They were able to offer pricing that we, as a slightly more bloated company, were reluctant to match. They had a higher tolerance for burn.

The branding also vexed me. I knew multiple people who had decamped for pastoral settings to kick dependencies on heroin, cocaine, painkillers, alcohol—and they were the lucky ones. Addiction was a generational epidemic; it was devastating. The Tenderloin was five blocks away from our office. There had to be higher aspirations. At the very least, t

We all treated technology like it was inevitable, but I was starting to think that there might be other approaches.

neighborhood. I bought a vibrator with a USB port, because it made me feel more technical.

With the promotion came a bump in equity. I still did not know what the shares were worth, and I was afraid to ask the M.B.A. whether he had been offered more when we were promoted. It seemed safe to assume the answer was yes. After all, his work was seen as strategy, while my work was interpreted as love.

It was tricky: I liked my coworkers, and I did my best to dish it back. I didn’t have horror stories yet, and I preferred things stay this way. Compared to other women I’d met, I had it good. But the bar was so, so low.

Ian loved me in the way you love someone at the very beginning: he still believed I was the sort of person who wouldn’t allow herself to be treated badly, to be made to feel like shit. Someone righteous, moral. Someone who valued herself. I empathized with his disappointment. I wanted to be that person, too.

I took my phone out to dinner.

Permissioning was effectively a rite of passage. It was a concession to the demands of growth.