When I got back to the EECS building, the space had more or less cleared out, and there were just a dozen or so student volunteers left putting away folding chairs. Bo was waiting for me on the far side of the room and asked if I wanted to go for a smoke.
He offered me a cigarette from a pack the color of Phoenician purple with gold-lettered Chinese characters on them. Before I could reach for my lighter, he lit it for me, which obliged me to bend down slightly. The first puff surprised me with smooth, natural tones of plum and barley—it was fragrant in a way that was completely unexpected for a cigarette. I hit a second and third puff in quick succession.
“These are very special cigarettes to commemorate your visit,” Bo said. “The tobacco is cultivated from a secret strain that only grows in a particular part of Yunnan Province and manufactured using equipment confiscated from petty capitalists in 1949. There are only 798 cases each year. They are FPMO—For Party Members Only.”
FPMO—had he come up with that on the spot? Bo looked smug, as if certain he’d won me over.
“Do you enjoy it?”
“Yes, very much.”
“Then you have good taste. I’ll have a carton sent to you in San Francisco.”
As we smoked, a convoy of black Audi SUVs with Jing A license plates gathered along the street. A few guests from the auditorium were starting to trickle in. Bo explained he’d arranged a small dinner for distinguished guests from the conference and asked me if I wanted to join. “Sure,” I said. As we approached our car, the last in the procession, Xiaowen emerged from the driver’s seat to open the doors for us. Bo didn’t put out his cigarette on the way in, so I followed his lead.
On the way over, Bo said he noticed I stopped into the start-up pitch competition and asked me what I thought of the presentations. I gave him a few of my notes off-the-cuff, focusing my observations around technological promise, and he nodded in approval, saying I had a good sense of intuition.
Dinner was at the Hong Kong Jockey Club, a private social club Bo was a member of. The outside of the club was designed to look like an imperial palace, but the inside conveyed a more Western sensibility, filled with dark wood and lush carpets. Bo led me to one of the ballrooms where they were hosting a cocktail hour. Everyone was still wearing their name tags, which made me realize that of the group that attended the conference, only the American guests were here now. There was a mixture of universities in attendance—SUNY Purchase, North Carolina State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, and corporations—Ford, Chrysler, GMC. Thankfully, no one from General Motors. The average age, I observed, was about forty to fifty-five. I got a few stares on the way in, and a peculiar sense that many of the Americans in attendance knew each other. There was a definite sense of familiarity and camaraderie among the men, who had transitioned from delivering sleepy lectures at the conference to downing glass after glass of Opus One Cab. Many were already in a state of rapidly accelerating inebriation. While we waited at the bar, Bo pulled aside a young bald guy with glasses about my age and introduced him to me as Peng, the CEO of a self-driving car company called Naveon, then left to go mingle with the other guests. Peng was drinking nothing but ice water and sweating profusely. His English was not very fluent and he seemed to be having trouble maintaining eye contact with me. While we were chatting, I overheard the other guests talking about a karaoke session last night that had gone late into the night—could that be why they were so listless this morning? I kept glancing over at Bo. Everywhere he went, the Americans clumped around him, one-upping each other in their flattery. Even those who were noticeably older than him behaved in this way.
There were only two other men my age—Bo’s associates from Terra Cotta, who were quietly making the rounds listening in on conversations. Now that we were up close, I suddenly recognized one of them and asked him if he was at Xiu Bar on the sixty-fifth floor of the Park Hyatt last night. He laughed and said no, he was working late, but I was sure it was the same man.
At eight o’clock, a hostess from the club led us upstairs to an ornate private dining room that opened up to an enormous granite terrace. Below us was a Chinese courtyard where a few members in dinner jackets were wandering about the gloam, smoking and tossing breadcrumbs to swans. We found our seats around a circular dining table with thirteen place settings. I was seated to Bo’s right, and Peng was a few seats down. The door opened for three waiters to bring in the first wave of dishes: shark fin soup, hot pot of mutton and tripe, steamed chicken with fresh mushrooms, salted flower rolls, and watercress with garlic. The centerpiece was a plump golden brown roast duck that arrived on a cart. The chef used two knives to carve the bird, skillfully separating skin from meat, dark meat from white, and arranging the thin slices on a plate with white sugar and hoisin sauce. Meanwhile, another waiter poured us each thimble-sized shots of a clear, pungent liquor that smelled like soy sauce. I rotated the liquor in my cup, studying its color and viscosity. Bo gave a toast and I downed the glass, grimacing as the harsh liquor burned a raw patch down my throat. My glass was refilled immediately. Now the meal started in earnest, and Bo’s guests, already red in the face, ate and smoked voraciously, pausing their consumption only to raise their glasses to Bo individually, each toast more drunken and obsequious than the last.
“We all saw it today—Bo is a role model to the younger generation, and even to us older folks as well. Thank you for funding my research and believing in me when no one else would. I will be accepting a lifetime achievement award at the Michigan faculty next month, and I wish I could give the award to you.”
“I’d like to raise a glass to a true leader among us, someone I would follow anywhere. Bo, you are respected and admired by all. Thank you for uniting us all in a common purpose we can all be proud of.”
“Bo—I cannot thank you enough for your friendship over the past eight years. You’ve given me a chance to finally serve my mother country, a dream I had ever since I was a young engineer studying at Zhejiang University.”
“Bo, I have no idea how you found me. All I know is that if you hadn’t, I would’ve spent the rest of my life working without purpose or recognition, maybe even lost my marriage. I’ll never forget the debt I owe you.”
We carried on in this way for nearly two hours. Each plate that came off the table was immediately replaced. Exhausted by the decadent procession of food and drinks, I was having issues inserting myself into the conversation, so near the end of the meal I excused myself to the restroom and sat down in a stall to collect myself. While I was inside, two of Bo’s guests walked in to use the urinals.
“We’ll be heading back the day after tomorrow—fuck my life.”
“Don’t complain about your life, Old Wong. I saw pictures of the new house in Scarsdale. You’re the richest professor at SUNY.”
“They’re so fucking stingy at SUNY. Twenty years and they still won’t give me tenure. What else am I supposed to do?”
“That’s why you’re here. You should enjoy this while it lasts.”
“The reception was better last year, I thought. I didn’t like the seafood lunch yesterday. Maybe the late-night event tonight will be better.”
“Old Wong, always full of complaints. Our stipend went up this year by fifteen percent. That’s not bad. At least I can bring back some gifts for my wife.”
“Shit, you got fifteen percent?! I have to talk to that scoundrel… he needs to show more appreciation for those of us who have been with him since the beginning. By the way, where is Dr. Jian this year?”
“Dr. Jian from Georgia Tech? Fuck, I heard he experienced some issues with the university. No one really knows.”
“Damn it. This group is getting too big. We need to protect ourselves. Who is that kid, anyway?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think he’s really in this—too young to have anything valuable to contribute. Who cares?”
I waited for thirty seconds after the two men filed out to wash my hands and return to the dining room. By now, most of the party had moved to the terrace, where the hostess was handing out cigars. Bo was being cornered on the garden-facing side of the balcony by Professor Wong, who seemed to be stumbling.
“And I’m so grateful, will always be grateful, for everything you’ve done, but you know the situation at the university with the budget cuts, it’s putting a lot of stress on my family… dage, could I ask you to consider giving me an advance on next year’s spend? I promise I’ll pay it all back, with interest, and get you whatever you need.”
I couldn’t make out what Bo said in response. Spotting me, he pried himself away from Wong and asked me to follow him. We left the dinner party and went up one floor to a different room filled with books. I took a moment to survey the room, dimly lit by a small chandelier. Oil paintings of Royal Ascot hung on golden frames. A spiral staircase in the middle of the room led to a second floor with more shelves and volumes. Equestrian memorabilia was exhibited everywhere: a jockey’s leather gloves, silver racing trophies, a few letters from British notables. This must be quite similar to what I imagined those mansions on Prospect Avenue looked like on the inside, I thought—the rooms that had persecuted me and swallowed Jessica.
“The others are on their way now to an after-party at a casino, so we finally have some time to catch up. Drink?”
I didn’t really need it, but accepted a glass of tawny port anyway. “Thank you. I thought gambling was illegal in China?”
“It is,” Bo said. “But you are not like them. Those men back there, they are all well past their prime, were already in decline when I first met them. They’re filled with resentment, pride, envy, those kinds of things. I think you can see some of that for yourself. For them, this yearly gathering is a special event, something they look forward to. But they’ll never belong to a place like this. They always have to go back to a place where they are not seen.
“You’re different, Michael. That much is obvious to me. I’m a venture capitalist, and I hope you don’t mind me saying, one of the most successful in this country; my sole expertise is recognizing and elevating talent. I’ve seen many generations now, and I can tell from a single conversation, usually within a few minutes, whether or not someone is going to be massively successful. You have all the signs of being such a person, Michael. But the truth you must accept is that the kind of future I see for you can only take place in China. If you stay in San Francisco, you’ll end up just like those other dinner guests in twenty years. I hope you will join me here in accomplishing serious work.”
Bo’s words coursed through my chest like a shot of epinephrine. The way that he described the dinner guests’ eagerness and irrelevance reminded me sourly of my father, as if these men were grotesque caricatures of him. “What do you have in mind for me?” I asked.
“Peng, who you met earlier tonight, is the CEO of Naveon, one of my most promising portfolio companies. Peng is a good businessman, but we need real technical talent at the helm. I want to install you as the VP of engineering. You’ll start with a team of fifteen engineers, but I want you to hire fifty more. Some of the best and brightest from Tsinghua, like you saw today. You’ll be responsible for the entirety of the software stack at Naveon, the brain inside of the car. To be clear, Michael, this is a moonshot company. Success is nowhere close to guaranteed—that’s why I want to bring you on board, because I think you can move the needle.”
I rotated the glass in my hand. “Thank you for even considering me,” I said finally. “It’s a huge change and a big risk. I really need to think about it.”
Bo set his glass down without drinking from it. “Unfortunately, this isn’t an opportunity that you can sit on. Naveon’s market is highly competitive and we need someone in the seat as soon as possible—someone who can act with conviction. If it’s not you, it’ll have to be someone else.”
“I’m sorry. Do you think I can talk to Peng first? This is a big decision and I just want to understand the company first.”
“Don’t worry—I already talked to Peng for you. He’s excited for you to join. As for the company itself, you’ll have to trust me—and mind you, I always do my due diligence. Let’s say things go well. You’ll be promoted to CTO within a year or two. In the meantime, you’ll make $250,000 in cash every year and receive a significant number of shares in the company. And your signing bonus, paid immediately, will be $200,000.”
Suddenly I thought of Vivian and my promise to be with her in Beijing in two weeks. What kind of life did I want to give her? When that thought took hold of me, there remained no possibility of turning back.
“Okay, I accept,” I said. “What’s next?”
“You’ll start in two weeks.” Two weeks exactly, I echoed to myself. “Wait for a package in the mail from my people containing further instructions. I’ll open a bank account for you and deposit the $200,000 there—you’ll need a bank account anyway, and this way you won’t pay taxes on it. As for other preparation—your first task will be to recreate multinodal aggregation at Naveon, so download everything you need from your work at General Motors before you resign, and use the external hard drive I’ll send you. That all make sense?”
If only I had walked away then. Here’s the thing: for as long as I can remember, I have always been one to avoid trouble. If there’s a single thing that can still be redeemed about my character, it’s this. I understood beyond a shadow of a doubt that what Bo was asking from me was, in this order, illegal, unethical, and potentially dangerous. The seconds ticked by. But I also thought of the listless half-life that waited for me back in San Francisco. And when I remembered my promise to Vivian, to meet her in two weeks, and the exhilarating blankness of our future together, I opened my eyes and found that I was nodding.