The Burn Rate
The office was a converted loft above a nail salon on Divisadero, and at this hour it smelled like acetone and old pizza. Four desks pushed together in the middle. Whiteboards on three walls. A mini-fridge somebody's mom had donated that hummed at a frequency Matt could feel in his molars.
Matt stood at the main whiteboard, uncapping a marker with his teeth. The board had been erased so many times there was a ghost layer underneath — old deadlines bleeding through new ones. He wrote LAUNCH: 19 DAYS in block letters and underlined it twice.
Tom sat at his desk with his laptop angled away from the room, the way he always did when he was looking at the bank account. He had a bag of trail mix he'd been working through since Tuesday. It was Friday.
Tom said it without looking up.
Nineteen's what we told Greystone. So nineteen's what it is.
Sara came up the stairs carrying two coffees from the place on the corner that should've been closed an hour ago. She handed one to Matt. It was terrible. He drank it.
She read the whiteboard.
I changed it from twenty-two.
Sara looked at Tom. Tom looked at his trail mix.
Cool. So we're just not sleeping for three weeks. Good to have a plan.
Matt smiled at her, and she smiled back, and it lasted about a beat too long. He turned back to the whiteboard.
In the far corner, Dave was asleep in his chair with his headphones still on, mouth open, a half-finished Red Bull warming on his desk next to a sleeping bag wadded up underneath it. He'd been at the office since Wednesday. Nobody said anything about that anymore.
Tom nodded toward Dave.
He just runs hot. He'll be fine once we ship.
Sara didn't say anything. She sat down at her desk and put her headphones on and started typing. Lo-fi beats leaked out, tinny and small in the big room.
Matt looked at the whiteboard. Nineteen days. The marker cap was cracked where he'd bitten it.
Matt waited until Sara's typing had settled into a rhythm before he crossed to Tom's desk. He pulled Dave's empty chair over and sat in it backwards, arms folded across the back.
Tom closed his laptop. Not all the way — just enough that the screen light cut off his face.
What's the number.
Which number.
The one you've been staring at all night instead of looking at me.
Tom's thumb went to the corner of the laptop lid. He pressed the edge of it, released, pressed again — a small plastic click each time.
Runway's at forty-one days. If we factor in the Greystone payment on delivery, we're fine. If we miss, we're not fine.
We're not going to miss.
You moved the date up three days, Matt.
Because Greystone moved the date up three days. I just didn't argue.
Tom opened his mouth, then didn't. He straightened a stack of receipts on his desk that were already straight.
Say it.
Dave's sleeping here. Sara's running her team on four hours a night. And you just shaved three days off like it's nothing, and I'm the only one in this room who seems to think that's insane.
Across the room, Sara's keyboard went quiet.
It's not insane. It's the job. This is the part where it's supposed to be hard.
There's hard and there's —
He stopped. Dave shifted in his chair in the corner, mumbled something, and went still again. They both watched him for a second.
Yeah. Okay.
He zipped the trail mix bag slowly. Set it in his desk drawer.
I'm not trying to break anyone. You know that.
I know you're not trying to.
Matt sat with that for a moment. The nail salon's extractor fan kicked on two floors down — a low, grinding vibration that came up through the floor.
Forty-one days of runway is plenty. We ship in nineteen, collect on twenty, and then we breathe. That's the plan.
That's the plan.
Tom stood up, took his jacket off the back of his chair, and pulled out his phone. He checked something on it, then pocketed it fast — the way you clear a notification you don't want seen.
I'm going to go home and sleep like a human person. You should try it.
He squeezed Matt's shoulder on the way past. It was brief. Then he was down the stairs, and the street door banged shut below.
Matt sat in Dave's borrowed chair, facing Tom's empty desk. The laptop was still open that half-inch, a thin line of blue light along the seam.
Sara had pulled one headphone off.
I know he's not wrong.
She looked at him. He looked back.
You want to go get food? I can't eat any more of the pizza. I think it's becoming sentient.
It's midnight.
Yeah, Matt. I can tell time.
He laughed. It was the first real sound he'd made all night that wasn't about the launch.
Sara was already standing, pulling her jacket off the back of her chair. Matt didn't move.
One sec.
He crossed to Tom's desk. The laptop was still open that half-inch. He lifted the lid.
No lock. The screen was right there — Tom's email, still loaded. The top thread was from someone named Rachel Keane, subject line: Re: Preliminary conversation — next steps.
Matt scrolled down. The thread went back nine days. Phrases in Keane's messages: valuation floor. Team retention package. Before you're in a distressed position. Tom's replies were short, careful, spaced hours apart — the way he wrote when he was thinking too hard about every word.
Sara had stopped halfway to the stairs.
He didn't answer. He was reading a line from six days ago, from Tom: The other founder doesn't know we're talking. I need it to stay that way until I have something concrete to bring him.
Matt's hand was flat on the desk.
Sara came back across the room. She read over his shoulder. Neither of them spoke for a while.
I have no idea.
Acquisition. That's what this is.
In the corner, Dave coughed in his chair, headphones still on, head tipped back. He didn't wake up.
Matt straightened up from the desk.
Sara closed the laptop. All the way. The blue light disappeared.
Okay. What do you want to do right now.
Right now I want to call him and—
No. Not at midnight. Not like this.
Matt picked up Tom's bag of trail mix from the drawer — it was still open — and set it back down. He didn't know why he'd touched it.
Nine days. He's been doing this for nine days and sitting across from me talking about runway like he gives a shit about shipping.
He does give a shit about shipping. That's not — look, I'm not defending it. But those aren't mutually exclusive.
Matt looked at her.
Do what.
Make it reasonable. He went behind my back to sell my company.
Sara pulled her jacket tighter around herself.
You need to eat something. You need to not be in this room for an hour. And then tomorrow you figure out what this actually means.
Dave's Red Bull can rolled off his desk and hit the floor. Empty. It spun in a slow circle on the concrete and stopped.
Matt stared at the closed laptop.
Matt sat back down in Tom's chair. The email thread was still on the screen. He opened a new tab, logged into his own Gmail, and went back to Tom's inbox.
He forwarded the entire Rachel Keane thread to himself. The send confirmation appeared. He deleted it from Tom's sent folder, then emptied the trash.
Sara watched from the middle of the room, jacket half-on.
That's not food.
No it's not.
He closed the laptop and stood up. His phone buzzed in his pocket — the forwarded thread arriving. He left it there.
So now you have a copy of everything he said. And he doesn't know you have it. You see how that's the same thing he did to you.
Matt pushed Tom's chair back under the desk. Lined it up the way Tom kept it.
It's not the same thing.
Okay.
She didn't push it. She finished pulling on her jacket and stood by the stairs, waiting.
Matt crossed back toward his own desk to grab his keys. He passed Dave on the way — out cold, charger cord tangled around his ankle, mouth open. The sandwich Sara had brought him hours ago sat untouched on a napkin, the bread curling at the edges.
Matt stopped.
The emails said team retention package.
Team retention package. Like he's furniture.
Sara came back from the stairs. She stood next to Matt, both of them looking down at Dave. His monitor had gone to sleep. A Slack notification pulsed on his phone screen — a new build failure in staging, timestamped forty minutes ago. Neither of them mentioned it.
Sara's hand found Matt's arm, just above the elbow. Brief. Then she let go.
I keep thinking about the valuation floor. You put a floor on something when you think it's falling.
Matt.
Yeah. Taqueria. Let's go.
He grabbed his keys and his jacket. At the top of the stairs he looked back once — the office dark except for Dave's Slack notification pulsing on his phone.
Matt stopped on the stairs. Sara was two steps below him, keys already out.
Go ahead. I'll meet you there.
Matt.
Twenty minutes. I'll be there.
She looked at him for a long moment, then went down the stairs. The street door opened and closed. Matt walked back into the office.
Dave was still out. Charger cord around his ankle, head back, one arm hanging off the side of the chair. His phone screen had gone dark on the desk beside him. Matt pulled a chair over and sat down close enough that their knees almost touched.
He said it at normal volume.
Nothing. Matt reached over and pulled the headphones off.
Dave came up with a sharp inhale, hands grabbing the armrests, blinking hard against the overhead fluorescents that had been on so long nobody noticed them anymore.
What. What happened. Is the build—
Build's still broken. That's not why I woke you up.
Dave rubbed his face with both hands. His eyes were swollen. There was a crease on his cheek from the seam of his hoodie.
What time is it.
Almost midnight. Listen. I need to tell you something and I need you awake for it.
Dave sat up straighter. His fingers went to the label on his water bottle — the one that had replaced the Red Bull at some point during the day — and started working at the corner of it.
Tom's been talking to a company about acquiring us. Nine days. Behind my back.
Dave's fingers stopped on the label.
What company.
I don't know. Some woman named Rachel Keane. The emails talk about valuation floors and team retention packages and our distressed position. Those are the words she used. Distressed position.
Dave laughed. It was too loud and it bounced off the walls of the empty loft.
That's — okay. That's. Okay.
I found the emails on his laptop. He left it open.
Does he know you saw them.
No.
Dave peeled the label off the water bottle in one long strip. He rolled it between his fingers, tight, into a little tube.
I've been sleeping here since Wednesday, Matt.
I know.
My girlfriend thinks I'm having an affair. That's what she said. She said nobody works this much unless they're avoiding something or fucking someone. And I told her no, babe, I just really believe in this thing. I really believe in what we're building. That's what I said to her. On the phone, standing in the stairwell so you guys wouldn't hear me.
He flicked the label tube across his desk. It bounced off his monitor and landed on the keyboard.
Team retention package. What does that mean, they keep us on for six months and then gut the product?
I don't know what it means. I'm not going to let it happen.
Don't do the speech.
I'm not doing a speech.
You are. You're about to tell me we ship in nineteen days and collect from Greystone and everything's fine. And I'm asking you not to, because it's midnight and I've been sleeping in a chair and I just want you to tell me what's actually happening.
Matt leaned back. The chair creaked under him.
We have forty-one days of money. Tom thinks we can't ship in nineteen. And he's been hedging his bets for over a week in case he's right.
Can we ship in nineteen.
Matt looked at Dave's monitor. The Slack notification had timed out — just a lock screen now, Dave's dog as wallpaper, tongue out, blurry like he'd been moving when the photo was taken.
I don't know.
Dave let out a breath through his nose.
Okay. Well. Shit.
He laughed again, but quieter this time. He untangled the charger cord from his ankle and leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
So what, you want me to be mad at Tom? Because honestly, man, if someone told me a week ago there was a way out of this that didn't end with all of us broke and fucked, I might've listened too.
He didn't tell you a week ago. He didn't tell any of us.
Yeah. And you found out by going through his laptop, so I guess nobody here's winning any trust awards.
Matt looked at the floor. The Red Bull can from earlier was still there, on its side against the leg of Dave's desk.
What do you want me to do, Matt. Seriously. Because I'll fix the staging build and I'll keep going, but I need to know what I'm keeping going for.
The product. That's what you're keeping going for. Whatever happens with Tom, whatever happens with any of this — the thing we built is good. You know it's good.
Yeah. It is good.
Go meet Sara. I know she's waiting somewhere.
How do you—
Dude. I'm asleep, I'm not dead.
Matt stood. He put his hand on the back of Dave's chair, then thought better of it and let it drop.
I'll have the staging build fixed by morning. And then we're going to have a conversation. All four of us. In daylight. Like adults.
Matt nodded. He walked to the stairs. Behind him, he heard Dave crack his knuckles, then the sound of his keyboard — slow at first, then faster.
The air outside was cold. Matt stood on the sidewalk and pulled out his phone. The nail salon below was dark, its neon sign unplugged, and the street was empty except for a guy across Divisadero walking a pit bull that didn't want to be walked.
He typed: Tomorrow morning. 9. Office. We need to talk.
He stared at it. Deleted the period after the 9. Sent it.
Three dots appeared immediately. Tom was awake.
Everything alright?
Matt put the phone in his pocket and started walking toward Haight.
Sara was sitting on a bench outside the taqueria, legs crossed, scrolling her phone with one thumb. A paper bag sat next to her. She looked up when she heard him.
I ordered you the al pastor. If you wanted something else, that's a you problem.
He sat down next to her. Close enough that their jackets touched.
She handed him a foil-wrapped burrito. He unwrapped it and took a bite and realized he hadn't eaten since the pizza at lunch, which was ten hours ago or possibly in a different lifetime.
You told Dave.
Yeah.
How'd he take it.
He's fixing the staging build right now.
Sara nodded slowly.
I texted Tom. Told him nine AM tomorrow.
What'd he say.
He asked if everything's alright. I didn't answer.
Sara took a bite of her burrito and looked at the street. A bus went by, empty, lit up inside.
So he knows.
He doesn't know what I know.
Matt. You texted your co-founder at midnight saying 'we need to talk' and then went silent. He knows.
Matt's phone buzzed in his pocket. He didn't reach for it.
Good.
They ate. The taqueria's kitchen clattered behind them through the open window — someone hosing down a mat, a radio playing salsa. The air smelled like grilled onions.
What are you going to say to him.
He wadded the foil into a ball and turned it in his hands.
I don't know yet. I keep going back and forth between — I don't know.
She wiped her hands on a napkin and balled it up inside her own foil.
His phone buzzed again. He pulled it out this time. Two texts from Tom. The first: What's going on? The second, three minutes later: I'll be there at 9.
Matt locked the screen and set the phone face-down on the bench between them.
Dave said his girlfriend thinks he's having an affair. Because of how much he's at the office.
Yeah. I know about Jess.
You knew?
I manage his team, Matt. I know when my people are falling apart.
A couple walked past arguing quietly about whose Uber it was.
Am I the last person to know everything.
She almost smiled.
Tom's emails. Dave's girlfriend. What else am I missing.
Sara looked at him. The taqueria sign threw orange light across half her face.
Sara.
Don't.
Don't what.
Don't make me say something tonight that we have to deal with tomorrow on top of everything else.
Matt picked up his phone off the bench.
Okay.
Okay.
They sat there. The radio from the kitchen switched to something slower. Up the street, the loft's second-floor windows glowed — Dave, still in there.
Sara stood and gathered the foil and napkins.
They walked. Haight Street at one in the morning was just closed storefronts and the occasional person who wasn't going anywhere. Their footsteps fell in and out of sync. Sara's shoelace was untied and she didn't stop to fix it.
Her car was a block and a half down, under a streetlight that was out. She unlocked it and opened the door and stood in the gap.
Nine AM. Don't be late to your own ambush.
Sara.
Yeah.
Thanks for the burrito.
She got in. The engine turned over. She pulled out and her taillights shrank down Haight until she turned on Masonic and was gone.
Matt stood under the dead streetlight. His phone buzzed one more time. He looked at it. Tom again: I think I know what this is about. I'm sorry.
Matt read it twice. Then he started walking back toward Divisadero.
Matt crossed at the light on Haight and Divisadero. No cars anywhere. He crossed at the light anyway.
The burrito was half-eaten and still warm in the foil. He carried it in his left hand. His right hand was in his pocket, thumb resting on the edge of his phone.
The nail salon's awning sagged with condensation. The side door to the loft stairs was propped open with a cinder block — Dave, probably, airing the place out. Matt could hear the extractor fan from the street.
He sat down on the second step. The stairwell smelled like acetone and cold air. He ate the rest of the burrito slowly, tasting it this time — the pork, the pineapple, the char.
Upstairs, Dave's keyboard. Steady now. No pauses.
Matt balled up the foil and squeezed it until it was the size of a marble. He thought about driving to Tom's apartment in the Richmond. Showing up on the doorstep. Not waiting for nine AM and the performance of a scheduled reckoning.
But Tom had written I'm sorry, and Matt didn't know what to do with that. An apology that arrived before the accusation. It skipped a step. It took away the thing he'd been building toward all night, the righteous version of tomorrow morning, and he wasn't ready to give that up yet even though he knew that was ugly.
He pulled out his phone. 1:47 AM. Tom's messages still on the screen. He scrolled past them to Sara's name. No thread — they'd never texted anything that wasn't a Jira link or a lunch order.
He put the phone away.
The foil marble rolled when he set it on the step beside him. He caught it before it dropped. Held it. His hands were cold and he couldn't remember where he'd left his jacket — upstairs, maybe. Or the bench outside the taqueria.
He stood up, brushed off his jeans, and went upstairs.
Dave didn't look up. He was in the build, deep in it, three terminal windows open and his water bottle — labelless now, just a blank cylinder — next to his elbow. Matt dropped into his own chair across the room.
Dave said it without turning around.
Good.
Matt opened his laptop. The forwarded email thread was sitting in his inbox, bolded, unread. He looked at it for a long time. Then he opened the staging environment instead and started reading Dave's commit log, line by line, because that was the thing he could actually fix at two in the morning.
They worked. The building settled around them — pipes ticking, the extractor fan cycling down, the nail salon's refrigeration unit humming through the floor. Matt pulled up the sprint board and started moving tickets, not because it helped, but because his hands needed something to do that wasn't checking his phone.
At some point Dave got up and put coffee on. He brought Matt a cup without asking. It was bad. Matt drank all of it.