WE NEED TO BE BRINGING IN A PROFIT SO THAT WE CAN MEET OUR OBLIGATIONS TO ALL OUR STAKEHOLDERS SHAREHOLDERS AND WORKFORCE ALIKE WE CAN'T PAY A PENNY IN SEVERANCE IF WE'RE BANKRUPT WE ARE HIRING 50000 NEW EMPLOYEES THIS YEAR AND THERE'S NOTHING THAT SAYS THAT THOSE NEW PEOPLE CAN'T COME FROM WITHIN CURRENT EMPLOYEES WILL BE GIVEN CONSIDERATION BY OUR SCOUTS ENTREPRENEURSHIP IS A DEEPLY AMERICAN PRACTICE AND OUR WORKERS ARE AS CAPABLE OF ENTREPRENEURIAL ACTION AS ANYONE I AM CONFIDENT WE WILL FIND MANY OF OUR NEW HIRES FROM WITHIN OUR EXISTING WORKFORCE I SAY THIS TO OUR EMPLOYEES IF YOU HAVE EVER DREAMED OF STRIKING OUT ON YOUR OWN EXECUTING ON SOME AMAZING IDEA AND NEVER FOUND THE MEANS TO DO IT NOW IS THE TIME AND WE ARE THE PEOPLE TO HELP Suzanne couldn't help but admire the pluck it took to keep speaking into the pointer, despite the howls and bangs. "C'mon, I'm gonna grab some bagels before the protestors get to them," Freddy said, plucking at her arm -- apparently, this was his version of a charming pickup line. She shook him off authoritatively, with a whip-crack of her elbow. Freddy stood there for a minute and then moved off. She waited to see if Kettlewell would say anything more, but he twisted the pointer off, shrugged, and waved at the hooting protestors and the analysts and the journalists and walked off-stage with the rest of the surfers in suits. She got some comments from a few of the protestors, some details. Worked for Kodak or Duracell all their lives. Gave everything to the company. Took voluntary pay-cuts under the old management five times in ten years to keep the business afloat, now facing layoffs as a big fat thank-you-suckers. So many kids. Such and such a mortgage. She knew these stories from Detroit: she'd filed enough copy with varying renditions of it to last a lifetime. Silicon Valley was supposed to be different. Growth and entrepreneurship -- a failed company was just a stepping-stone to a successful one, can't win them all, dust yourself off and get back to the garage and start inventing. There's a whole world waiting out there! Mother of three. Dad whose bright daughter's university fund was raided to make ends meet during the "temporary" austerity measures. This one has a Down's Syndrome kid and that one worked through three back surgeries to help meet production deadlines. Half an hour before she'd been full of that old Silicon Valley optimism, the sense that there was a better world a-borning around her. Now she was back in that old rustbelt funk, with the feeling that she was witness not to a beginning, but to a perpetual ending, a cycle of destruction that would tear down everything solid and reliable in the world. She packed up her laptop and stepped out into the parking lot. Across the freeway, she could make out the bones of the Great America fun-park roller-coasters whipping around and around in the warm California sun.