Kickoff

This is the prologue to my book

The door closes behind you with a heavy thud, its sound reverberating down the hallway. Other doors echo the same noise as people emerge, badges swinging on lanyards. In the elevator, the badges match, yet no one meets your gaze. Thin suits, European accents. Silent strangers.

The elevator opens. People drift toward the fountain. Some gather in clusters; others aim for coffee. You navigate the casino, unsure of the path but moving instinctively. Stale air hums with slot machine chatter, carpets swirling with garish patterns. Badges appear, scattered among gamblers and tourists. A greeter stands in your company colors, holding a staff topped with a blinking logo, herding the wandering crowd.

The path grows clearer, the movement more unified. No familiar faces yet, but you all share the same destination. You glance at your watch—7:45. Too late for breakfast, but early enough for the auditorium. You follow the flow, checking your phone for coordinates, passing fountains and storefronts as the carpet gives way to concrete. Familiar faces flicker by—LinkedIn connections, intranet profiles made flesh. Celebrities in a microcosm.

Black logo polos mark the tech consultants. Polished suits signal the salespeople. Groups form and dissolve like waves, a quiet choreography. At the escalators, glass walls frame an empty swimming pool, a blue stillness beneath the rising sun. The air shifts as the crowd thickens. Billboards line the walls, showcasing employees posed like actors, faces familiar but distant. A VP grins with raised fists; another leaps in triumph. Performances of enthusiasm.

The auditorium looms. The herd splinters—left, right, up, down. The smell of food lingers, but you bypass the gummy breakfast burritos, content with coffee. Texts buzz: a teammate has claimed seats. You join the stream, shepherded by greeters. The doors part, revealing a cavernous space that pulses with light and sound. Music thunders. Screens flash slogans and faces, five thousand voices blending into a low hum.

You descend the metal stairs, imagining the concerts and fights this venue has hosted. On the floor below, executives cluster in the front rows. They smile, shake hands, and trade whispers—small conspiracies you’ll only hear about later. You see them as they are, yet always as something else: disembodied heads from virtual meetings made real.

The lights dim. A video begins. A Hollywood celebrity appears, speaking of technology’s boundless future. The tone is grave, the imagery frenetic. The message: the company is here, essential, transformative. Applause stirs, uneven at first, then builds. A voice booms, announcing the head of global sales—this is a sales event, after all. The leader bounds out across the massive carpeted stage, amplified, rehearsed. His welcome is breathless, followed by a self-deprecating joke. Humor gives way to metrics. The stakes are outlined: deals to close, targets to hit. Beneath the energy lies urgency, an unspoken tension.

The program unfurls—speaker after speaker, intercut with staged interviews broadcast onto massive screens. People drift in and out of the auditorium. Some hungover, some restless, some absent-mindedly searching for connection in the monotony. The day stretches on, and the crowd is released back into the labyrinth. There will be sessions, dinners, parties. Some will stay out late; others will retreat. Most will rise the next morning, bleary-eyed, to repeat the ritual.

This is the Sales Kickoff. A spectacle of momentum, a carefully orchestrated machine. All the big tech companies do it. For this one and for all of them, the founder was once the centerpiece, his words a beacon. Now the CEO is the star of stars, star above all others. Now the founder moves anonymously through the crowd, his presence faint, his legacy obscured by the sheer mass of it all. Now the CEO arrives onstage in clouds of smoke and flashes of light. Now is now and there is only now—it’s ServiceNow.