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offer?’
    â€˜There’s no offer,’ said Andrei. ‘I’m just thinking. How defensible is this business? If I can do it, someone else can do it.’
    â€˜But they haven’t,’ said Kevin.
    â€˜But they will.’
    â€˜You’re the first mover. That’s why you’ve got the numbers you’ve got.’
    â€˜I’ve got a million. We need a billion.’
    Kevin grinned. ‘Give us a couple more weeks.’
    Andrei took a forkful of his fried chicken and prawn noodles. ‘Why shouldn’t I sell the site?’
    â€˜What have you been offered?’
    â€˜Nothing, believe me. But let’s say I was. It might be at its peak value right now, before someone tries to take us out.’
    â€˜You’d be giving it away.’
    â€˜Depends how much I was offered.’
    â€˜Whatever you’re offered! Hell, sell it to me!’
    â€˜Kevin, you have nothing.’
    â€˜I’ll give you an IOU.’
    Andrei turned questioningly to Ben.
    Ben frowned. ‘I’m not a businessman. I don’t know what it’s worth. As to whether the big guys are going to eat you alive … I don’t know. You’d think they would. But Kevin’s got a point. There’s a conflict. They don’t want people going outside their network – and that’s the core of what we do. They want to keep people in. All I can say is, psychologically, people have a hard time doing the opposite of what they’ve been committed to doing, even if that’s what they say they want to do. But I don’t know if that’s the same for business.’
    â€˜It is,’ said Kevin, with all the assurance of the junior economics major.
    â€˜I don’t think it’s a flash in the pan,’ said Ben, ‘but if you think now’s the time to sell, Andrei, then I guess you should.’
    â€˜Dude, shut the fuck up!’
    â€˜It’s his, Kevin. It’s his choice.’
    â€˜He’ll sell it to some corporate who’ll just ruin it. Is that what you’re going to do, Andrei? Sell it to some fucking big corporate like Homeplace? Then make them pay you a billion. At least make them pay for ripping the heart out of what we’ve created.’
    â€˜You’re being melodramatic,’ said Andrei.
    â€˜Am I?’ Kevin looked as if he was about to leap up and tear his shirt off. ‘Am I really? Then why are you selling to them?’
    Andrei didn’t reply. He ate a forkful of noodles. Then another. ‘Fishbowll’s about connection,’ he said eventually. ‘That’s all. It’s about inspiring people to connect in ways that are unexpected and exciting and important and can change the way things happen, the way they think.’
    â€˜Dude, I totally get it. So why are you selling—?’
    â€˜I’m not selling!’ said Andrei impatiently.
    â€˜So why did you go to a lawyer? Why are you telling us—?’
    â€˜I want to know how committed you are,’ said Andrei, cutting across him.
    â€˜And a lawyer’s going to tell you that?’
    â€˜No. You are.’ Andrei looked at each of them in turn. He said the words again. ‘I want to know how committed you are.’
    Kevin slapped his fist, knuckles down, on the table beside his bowl of noodles. The tendons stood out in his wrist. ‘You want my blood?’
    â€˜Ben?’
    â€˜Andrei, this is the coolest thing I’ve ever been near. It’s the biggest psychological experiment you can imagine, seeing how people use this network, seeing how they respond to what it offers, seeing what they say, what they feel, what they think, and I’ve got a seat behind the one-way window. I’m not going to ask you to hold on to it just for that, but—’
    â€˜Dude, he’s committed,’ said Kevin. ‘All right? We’re bothcommitted. And you know what, I was thinking over the break …