Hari yanked his hand away, wrapped his arms around himself, and started rocking. “They make you move out of the city. I don’t know any place outside San Francisco. Other places scare me. Everyone looks at me funny if I sit on a park bench. One time they cleared out our tents. Mikhail knew they were going to do it and we took the Caltrain to Palo Alto. When I sat on a park bench someone called the cops and they came and chased us away.”

“You won’t have to sit on a park bench. We’ll figure it out, okay? You’re a genius. You see numbers and data like no one else can. Everyone needs numbers and data. We just have to figure out how to put your genius to use. Listen, I have a friend who wants to help you. He has a lot of money. He can help get you and Mikhail and all your friends off the street if we can just show him how to do it. How to put your skills to use.”

Vansh had been part of programs that had done far harder things, in places with nowhere near the same resources. The way to get people out of poverty was to give them a sustainable means to generate income. It was basically a matter of seeding the income generation. There was more income to be had here in San Francisco than anywhere else in the world.

“You won’t tell Yash and Nisha, will you?” Hari repeated, eyes skimming the room as though Vansh’s siblings might pop out of the woodwork.

“Hari, they won’t care. They won’t judge you. They’re not like that.”

Hari started shaking again. Tears ran down his cheeks. “I can’t have them think of me like that.”

Vansh kicked himself. He couldn’t bamboozle Hari into trusting anyone else before he earned his trust himself. “I’m sorry. Don’t cry. We won’t involve Yash and Nisha. Like I said, my friend Jiggy Mehta is on board with helping us.”

“Is Jiggy Mehta the guy who runs Omnivore?” Hari said, eyes suddenly clear.

Vansh sat up. “Yes, do you know him?”

“My partner Jim, he wanted to sell our drill-down technology to Omnivore, but then Facebook changed something so our technology no longer worked with it.” Apparently after graduating grad school, Hari and this Jim guy had started a company that ran analytics on social media platforms to identify consumer behavior.

“But you used that technology for Yash’s campaign, right?”

Hari’s eyes got shifty. “You can’t tell anyone that.”

“Why?”

“If Jim finds out, he’ll sue me. The patent for my technology is in his name.”

“Why?”

“Because he put his own name on the patent.”