Mack nodded. He had prepared his speech the night before, practicing in front of the full-length mirror in his bedroom. “Great. I’ll give a short intro and then you can just go into it.” Peter cleared his throat. “May I have everyone’s attention?” The room quieted down. “I’m very pleased to introduce today’s breakfast speaker, the extraordinary Mack McAllister.” Everyone applauded. “He’s a guy who needs no introduction, really—I’m sure you all have TakeOff on your phones—but I’ll give him an intro anyway, just so we can be reminded how incredibly awesome this guy is. So Mack got kind of a late start in the startup world—he founded TakeOff at the ripe old age of twenty-five, which should give some of you here hope.” Everyone laughed. Peter pointed at a tall guy leaning against the wall in the back of the room. “I’m looking at you, Sunil.” Sunil saluted, grinned. “Sunil just turned thirty-two,” Peter stage-whispered to Mack. “Anyway. In addition to founding TakeOff, which now has sixty-three employees, Mack’s on the board of the New York Startup Series and he also founded Tech for Kids, which teaches children in underserved communities how to code. Oh, and he’s run the New York City Marathon three times.” Peter mock bowed down to Mack. “Really, dude, is there anything you can’t do?”
“I never could master German.” The room laughed with him. “Seriously, though, thanks for that intro, Peter. So…show of hands. How many of you, growing up, thought you were one day going to start a company?” Around half of the people in the room shot their hands up. “Wow, impressive. How many of you thought that you would one day work for a startup?” Another smattering of hands. “And how many of you thought that that startup was going to be in New York City?” This time, no hands went up. Mack grinned. “In the past few years, this city has experienced nothing short of a revolution. And it’s all because of people like you, and you, and you.” He pointed at a few random people in the room. “Heck, it’s because of all of you! I moved to New York six years ago, and believe me, things were not the way they are now. The city was in a depression. And I don’t just mean economically—I mean the whole city was depressed. Wall Street had basically imploded. New York was spiraling. Those point-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-one percenters at the top, they never got rid of their Hamptons houses or their yachts, but a lot of people at their firms lost their jobs. So when things started to change, it wasn’t Wall Street leading the way. You know who it was?” He paused for dramatic effect. “It was people like you and me. The tech industry. We were the ones taking leases on office space no one wanted. We were the ones hiring. And we were the ones trying to build a community.”
Mack had moved to New York after getting a Facebook message from a college friend he hadn’t heard from in a while saying that he was looking for people to work for his startup. A couple years later, the startup failed, but Mack decided to stay. He bounced around a few other startups before finally landing on the idea for TakeOff one day when he was running along the Hudson River, and after three months of all-nighters he’d raised one million dollars.
“Let me ask you something. Do you think Wall Street would have started a game-changer like the New York Startup Series?” He paused for effect. “Here’s the answer: They had over a hundred years to do it, and they didn’t. We’ve gotten over two hundred companies funding through the Startup Series. Because we’re the visionaries in New York now. This is a new city. It’s not about who your parents are or what school you went to anymore. It’s about who you are and what you do, and what you can do for the greater good.” He’d given a version of this speech at least a dozen times, and it never failed to make him emotional. “This means responsibility—great responsibility. But what could be better than giving your life to something greater than yourself?”
The room broke into applause. A couple people whistled. He waited for it to die down and continued. “Of course, there will always be naysayers about the tech industry. That just comes with the territory. There are always going to be the finance guys who think they can keep pretending they still rule the world. Then there are those types on the opposite end of the spectrum—you know, the ones who barely even know what the internet is? Once your companies begin to get off the ground and you start looking for office space, you’ll understand this—there are people out there who will raise hell about a relatively small tax break for a tech company to stay in New York and create jobs.” He shook his head. What he always wanted to add, but didn’t, was how supremely annoyed he was by the entitlement of people who would fight tooth and nail to keep their rent-stabilized apartments even when they had country houses and sent their kids to private school. This was basically socialism. Meanwhile, his employees lived off subway stops in Brooklyn he’d never heard of.
“Now, look, I understand that there might come a time—well, let’s say, there will hopefully come a time—when I’ll find Wall Street and its access to capital markets extremely useful.” Peter, and a couple others, laughed. “But until then, I will continue to argue that the tech industry is the best thing to happen to New York City since a Dutchman bought this whole dang island.” The room erupted into applause.