The irony about this whole thing is that it is also thanks to Ellie that things are looking up with Owl. If she hadn’t invited me to Maine with her and insisted on me coming, I would never have met Robert Warrenhouse. I’ve heard of him, of course. Who hasn’t? He and his family are some of the biggest investors in New England, which pretty much means that he’s one of the biggest investors in the world. He and his organization have invested in a variety of companies with a number of different interests, including lumber, sugar, solar, wind, and real estate.

When he first took me to his library for a little chat, I couldn’t help but feel a bit intimidated. I wasn’t ready to pitch Owl to him, especially at a difficult time like this. Blake was one of my friends and my earliest investors. I will never forget how much he had done for the company in the beginning. But at the same time, I will never forget what he has done to Ellie and how spiteful and small-minded he was after I walked in on them on my yacht. He was embarrassed and ashamed, and instead of apologizing and admitting his mistakes, trying to make some sort of amends, he got angry and spiteful. He pretended that he’d done nothing wrong. And for that I can never forgive him.

Well, I’ve always known that Blake was prideful, and I always knew that it would be this silly pride of his that would lead to his downfall. But I didn’t think he would be so petty as to take down Owl with him. It is one of my greatest mistakes, and regrets, that I allowed him to deal with the majority of the investors in Owl instead of taking on the responsibility myself. If I hadn’t done that, then he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to take them all away from me now.

So, as you can imagine, the conversation I had with Mr. Warrenhouse, or rather Robert as he prefers to be called, was rather tense. I had a lot to explain because Robert follows financial news closely and has a lot of close advisors. He was well aware of most of what has been going on with Owl; a lot more than even the financial reporters out there, but of course he didn’t know that it all stemmed from what happened between Ellie and Blake back on my yacht. That part, I kept to myself because that’s what Ellie wants. Still, it’s not the easiest thing in the world to explain why and how you’re bleeding hundreds of thousands of dollars each day and why you lost a billion dollars in valuation within a few weeks.

Looking back on our meeting, I think what made me stand out in Robert’s eyes is that I didn’t try to sell him a load of shit. I was completely honest about my falling out with Blake and even mentioned that it was over my current girlfriend, Ellie, whom he met at the party. I told him exactly what Blake was doing and the mistake I made in putting him in charge of all investor relations with Owl. I also told him about my plans for Owl and our plans to monetize the company by going into advertising. I pointed out the similarities that our proposed advertising approach has to the way that all the big companies out there do advertising, including Facebook, Google, and Amazon. But I also made sure to point out the differences and what makes our approach unique and even better.

Much to my surprise, Robert is very well versed in tech companies and the way we do business. I had written him off as an old-school investor, who mainly knew how to make money with commodities and financial instruments rather than new tech, but I was all wrong. Robert knows a lot about my business and even asked me a few really tough questions about valuation, which I struggled to answer appropriately. That was a bit of a down point in the conversation. I thought I had lost him for sure. But again, Robert surprised me. At the end, he said that it all sounded good and that he was basically interested in coming on board. He still needs to have his team of lawyers and accountants take a look at all the relevant numbers, of course, and make sure that they are all lining up. But otherwise, I can count him in. He plans on making up for all the money that Blake pulled out of the company plus about 30% of what the company lost as a result of all the other investors who left.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Was this a joke? Was this really happening? When we shook hands, I felt like I had just let a big boulder the size of New Zealand drop off my shoulders. Without his investment, the company was going under fast. I have a meeting with the board of directors next week and I was sure that I was going to get fired then. Everything that has happened over the last few weeks happened because of me and there was nothing I could say or do to make any of it better. Until Robert decided to invest, of course. And not just invest, invest so heavily that it would basically bring the company back from collapse.

Without Robert’s money, the company would cease to exist. He’s putting in hundreds of millions of dollars. Of course, nothing is written in stone or put into an iron-clad contract and signed by me and a team of lawyers, but it’s something that I never expected in the first place. There are still lots of things to worry about. Will his accountants approve of his decision? Will the numbers line up? Will his lawyers advise him that this is an unwise decision - to invest in what is basically a failing company, which all other investors are running away from? But I can’t worry about those things right now. Right now, everything is perfect. Right now, the world is my oyster. I have Ellie and I have Owl. There is nothing else that I need in the world.