He turns back to the table. "Alex - keep pushing. Improve your service uptimes. You're obviously not a systems engineer." He says it without malice, just fact. "With this next tranche of funding, you need an entire team under you. Seven to fifteen people hired by yesterday. Do you understand?"
I nod. My mouth is dry.
He turns to Jian. "Your leads and business acumen have proven invaluable. The momentum will carry for the next few weeks. But I need you in full COO mode. Build out the right team to support Alex. Operations, infrastructure, the machine that makes the machine."
Jian nods, his face set. But I can see it in his eyes - the doubt. How much longer can he sustain three lives? School, Google, Inferthermic. Something's going to break.
Finally, Elad turns to Maddy. "Your natural talent continues to surprise me. But we need you in a bigger pond." He gestures to Amit. "We're here for the next two weeks. I want you shadowing us the entire time. You need another order of magnitude in sales, and you need people to help. Mentorship starts now."
Maddy blinks, surprised. "Shadowing? For two weeks?"
"Starting tomorrow," Elad says. "Full immersion. Learn how we evaluate companies, how we think about markets, how we close deals. Then bring that back to Inferthermic."