Somehow, impossibly, this doesn't sound like complete shit.
Alex reads through the pitch deck for the third time, sitting cross-legged on his living room floor with his laptop balanced on a stack of textbooks. Jian's contributions are precise, almost clinical - market sizing, competitive analysis, revenue projections that actually make sense. Maddy's sections pulse with energy: "The Future of Intelligence is Thermodynamic" and "Why Inferthermic Changes Everything."
He never thought he could care about monetization strategy. But Jian's experience at Google - watching products get built, shipped, and sold - has infected the document with something Alex couldn't have generated alone. And Maddy's relentless optimism, her refusal to accept that anything is impossible, has transformed his dense theoretical framework into a story that might actually compel someone to write a check.
The pitch is in two days. Forty-eight hours to refine, to worry, to second-guess every slide. But sitting here, surrounded by the evidence of their collaboration, Alex feels something unfamiliar blooming in his chest. Not arrogance - he's too aware of how much could go wrong for that. But confidence. Enthusiastic confidence. The kind that makes him believe they might actually pull this off.
His phone buzzes. Jian, predictably precise: On my way. Bringing Maddy.