Mr. Truitt,
I’m afraid your “personal emergency” has put me in a very difficult position. We are running on a firm deadline. If the interview isn’t conducted soon, we are going to have to cancel the entire feature. When might you be able to reschedule?A notification sounded within thirty seconds, signifying I’d received a new email. Dexter Truitt had written me back.Ms. George,
How about right now?Now? Was he nuts? He had some nerve expecting me to meet him at this time of night.Mr. Truitt,
It’s eleven o’clock at night. I’m not able to meet you this late. When might you have availability during working hours this week?Bouncing my knee anxiously, I waited for his response.Ms. George,
I’m available now. We can conduct the interview via email. I would prefer written documentation of my answers in any case, so as to avoid my words being misinterpreted.He couldn’t be serious. I typed.Mr. Truitt,
Your agreement with the magazine was for an in-person interview. I was under the impression that the entire purpose of this feature was so that you could “go public.” An interview conducted over email would defeat the purpose.Biting my nails, I stared at the screen.Ms. George,
What agreement are you referring to? I never signed anything with your magazine. Therefore, there is no contractual obligation. I simply expressed interest in being interviewed. I’ve since thought better of doing it in person. If you’d like to conduct the interview with me now via email, I am more than happy to offer you that opportunity.The keys of my laptop clicked loudly as I typed even faster this time.Mr. Truitt,
Are you saying there was no actual personal emergency? You lied and cancelled our interview because you decided not to show your face after all?Letting out a frustrated breath, I repositioned myself in bed as I waited for his response.Ms. George,
I did experience an emergency, but I don’t believe I am under any obligation to offer an explanation into my personal affairs. As for showing my face, well, if you want the honest truth, my unexpected change of plans afforded me the time to think twice about such a life-altering decision. I’ve decided that I prefer to continue keeping my identity private.Great. There is no story now.Mr. Truitt,
It would have been nice to know this information before we made you the feature and spent money to promote it. The entire point of the piece was to document your coming out from under the rock you’ve been hiding beneath. I don’t believe we have a story anymore.His response came even quicker this time.Ms. George,
I am giving you the opportunity to ask me anything you want. Anything. I think that makes for quite a damn good story, actually. But I do have two conditions. The first is that I don’t have to be photographed. I think that’s pretty fair, considering I would be an open book, otherwise. Second, for every personal question you ask me, I get to ask you a comparable one. And you have to answer me. Since you seem to think baring one’s soul to the public is an easy feat, it might be nice for you to experience what it’s like to be on the other side of the fence. Deal?What was this guy smoking? Maybe I should just ask him, seeing as though I could ask him “anything.” What the hell. I needed this story. And even without his face, it was better than any other exclusive we’d gotten in a long time.Mr. Truitt,
We have a deal. Shall we begin?Ms. George,
I’m all yours. Start with the business questions. Get them out of the way. You may work for Finance Times, but let’s face it, people aren’t really interested in how many shares of my company I’ve sold, so much as how many women I’m dating.We’d switched to the Gmail chat feature and spent the better part of an hour going back and forth on how he came to eventually run his father’s venture capital firm.
In the past five years alone, Dex Jr. had been commended for diversifying the workplace, particularly hiring more women and minorities. He was known for taking even bigger investment risks than his father had.
Dex went over what a typical day was like, chock full of meetings mostly over the phone with entrepreneurs and portfolio companies. Every client and employee signed a non-disclosure agreement whereby they could neither reveal personal information about Dex nor photograph him.
Dex said he often wouldn’t sleep for days when he was close to the finish line on a deal. He ate, slept, and breathed his job.
When we’d run the gamut on the business questions, I started hitting him with the personal ones. Except, I had to think long and hard about my questions, knowing he was apparently going to hit me right back with the same ones.Bianca: Tell me about your childhood.