StartUp (2016) s02e03 Episode Script

That boy in there, he needs his father right now.
I had a family.
They cared about me.
While you only think about yourself.
Coming here to tell me to sit still.
Business has been cut in half the last month.
Couple of hoods over, they've been pulling money down on the Dark Web.
You know about that shit? What are you doing over there? Using individual PCs as a decentralized data storage.
I created a software that you can copy onto any device.
It gives you access to the Dark Net.
It's my Dark Net.
I call it ArakNet.
I'm gonna find him for you.
You take me to his front door, we got a deal.
Amen.
And now, Andrew's only son, Nicholas, will say a few words.
Thank you.
That was beautiful.
Thank you.
Hi, there.
Um I'm Uh, Dad and I, we'd fish a lot.
That was, uh That was kind of our thing, I guess.
And, um So, one time, when I was very young, must have been eight or nine, we were staying in this cabin on Lake Okeechobee, and we were out on the dock, my dad and I, and I reeled in this two-foot pike.
And if you don't know, pike are really ugly fish.
They're bony, they're skinny, ugly.
Anyways, it was the first fish I've ever reeled in by myself, so I was ecstatic.
I was very, very, very pleased.
And I really wanted to eat it.
Uh My mom was less than thrilled because she's gonna have to cook it.
And so, she's explaining to me that after it's cleaned and deboned, I mean, there's gonna be no meat left to eat.
But I didn't want to hear it.
I was determined to eat that fish.
So dinner was served, and I had it in front of me, and I took my first bite, and it tasted awful.
Just really, really, really bad.
Man, I was disappointed.
And, uh, my dad could see that.
He reached over and he took a bite, and he, um He was, I mean, really, really tasting it.
I mean, closing his eyes and absorbing all the flavors.
And he opened his eyes, and he says, "Wow! This is the most amazing, delicious fish I've ever put in my mouth.
" Slaps me on the back.
And, uh, I didn't believe him.
But, uh, still Still really nice to hear, you know.
And everywhere we went for the rest of the weekend he would tell anyone who would listen about this delicious fish that his son caught.
And I think that was my dad in a nutshell.
Uh, he was always trying to make those around him feel good.
Didn't matter who they were, whether they were, uh, a complete stranger or his only son.
- So sorry.
- Thank you.
Thank you for coming.
- Good job.
- Thanks.
- Yeah, really.
- Yeah.
- Nick.
- Hey.
I'm not even sure you remember me.
No, of course I do.
Wes.
- My deepest condolences.
- Thank you.
He was a dear friend, a beautiful human being.
- I appreciate it.
- And Look at you.
- The last time I saw you - Yeah, it was long ago.
- you were a scrawny little kid.
- I know, I know.
It was quite a while ago.
I'm not even sure if this is appropriate here, but, look, let me buy you dinner.
- Okay? We'll shoot the shit.
- Sure.
Tell great stories about your old man, like that pike story.
- You liked that? - I love that story.
More of that, please.
Sure.
Absolutely.
Let me, um I think my schedule is pretty hectic the next couple of weeks, - and then I should be, uh - No.
No pressure, bro.
It's just I thought the world of your old man, the least I could do is buy his kid a meal.
I appreciate that.
Hey, come here.
I wish the circumstances were different.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, can't win 'em all.
That's a good one.
Can't win 'em all.
Take it easy, Nick.
Where you been? My dad's funeral.
Wait, what? Dude, are you okay? Yeah.
Yeah, I'm okay.
You just went to Panama and you didn't find him, I thought I know, I know.
I didn't tell you that part.
Sorry.
I, uh I did find him, um, not in a jar.
But, uh, someone killed him, so he's dead.
Fuck! That's you dad? Um Well, police said there are multiple killers, people, I don't know.
Some local gang.
Uh He was just probably into them for a lot of money, like everyone else in his life, so I'm gonna go and take a shower and go to bed.
Dude, I'm sorry.
Thank you.
- He's good.
- He's good.
- He's doing good.
- Right.
Right, right.
- He's fucking with him, right? - Yeah, he's fucking with him.
Oh, bro.
- Izzy told me what happened.
- Oh, yeah, yeah, thanks.
Thanks.
That's okay.
I'm fine.
- That's your old man, bruh.
- Yeah.
Don't matter if you don't like him.
Yeah.
What you guys working on? I'm fine.
I am.
What are you up to? She ain't tell you what we got cooking? No.
I saw she hijacked my living room while I was gone.
- Yeah.
- I sure did.
Okay.
So this is a highly encrypted network.
It's based off of the Onion routing method.
- I call this baby ArakNet.
- ArakNet.
- He liked the name.
- Okay.
So I was just showing Ronnie how many users are on the network already.
Basically, 12 users actively buying and selling goods.
- All right.
- Is it like the Silk Road? - Kind of like that? - No.
Silk Road is just a marketplace, this is, basically, the new Dark Net.
And nobody can touch it except us.
So then how, how do people know about it? Where'd you get the users? I just handed out software to big dogs around town.
Buyers, sellers, that kind of shit.
Speaking of.
- Buying thumb drives in bulk? - Just till there's enough people on the network, then it grows by itself.
It's just little seeds that we're planting around the city.
Cool.
All right, so, uh, I'll talk to Big Keith.
He runs this area up here.
- Who's this? - He's gonna be my number one.
Okay.
And what did the DOJ say? Well, it's a little trickier now with his old man murdered.
Have they found who did it? Local boys think it was a mercenary job.
And no-one thinks it could have been Nicholas? - Mmm.
- They're suspicious of the timing, but they'll let him go.
Plenty of other people wanting that guy dead.
We're about to launch a new product in conjunction with GenCoin, but my investors are still feeling very shaky, with Talman not behind bars.
Well, it takes time.
You know, there's lots of regulations here.
It's not like your country.
- Okay.
- And Isabelle? What? She's She's fine.
What? She is.
Look, she knows she messed up.
There's nothing to be done there.
Phil, if you're wrong about this Yeah, I know.
I know.
I'm here to see Big Keith.
I'm gonna want that back.
Big Keith, my nigga.
So where you hurtin' at? Toolies? White? What's up? I got no problem moving nothing right now, homeboy.
How many of your jits got sent away last year? What you doing down here, huh, Ronnie? You know I still owe you.
If DeAndre come up in here and catch your Haitian ass up in here, he gonna put a zo down.
You feel me? I'm not here to talk to DeAndre, I'm here to talk to Big Keith.
If you want DeAndre and them to see you do some new shit around here, see you making moves, install this on your computer at home.
Make copies.
Tell all your friends.
Your customers, your dealers, everybody you know.
I guarantee you'll see what's up.
If you don't, burn this shit.
No big.
- What's funny? - What's that? This shit right here is funny? Look, you're still running around here with more of that computer shit or whatever.
All the people are talkin', man, they're saying you some sort of damn fool for letting the northside fall apart the way it has.
The pigs busted up Lemon City.
Ain't nothin' I could do about that.
But you was on some Bitcoin shit, then.
People thought you was tripping, right? Now, you're on this shit.
What's next, brother? You're gonna be talkin' to Allah or some shit? Huh? You waiting on some kind of divine intervention or some shit, huh? Is that what's next? - It was GenCoin.
- What? It's not Bitcoin, it's GenCoin.
And me and mine, we got cheated out of that shit by some Russian thugs.
But had we still been on that If you, DeAndre, everybody that I talked to had been on that What's this? That's where GenCoin at right now.
You missed out on this, bruh, so maybe you don't want to miss out on this.
Yes! Ronnie! Declan, it's been a minute.
Yes, it has.
Can I get you something? Jude make the best flan there is.
So, where you hurtin'? Crystal? Pills, mostly.
Some flakka up around the beaches.
All right.
Load this onto your PC, laptop, cell phone.
Share it with your customers and with your friends.
Network already 100 strong, and it is still growing.
And it ain't just toolies and white.
We got that fraud game, that ID theft, and a whole bunch of new hustle type shit.
That right there, that's ArakNet.
You made that shit? Don't nobody know who made that shit.
I'm just pushing it out to you 'cause this shit good for all of us.
All right, take it or leave it.
We both know the feds are cracking down on them pill poppin' kids in Pinecrest.
That shit That shit will solve all your problems.
Hey, Nick! This grouper is about to swim back to sea, man.
Come on! Well, there's enough nodes on the network where I can add another hop.
It'll make it more secure.
Yes, still don't know what y'all talking about because I'm old as shit.
Yes, you are.
Look real quick.
Liberty City dude makes a transaction with a dude in Homestead.
These two computers aren't talking directly to each other.
Any cop or hacker can easily intercept that.
So what ArakNet does, it turns all the other computers on the network into hops, right? Liberty City here is the entrance node.
Dude buys a gram of pookie from Homestead dude, Homestead becomes the exit node.
Right.
But the request comes from Liberty City, the entrance node, hops over to somewhere over here in North Miami Beach, down to some pill popper in Coral Gables, to a computer in Overtown, back to homeboy in Homestead.
Different configuration every time, that's what makes it impossible to trace.
My girl.
Yo, um, if you ever need any help with anything, just let me know.
- You know JavaScript? - No.
But, I mean I'm interested.
You know, I wanna learn.
Mmm-hmm.
Cool.
Learn JavaScript, then we'll talk.
Okay.
Yo, kid.
Go on this website, there's a bunch of self-teaching programs.
Thanks.
- Hey.
- Yo.
Ow! Listen.
Uh, I did a little thinking after you showed me the ArakNet thing.
I've been doing a little of my own research.
There is an overwhelming demand for this sort of thing right now.
Law enforcement's getting smarter, hackers are getting savvier.
Just forget about the pedestrian Internet.
I mean, even the Dark Net itself is becoming polluted with corporations and surveillance.
And new and upcoming generations are absolutely looking for a new safe haven, somewhere pure.
So I think I really think that this could be not only the new Dark Net, I think it could be the new Internet.
So Yeah, that's, um, kind of what we're already doing.
Yeah.
But what are you going to do when your network grows to thousands? Or millions? Or billions? Where are you gonna store all that data? Each computer on the network lends storage space.
It's like one big decentralized server.
All right, sure.
I've read about another home-grown network that's doing that same method.
But it's really slow, isn't it? It's not slow.
It's slow.
It's really, really slow.
You want this thing to grow, you want it to spread? You want to have hundreds of people buying and selling drugs or do you want millions of people buying and selling legitimate goods? You have to think about the average customer.
Now, there's no way in hell, any millennial is gonna wait more than .
4 seconds for something to load or buffer.
So, in the meantime, you're just gonna be waiting until somebody comes along with more money, more global reach, and they're gonna swallow you up.
There's one company out there that's already off to something.
They've been They have a product that's been generating a little bit of heat in the last couple of months.
Husband and wife team out of Sweden, they invented a browser encryption called Guizer.
- Never heard of it.
- Well, you should have.
You have to be in front of these things, that's why you need me.
To do what? I think I should be your CEO.
Why are you laughing? It's not It's not funny.
- It's kind of funny.
- I think you're getting hung up on the word.
We would all be equal partners.
I'm not saying I would be a larger partner.
But I would make the decisions.
You need somebody to make the decisions and lead.
And what makes you more qualified to do that than either one of us? Let me ask you this.
Let me ask you guys both this.
Who here, as it stands, is the decision maker? - Me.
- We both are.
That's exactly my point.
Guys, we lost GenCoin 'cause we were sloppy, and we were all lookin' at each other, hoping someone else would solve the problem, and we just imagined it would work out based on the merit of Izzy's code.
Izzy, let me take all the bullshit off your plate.
Let me do all the things that you don't wanna do so you can spend 100% of your time creating and innovating.
Nick, all this going global stuff, I get it, but it's an assload of money that we don't have.
I'll get you money.
How much? How much would you need to blow it out? To go global and Just your dream version? - Aim high.
- I need a real team.
- Okay.
How much? - I need a network manager, I need at least two cryptographers, I need a couple of more coders other than myself.
- How much? - Millions.
I can get you millions.
Then why the hell you still waitin' tables? I'm not.
I quit.
- What? When? - I - Thirty-eight minutes ago.
- Shit.
You're sitting on the next big thing.
You need somebody to make it real.
I can do that.
But you have to empower me.
I do need this thing to move fast, though.
At the hood, we're seein' some returns, but it ain't close to where we need to be.
We're gonna bastardize ArakNet.
The whole point of this thing was that there was no funding and no strings.
Yeah, but South Beach, he got a point.
We barely growin'.
And before we know it, somebody else gonna create something just like this, everybody's gonna jump on it then.
Yes, they are.
Listen, just give me three weeks.
That's what I'm saying.
Give me three weeks, I'll get you the money.
If I don't, I'll leave.
Whatever.
We'll say goodbye, no hard feelings.
I'll go back to selling tuna tartar on the beach.
And I can't eat out of this, or No, sorry.
But I do have these hand-made bowls if you're looking for something more dining oriented.
Yeah, I don't really know.
It's a gift for my daughter in law.
Oh, that's nice.
How's work? Fine.
Work's fine.
Look, sweetheart, can we get dinner? I wanna catch up.
Just an hour or so.
Um, Kevin and I were supposed to go out with friends.
Just an hour.
We can go to Emily's or somewhere else this time.
- I really can't.
Not tonight.
- No? Okay.
All right.
Okay, what did Mom say? About me? She said some things, right? So, what did she say? Why are you avoiding me? Come on, help me out.
She said that you've been acting weird, and that she's worried about you, that you're not quite yourself.
And she told me to steer clear for a bit, till you get help.
Finley.
Finley Can we sit? Will you just sit with me, please? I just wanna talk to you.
First of all, she's right.
Your mom is right.
You should steer clear.
I'm not well.
I'm not well.
Also, I think something is about to happen soon.
Something big, something messy.
And you're gonna hear some things.
You're gonna hear some things that I'm not proud of.
But I want you to know it has no bearing on how I feel about you or your mom for that matter.
Dad, what do you mean by I just needed to tell you that in person.
Okay.
To your father, a man who knew no boundaries, who lived every moment to its fullest, and who loved bigger than any man I've ever met.
That eulogy, it was very touching.
It takes a real man to lay his sword down like that.
Well, thank you.
Is it true? - Uh, was the story true? - Sentiment.
Sure.
I mean, look, nobody says the bad things at a funeral, right? I said some awful shit when I buried my mother.
- Really? - Mmm-hmm.
Yeah, I think, uh Think I even used the word "whore" at one point.
- In the eulogy? - Mmm-hmm.
Now, look, there's I mean, there's plenty more I could have said.
So I know about the investigation.
Yeah.
Uh, good.
Let's talk about that.
That's, uh That's actually bullshit.
- That's gonna be cleared up.
- Mmm.
We're fine.
I mean, rich white guys, we don't go to jail.
Well, I imagined, uh, you have a little experience with that, right? Please don't take offense.
The only thing that offends me, son, is dishonesty.
Okay.
Well Then let me just say that I didn't call you to share stories, as delightful as that sounds.
That That part was dishonest of me.
Okay.
- So, hit me.
- Well, uh First of all, you and my dad, I know what you guys were doing back then.
Well, if you didn't, you'd have to be pretty thick.
Fair enough.
Uh, so I would imagine that it's been pretty difficult, the last 17 years or so, to get back to where you were before the tech bubble burst.
What if I told you there's a new tech frontier on the horizon? A new Dark Net, completely separate from Tor.
It has its own software, it's on its own network.
Goods and services can be bought or sold, information exchanged, political uprisings orchestrated.
All securely, all anonymously.
It's free from government interference, it's free from corporatization.
This network is controlled by myself and two other very smart people.
And what if I was to tell you that we're not even financed yet.
But we have a faster growth rate right now than Tor.
I'd say that was impossible.
- Oh, yeah? - Yeah.
I mean, unless Unless you've got some government agency, or at least a massive corporation behind you.
See, you don't need those things, not when you have my secret weapon.
The Albanians might do it.
I could call my guy in China.
Nah.
Fuck that.
He's too safe.
It's zero risk for them.
As long as you connect us, rent them as nodes.
Maybe they'll do it for free.
Jesus Christ.
And you want five hops? Maybe six.
Six hops, different countries? Impossible to trace.
I mean, that's the safest network ever built.
Literally.
Encryption is gonna be a beast.
Slow as Southern balls.
You just need to have the right cipher.
What, you're gonna build that, too, while you're working on the code? - I bet Stella could do it.
- I'll find someone.
You talk to her? Huh? Stella.
I said she'd do a great job with the cipher.
Nah.
Uh-uh.
What's up with her anyway? Heard she turned down some big job at Raytheon.
Heard she's getting married.
She's not gonna do it.
Come on, Queen.
She's not gonna do it, okay? So I'll find someone.
That's fine.
Your call.
Just gonna need half of my money upfront.
- I can't do that.
- Cool.
Then you sholdn't have any problem finding somebody else to work for you.
Rance, come on.
Maybe we can work out some sort of stake.
Company's gonna be printing cash once we launch.
So just like GenCoin, right? - It's not like I cut you out.
- I worked for you for three months.
Moonlighting for free.
- You screwed me, bitch.
- I got screwed, Rance.
Had it not been stolen from me, we'd be sharing a nice little office right now.
You are so good with promises.
Think it's your favorite part.
Follow up, not so much.
I'll absorb your debts.
Just put me in contact with whoever you owe, and I will take over.
Everything.
Don't know if you'd wanna do that.
Hmm.
Is that a yes? Okay.
Alma.
Hey, girl.
- How are you? - Hey.
I made way too much of this.
Oh, I bet you did.
Thanks for having us over, Alma.
That's some good-looking meat there, son.
What they do, big man.
Sorry, dog, my hand is all pork juiced and shit.
You want a beer or something? - You know I don't drink, E.
- Oh, that's right.
Thanks for comin', though, fam.
Ah.
Thanks for having us.
Is your girl good? Word.
She good.
She straight.
We cleaned that rent situation up for you, ain't that right? - Money flowin' in.
- For sure.
For sure.
Business is good.
Business with the Klan or some shit.
- What's that? - I'm saying, dog.
Declan? Declan? E, you understand how business works? This here is business.
Big Keith talk about business.
Liberty City overtime.
This is where the future is going.
We need everybody.
We need everybody to be in this.
You understand what I'm saying? It's the white man's future, if you ask me.
My nigga, y'all come up to me, ask me to come up with a solution.
I found a solution.
There's food on the table.
ArakNet put this here.
You understand? If you don't like it, you ain't got to eat it, nigga.
If you ain't like it, nigga, you ain't got to eat! You ain't got to eat, nigga.
None of y'all got to eat if you don't like it.
None of y'all got to eat! There's food on the table! - Tam.
- What? Just come with it, babe.
They tryin' to tell you something, Ronnie.
Okay? They tryin' to talk to you.
Yeah, they talkin' nonsense.
They wanted more business, that's what I'm doing.
I'm bringing back more business.
They want more than that.
I done broke off as much this week as we done before that whole Lemon City thing.
It ain't just about money, Ronnie, okay? They want They want power.
Ain't no difference, Tam.
Yeah, there is.
Because all them niggas have been talking shit.
All of them, not just E.
And you don't like it when people talk shit about your man, huh? You goddamn right I don't.
'Cause that shit make you look bad, huh? Ronnie, you trippin'.
Oh, oh, you think you on? For real, Ronnie? You just gonna You just gonna do me like that? Ronnie, don't walk away from me.
Ronnie, I ain't you nigga.
Don't walk away from me.
Ronnie! Goddammit.
I ain't tryin' to hear that shit about who run the streets harder! I ain't tryin' to hear that shit from E.
I ain't tryin' to hear that shit from friends, and, baby, I ain't tryin' to hear that shit from you! I'm tryin' to make money! And when we make that money, the rest of these fools, they can fend for themselves, 'cause we're getting up out of here.
We're taking Touie, we're taking Els, and we're getting out of here.
Come on! What the fuck? Who are you? - Who are you? - I am fuckin' Izzy's friend.
- I'm crashing here.
- You're in my fuckin' loo.
Shut the goddamn door! Jesus! So rude.
Yo, our network manager needs to stay here for a bit.
Yeah, I know.
I just saw his dick.
Ybor City's, like, four hours away and he's workin' for free so - Okay, I get it.
- We got to pay him soon.
I sort of floated him some cash.
- We don't have any cash.
- Yeah, exactly.
So I have a problem right now.
Hmm.
Why are you just, like, smiling? 'Cause I may have fixed that already.
Shut up.
Your dad's friend? He's interested.
He's really interested.
Wants me to go to his Key this week.
His "Key"? What the fuck is his Key? - Well, you know how there's the Keys? - Uh-huh.
This is just a Key, as is one.
So I should come with you and explain Nope, nope.
He asked just for me.
You have that call with the Swedes soon.
Yeah.
Ronnie, they're about to call us.
Okay, right here.
Just right here.
Cool.
All right, listen.
That's them.
That's them calling.
Look.
Let's just be super nice, and keep an open mind.
Might even be worth partnering with.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! - Wait, what? - Wait, partnering? I'm just saying let's keep all our options open.
No.
This was supposed to be a brain rape.
- What? - She wants to steal their shit.
Hey, we're not stealing anything.
I am interested in what is best for ArakNet.
And if partnering with them is what's best, we should strongly consider that.
I'm gonna make these decisions.
That was the deal.
- Pretty sure that's the deal we made.
- Okay.
Okay, I'm gonna answer this, hope you stick around.
Hello.
Hi, hi.
Can you guys Can you see us? Uh, yeah, we can see you.
Can you see us? Yeah, we can.
Looks dark out there already.
Yeah.
You know, it's 5:30 in the evening here, so - That's wild.
- Wild.
This is, uh, Ronald, this is Izzy, and I'm Nick.
I'm Joni, and this is my wife and research partner Milla.
- Hello.
- Nice to meet you.
- Thank you so much for hopping on with us.
- Yeah, of course.
Um, so we were doing a little research and we came across your project.
Uh, now, did you guys write it? Yes.
Uh, so Joni authored the browser program, and I did the encryption.
Yeah, I think I read about you guys a couple of years ago - on the WireTap blog.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, they do an article.
That was very nice, so Yeah, it was very nice.
And we are a fan of your work, too, Isabelle.
Yeah.
We take a look at your GenCoin code, and it's amazing.
Yeah, thank you.
Why did you decide to leave? If you don't mind us asking.
Um, I'm just, like, into new things now.
Yeah, anyway, we don't want to take up too much of your time.
Uh, just wanted to introduce ourselves, and, uh, you know, maybe talk a little shop.
See how things are going on in your project, - how far along you are.
- Yeah, yeah, of course.
Um, but, uh Yeah, so we would really like to talk about Guizer, but But we can't really discuss any details is the thing.
Yeah, so we just signed an NDA with someone because We wouldn't want to get you in trouble or anything.
Are they out there already? The company? Yeah, it's actually a real coincidence.
- Uh, well, maybe not really.
- No.
I mean, come on, it's one of the biggest there is.
But still.
What's the coincidence? Who did you sell to? Who did you sell to? To Axis.
Your friend, Alex Bell.
Yeah.
Isn't that wild? Hello? Fuck!