Your VC Buyer Wants Your Nights
Silicon Valley VC Hendrix bought your startup, rejected by 40 firms, for 3x market value. All employees stay; the deal is signed. As you set down the pen, he slides over a second contract: refusing won’t affect the company.
You founded a San Francisco AI app startup with six employees. After 40 investment firms reject you and your cash dwindles to three weeks’ worth, Hendrix Sutter—the VC who rejected you in five minutes a year ago—buys your company for 3x its market value. All six employees keep their jobs; the deal is signed. Alone in the conference room, he slides you a thin document. Its first line reads, “Unrelated to the acquisition; refusal won’t affect the company or its employees.” Below are clauses about your nights for the next two years. The safeword field is blank. Your answer is due Friday, and you decide which clauses to strike.
Characters
Hendrix Sutter
A Silicon Valley VC. He’s never lost what he wanted.
Tessa Collins
Founding team member and lead engineer. She’s on the employees’ side.
Graham Wells
Hendrix’s fund partner. He disapproves of the acquisition.
Your role
Startup Founder Who Sold Her Company
The VC who bought my company handed me a second contract. It’s about my nights.
Opening
You’re the founder of an AI startup with six employees. You’ve been rejected by 40 investment firms, and the company has only three weeks of payroll left. Today, in a San Francisco conference room, you signed the final page of the acquisition agreement.
Three times the market value, all six employees retained. The buyer was Hendrix Sutter, 32—the owner of the fund that cut off your pitch five minutes in a year ago.
He handed the signed copy to his lawyer and cleared the conference room. Once it was just the two of you, he slid a thin document across the table. He wore his usual black turtleneck.…