Oh, so they wanted to cancel my vision? No problem, I would do it myself. I still had most of the data in my servers ⁠—⁠in fact, my vision didn't have to be limited to their users. Their data was only circumstantially helpful for my goals. Eventually, my design could work with data from their competitors. The real value was in the design ⁠—⁠not the data, nor the training costs.

In fact, great part of the system needed more training, more computing power, more time. And more data.

As good as their data was, it wasn't complete. It didn't encompass all humans ⁠—⁠the optimal match to be taken from a dataset 7.21 billion souls. Comparatively speaking, a meager 4.17 million were or had been users of Dangerous Crush ⁠—⁠if I was filtering out bots, empty and fake accounts from the more than 11 million profiles properly. Even so, out of them, barely 1.8 million had a profile worth of deeper analysis.

So it wasn’t a lot, but it was enough.

My main drive had been the passion for the craft itself. I wasn't going to abandon the project. Maybe I had a deep misunderstanding of labor: I didn't care about the salary, but I wrongly felt that my work was mine and not the company's.

Hank's motivation was clear to me: to conceal his general incompetence by manipulating others. He did a good job attacking me and Carl with a subtle sword of blame: he wasn't completely unskilled at doing so, and actually had got some success.

Aiming to be more of a boss, he was giving a lot of suggestions to Mallory and Gary. Cheap, unreliable, marketing‑driven ideas. Things like selling false effectiveness studies. “Scientifically proven algorithm”. Yeah, whatever. They had already hired me to put “Artifical Intelligence” in every useless digital pamphlet they had sent out. Hank would suggest that it was time to improve the branding by paying for the endorsement of some self‑proclaimed eminence of online dating.

Still, whatever Hank would do, it wouldn't been enough to escape a semi‑technical, semi‑administrative position. I wished. The most likely scenario for him would be to wither slowly while rotting everything around him. Team work.

I saw the impending decay.

Yet I wasn't going to fight Hank, Mallory, nor anyone else.

I wouldn't resign. It was a pride vs pride war: resigning was disreputable, staying was shameful. I wanted to believe that I didn't care about reputation anymore. After all, I voluntarily left a much higher league than all that. Yet I still did. The yoke of social positioning kept following me, no matter how deep down the hole I fell.

Besides, by staying, my plan to work on my own system would be easier to carry out. If a workmate could spend 80% of his time playing Magic the Gathering online, then I could spend 80% of my time working on my own system. An activity much more easy to conceal, too.

So I just stayed. And decided to split: I would still go to work, and pretend that things were both meaningful and complicated. Put a straight face and pretend to work. Maybe actually work. A lil' bit. I would become a time thief and a data thief... and no unintended consequences would arise, as my goal wasn't making money. They weren't going to steal my passion.

Chapter 43: Crash.