filled with teenagers, shouting, throwing paper at each other, and rushing past me like a current. I’m swept back against the wall.
“Maybe another year,” AJ hollers above the din.
I shake my head at him, suddenly determined to get his students into my building, unsure if I need it for them to actually get inspired or if I am really this desperate for AJ to change his opinion of me. “I’ll get you a bus,” I shout, and then the students file into the classroom doors. Another bell chimes overhead. “Wow. That is really freaking loud.”
He nods. “Yes. It is. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” And just like that, he spins on his heel and walks back into the classroom, slamming the door behind him.