Chapters (45)
- Cover
- Dedication
- Pulse
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY–ONE
- TWENTY–TWO
- TWENTY–THREE
- TWENTY–FOUR
- TWENTY–FIVE
- TWENTY–SIX
- TWENTY–SEVEN
- TWENTY–EIGHT
- TWENTY–NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY–ONE
- THIRTY–TWO
- THIRTY–THREE
- THIRTY–FOUR
- THIRTY–FIVE
- THIRTY–SIX
- THIRTY–SEVEN
- THIRTY–EIGHT
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- RESOURCES
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- What’s next onyour reading list?
Lucy only made it halfway down the hall before she slowed, leaned her head against the crap-colored walls, and tried to stop her heart from racing.
Level 7. Seven hearts was Racing.
Like everyone her age, like everyone in the world, Lucy knew the Pulse levels as well as her home address. “What’s your Pulse?” were the first words off anyone’s lips upon meeting, the first background check determining worthiness for everything from friend to blind date to party invites, probably even job offers.
The brainchild of Ryan Thompson when he was only a year older than Lucy, the app amalgamated an individual’s likes, favorites, views, thumbs-ups, and more from every major social media platform, translating it to a simple Pulse level, ranking you from zero, Dead, all the way to ten, Crushing It. Over time, as the app evolved, Level 10s became top influencers, the people everyone wanted to be or be seen with. Advertisers and the entertainment business soon realized that Level 10s’ smiling faces could increase sales and media coverage. Now 10s got complimentary everything, from the newest iPhones to dips in Iceland’s Blue Lagoon. To be a 10 was to live with all the perks.
Once Lucy and her team won the ValleyStart incubator, Pulse would be her second home for the rest of the summer. The prize of an internship at the most successful tech company in the past ten years was worth more than any amount of money.
She’d use it to her advantage. Starting now.
Lucy opened the Stanford portal and did what she’d wanted to do for weeks, since she was accepted into ValleyStart. She requested a second alumni interview. She knew it was irregular, but she explained that she had new information she was delighted to share—namely the incubator.
Lucy then lifted her chin higher and straightened her top. As she passed by the largest office—a suite—she ran her finger along the three little letters on the nameplate: CEO.
Pulse would secure that future.
At the elevators, Lucy logged in to the ValleyStart portal to find not just the names of her teammates but her assigned mentor: Ryan Thompson.
For the first time since arriving at her mom’s office, Lucy smiled.
TWO
DESIGN HACKER • A term that attempts to paint graphic designers as more “techie”
THE ODDS OF FINDING a four-leaf clover are the same as being injured by a toilet. Maddie Li had yet to be the one in ten thousand to go toe-to-toe with a bathroom fixture, but she had come across a four-leaf clover. She’d plucked it from the green lawn of the expansive quad in Harvard Yard only six blocks from her Cambridge home when she was nine. It had hung around her neck, encased in a tiny glass ornament, ever since.
A constant reminder of what else came into her life that day: her little brother, Danny.
“Not a single pterodactyl. Defective, Maddie, I’m telling you.”