Total pages in book: 30
Estimated words: 27691 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 138(@200wpm)___ 111(@250wpm)___ 92(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 27691 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 138(@200wpm)___ 111(@250wpm)___ 92(@300wpm)
Still, I straighten my shoulders and force myself to concentrate because my financial future is on the line. You can do it, my inner voice speaks. You have to, Angie, because the money’s running out so try to project confidence. Broadcast assurance, and you’ll land the job lickety-split.
I know the voice is right, and I smooth down my skirt once more while taking a deep breath. You can do this, I tell myself. Then as if on cue, the door to the sitting room opens, and a male secretary appears.
“Miss White? Mr. Masters is ready for you,” he says in a smooth tone. “Follow me, please.”
I stand in the small drawing room, brushing imaginary lint from my skirt while trying to contain my nerves. Did he say Mr. Masters, or was that my imagination? I genuinely believe that a billionaire is too busy to interview someone as lowly as a housekeeper, but now ... it seems I’m being led to the lion’s den.
2
Dominic
I stare at the resume before me without really seeing it. After twenty-five years of hiring and firing, I know not to trust a piece of paper when it comes to assessing a person. After all, how can something as complex and unpredictable as a human being be encapsulated by words on an A4 sheet? It makes no sense whatsoever.
Then again, I suppose I have an especial insight into the inner workings of how the human brain functions because my company, Regeneron AI, is focused on artificial intelligence. We have a bunch of shit in the works, but right now we’re lasered in on text-to-image models, as well as text-to-video programs. It’s exactly what it sounds like. You punch a bunch of descriptors into a box, and then our program spits out an image matching that description.
It took a while to get here, to be honest. Our first model sucked because our text-to-image generators were limited to collages created from existing component images. Literally, someone would type in “blue car,” and then our program would assemble an image of a blue car from a database of clip art. As you can imagine, the results were often choppy and imprecise, and couldn’t be used for their intended purpose.
But over time, our models improved. Instead of using the collage method, we now use a transformer model which utilizes conditional generative adversarial networks. What this means is that instead of directly training a model to output a high-resolution image conditioned on a text embedding, we train a model to generate low-resolution images, and then use one or more auxiliary deep learning models to upscale it to fill in finer details. It’s boring shit, but the long and the short of it is that our model improved a lot. It’s accurate, it’s responsive, and it’s easy to use. Now, when you type in “blue car,” you actually get a blue car without jagged edges and a steering wheel sticking out of the trunk. Even more, users are now willing to pay for our product, and the money’s been coming in tidal waves.
But I’m not just a scientist. I’m also a businessman, and it simply made no sense for Regeneron to stay in San Francisco after we started getting big because the Bay Area is bad for business. Taxes are high, crime is out of control, and the cost of living is exorbitant. Our employees can’t afford to rent an apartment in the city, and are forced to commute two hours to work each way. Don’t even get me started on Gavin Newsom, either. That fucker wants to be president one day, and he doesn’t give a shit about the actual people who live in California. He only cares about making himself look good, even if it means throwing companies like Regeneron under the bus.
So I did what any self-respecting billionaire does. I moved my company to Austin. It wasn’t a difficult decision either because the city made us a deal. We’d re-home our operations in return for sweet tax subsidies lasting over twenty years. Not only that, but my employees will actually be able to afford to live here in Austin. They’ll be able to hit traditional milestones like purchasing a home, getting married, and starting a family. These cornerstones were out of reach when we were in SF, and despite encouragement from the left to “rethink” these life choices, I know my people were despondent about their futures. California was an impossible situation, and I made the decision to get out.
But now, I’m situated in a huge house in Austin which needs TLC. No property can run itself, and these old estates are especially prone to disrepair. When I bought the Holly Pines mansion, it was already crumbling at the edges, and so I had the roof re-done, as well as the interiors refurbished, and the pool completely torn out and re-filled. But day-to-day maintenance is also key to a well-run estate, and as a result, I’m looking for a housekeeper to oversee my staff. He or she needs to be professional, orderly, and with the right demeanor. This property is worth over ten million dollars, and I can’t have a doofus at the helm.