“Whoa, wait a minute – people gotta go into a shark tank to present their business ideas to get them funded – how did you survive, Pop-Pop? I mean I know you can swim, but, seriously? And there's a television show about it – and are they great white sharks?”
“Generally white, yes, in ethnicity,” Mr. Thomas Stepforth said to his grandson, nine-year-old Vertran Stepforth, “but the rest is what we call metaphor. No actual sharks are involved. Your plan and your ego can get torn to shreds, along with your vision for your company, when you need to go to venture capitalists to fund you.”
“I don't know if that's any less scary,” Vertran said, “because when you need money bad enough to have sharks attacking your soul, and when they are not sharks but humans who are acting like they have six rows of teeth in their mouth … .”
“Painful for everybody involved,” Mr. Stepforth said. “This is why I have never gone that route. Our people were on sale to the sharkish men of the slavery period, who talked about us like we were a piece of meat with a price tag. Venture capitalists behave pretty much the same way, so I don't deal with them, and as an investor, I don't operate like one although as a billionaire, I could.”
“Yeah, you like angel and mezzanine type of stuff,” Vertran said.
“And I love teaching people creative ways to make the money they get work for them without needing venture capital,” Mr. Stepforth said, “and, what would I look like as a shark?”
“I'm not even trying to see that and I don't think the world would be ready,” Vertran said.
“I don't give two dead flies about the world,” Mr. Stepforth said “because it will go right on long after I am gone, and I wil go right on in Heaven after it, as it exists today, is gone. I do care about the example I am leaving everybody younger than me who looks up to me, and among them, I care an awful lot about you, Vertran.”
“I'm always glad to know it!” Vertran said as he reached out for a hug and got it from his grandfather as they sat together on the sofa.