[Disclaimer: Everything depicted in this story is fictional and solely the product of the artist/author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or people is purely coincidental.]
Background:
From his shadow's point of view, this story contains the poignant events from Raymond Kohl's life that made him what he is today, a self-made tech multi-billionaire.
Somewhat of a recluse now, Mr. Kohl's early public persona was that of a stoic, ruthless, robot-like businessman.
This story reveals the private, very much human side of Raymond H. Kohl.
*"La Silhouette Se Souvient: Fair Weather Friends & Family"
It all happened so fast.
Raymond went to bed on what appeared to be a normal Friday night, spent a nice weekend with his wife and 3 y/o daughter and was awakened early on Monday by a frantic phone call from his best friend and CFO of his company.
Sounding hysterical, the CFO explained that over the last three days, the bottom had fallen out of all financial markets around the world - both conventional/TradFi and Crypto/DeFi.
Any and all creditors were halting future lending and exercising their contractual right to perform early collections due to "an environment of widespread financial extremis".
A few years ago, when Raymond's company was riding high from a series of successful product launches, the CFO started collecting as many offers to fund the R&D of future products that he could get his hands on.
To be fair, Raymond agreed with the CFO, "The probability of a catastrophic death spiral occuring in every major global market at the same time is as close to zero you can get."
Believing that his company would be financially secure for many generations of Kohls to come, Raymond gladly signed off on the slew of loan contracts handed to him by the CFO.
It was almost surreal.
There were so many lenders begging Raymond to take their funds that he and the CFO were forced to come up with this Press Release:
"Kohl Technologies, Inc. is not seeking additional funding at this time.
However, Lenders may still present offers for "Future Funding" and join others on our Priority Financial Resource List.
The list will be posted on our website for public viewing and automatically updated whenever offers are added or withdrawn.
Future consideration of listed offers will be handled in chronologically order based on its arrival time stamp."
(Signed)
Bradley V. Hollingsworth, CFO, Kohl Technologies, Inc.
After the Press Release was sent to the business wires, Raymond asked Brad, "You think we made friends or enemies with that Release?"
The CFO shrugged and said, "I don't know. Maybe it'll be a wash, 50/50.
I mean, we were honest and our corporate posture was respectfully firm without being arrogant.
Everyone knows that we've already achieved "Unicorn" status many times over and earned the right to gloat.
Hell, we could've made a short clip with us sitting on a pile of money, sticking our toungues out and giving the finger to all those early FUD-Mouthed, Hater Pundits and the current batch of "Late-To-The-Party" Lenders and most people would feel were justified to do so."
"Damn, bro. That's cold-blooded. I'm glad we decided on a written Press Release instead holding an AMA, live news conference. (Hehe)
I'm just saying.
If you step back and look, all we're really doing is trying to quell the restless natives via that stupid little list with a pompous name.
Shit! How in the Hell did you come up with "Priority Financial Resource List" anyway? Utterly f*ckin' brilliant, my man! (Lol)"
Then the CEO and the CFO of Kohl Technologies, Inc. spent the rest of the night joking, laughing and pondering the awesomeness and absurdity of life - while listening to old vynal records of Classic Rock and polishing off two bottles of Jack.
But that was then.
Now?
It was clear that, unless Raymond and his CFO came up with a solution quickly, this Black Swan event will surely develop into a lethal financial perfect storm.
For the next 72 hours, Raymond and the CFO negotiated deferments from willing creditors by promising to drastically cut or eliminate R&D, production, delivery and personnel costs; meaning at least half of his employees would be jobless by the end of the week.
Furthermore, just like Elon Musk did in almost the same situation many years ago, Raymond used nearly all of his own personal wealth to keep his company out of bankruptcy.
His "friends" that got rich from cashing out Raymond's generous stock gifts mysteriously became unreachable.
In other words, they were cowards and ghosted him, performing vanishing acts that Houdini would admire.
Other, so called "friends" that he could contact and had the means to help suddenly became the self-righteous champions of Raymond's recently laid off employees, a group that included his sister-in-law and quite a few distant relatives of his wife.
Their fake apologies and rationale all sounded the same.
It went something like this: "Sorry Raymond. Your a good man that I consider my friend. But I cannot - with a clear conscience - promote corporate cruelty and the inhumane practice of staging sudden employee holocausts; furthermore - yada, yada yada..."
The good news is that eventually, through sheer willpower and dogged determination, Raymond and the CFO - apparently the only real friend Raymond had - managed to save the company.
The bad news?
Half-way through the fight for the company's survival, Raymond's wife left him, taking their toddler with her and filing for divorce.
It seems that she wanted to make her intentions public and file the official papers before Raymond was totally broke.
Outwardly, Raymond appeared stoic, almost nonchalant while his whole personal life was crumbling around him.
But privately, Raymond experienced intermittent waves of despair, spontaneous crying sessions and episodes of rage.
After sufficient time to accept, mourn, forgive and heal, he felt normal enough to function properly at work and slowly re-engage with the rest of the world.
No one goes through such life events unscathed. Permanent scars always remain.
And Raymond was no different.
That's why he vowed never to relearn the heartbreaking life lessons from the School of Hard Knocks, especially the course listed as "Fair Weather Friends & Family 101".
[Submitted for your entertainment.]
May you and yours be well and loving life today.
In Lak'ech, JaiChai
*The "Fair Weather Friends & Family" NFT is from the Opensea Collection named "La Silhouette Se Souvient" (The Silhouette Remembers) - https://opensea.io/assets/matic/0x2953399124f0cbb46d2cbacd8a89cf0599974963/63477199864332346876047430691250883279803745216811129316337883300503396286465/
[See more of my NFT collections on OpenSea: Exquisite Women of Color II; Filipina Allure; Empyrean Beauty; Viking Women Warriors; Proud, Strong and Beautiful; Exquisite Women of Color; Exotic Allure; Assassin's Exotique; Orbiting Outliers; Quae Volant and Ancient Alien Digs]
(JaiChai 31 Oct 2022. Simultaneous multi-site submissions posted. All rights reserved.)