So many glad tidings to relate, loyal blog readers! (“Bleaders”? Probably not, but since video + blogger = “vlogger,” I thought it might be worth a trial balloon.)

After being most fearfully tested at great length, with all manner of appalling tribulations, our own Richard Hendricks has been restored to his proper station of CEO! We leave shortly to celebrate this fact, at a local, modestly-priced Mexican restaurant from which Erlich has never (yet) been asked to leave.

But oh, did Mr. Jack Barker, former pretender to the CEO throne, leave a mess behind for Richard and the rest of us to clean up. His reckless expenditures forced us to surrender our offices and again work from Erlich’s humble abode. Yet despite economizing in this way—and letting go non-essential staff—our coffers remained in a parlous state, so empty we could not afford to pay the engineers we needed to finish the platform. So I had the notion to stretch our pennies by outsourcing basic engineering functions to eager young developers in the developing world. With new blood toiling away for us in India, Bulgaria, Estonia and so on**, Astroport has become a veritable League of Nations of compression!

Dare I say: I believe this reordering of Astroport might actually serve as a model for other startups? We are leaner, we are meaner and we are more efficient by virtue of geographical diversity. (Diversity! Yay!) Most of all, we are definitely more true to the original spirit of the company, with Richard back in charge. Once again, I can say that Astroport feels like a womb in which I float: warm, safe and, mercifully, entirely dreamless.

**A quick note, dear readers: The three new engineer bios on our site are just a sampling of the nine engineers we have hired to work remotely, some as far as India, some as near as Colorado. (Go Rockies!) You’ll find bios for three of the off-site engineers who allowed them to be put on our site: Others refused for reasons ranging from fear they’d be used by their governments to capture and torture them (for unspecified activities) to—very simply—a strong, visceral dislike of me.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive! In Jack Barker’s case, the Maleant Data System deal was certainly not his first web—but it turned out to be his last, the one where the spider found himself the one bound in silk, his liquefied entrails drained by the powerful chelicerae of Laurie Bream!

Richard has repeatedly asked that I stop photographing him without his knowledge, but I simply could not resist “up-shirting” this snapshot: His brilliant, kind, yet firm and uncompromising nature shines through, even in this undignified pose. Last one, I promise!

That is not only a description of a possible way to evade an assailant when a small crevasse or stream presents itself, but also of recent events here at ol’ PP.

At first it seemed as if a détente had been achieved, between our little group and the hand-picked CEO Raviga had set above us. An agreement that, if we delivered Mr. Barker his cursed Box, we would then be free to build the broad platform we had always intended. And our engineering team of Richard, Dinesh and Gilfoyle outdid themselves, exceeding by an order of magnitude the specs required by “Action Jack”—a show of good faith if ever I saw one.

What did they get for their trouble? A contract with ’90s-era tech dinosaur Maleant Data Solutions that **exclusively** licensed the Astroport algorithm to them for use in said Box for five long years! I suppose it should hardly come as a surprise that a usurper should also be a double-dealer, but I had hoped that Jack’s soft, jowly smile was not merely the mask it proved to be.

Once again, Fortuna had decided to use our hopes as a punching bag, our dreams as a urinal. Whence should our salvation come? From a most unlikely quarter: the same VC firm that forced Richard out and installed Barker! Thankfully, Laurie Bream came to her senses after Jack’s crass Box was thoroughly discredited by Hooli’s acquisition of the Endframe platform.

Unlike when Richard was deposed, in this case it was fortuitous that the bottom line means far more to Raviga than innovation. Thus, when it became clear a platform strategy in compression was more valuable than an appliance play, Mr. Barker was shown the door. The last action of “Action Jack” was to slink out with his tail between his thick, oddly shaped legs. So dear readers: We are not out of the woods yet, but we have taken a step in that direction, and a step away from that terrible, windowless shed under the pines.

Erlich’s attempt to dissuade “Action Jack” from his appliance strategy was unsuccessful, yet a noble attempt. One is tempted to think Jack’s late fish (pictured above) had an allergic reaction to Mr. Barker’s small thinking.

Here we find the PP team toasting the success of our secret “Skunkworks” project, designed to subvert the Box. Did we actually think this would work? How young we were. How could we ever have been so young?

What have I done? I fear I have destroyed our beloved Astroport. I fear I have destroyed us all.

I write this from Jack Barker’s office. He has called us in: Richard, Dinesh, Gilfoyle and myself, and here we wait. Jack has left us sitting here, and has stepped out for a moment. A coffee run? A bathroom break? A miniature psy-op designed to demoralize us still further? Who knows. But when he comes back, all hell will undoubtedly come with him. Why? Well.

We thought we were so very clever. We intended to subvert Jack’s Box project by feigning our assent to build it, while in secret we meant to build the platform instead.  But we were discovered, because I quite literally tripped Richard up with an appallingly filthy “joke” that, even now, I cannot believe escaped my guilty lips.

What will he do? Fire us all? Press charges for attempted fraud? Blackball us from other employment by sullying our names? Resort to physical violence? We will soon find out: I see him now, lurching in his ungainly fashion in our direction, through the glass door of his office.

This is my fault. The fault here is mine. My disgrace is utter and complete. I should have counseled Richard not to take this dark path, but instead I encouraged him, with exciting anecdotes of the Great War that strengthened his resolve. Failing that, I should not have punctured the deception with my vile toilet of a tongue. I should never use that tongue to speak again. I should tear it from my mouth. I should be made to live in a cave. No, a hole. And eat garbage and offal.  And wear rags. Or nothing at all. Like a beast. The beast that I am. For I have destroyed us all.

“Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, ‘A man is conceived.’ Let that day be darkness.” —Job 3:3-4

Because of the sudden transformation of my Airbnb client from polite temporary renter to (possibly drug-addled) squatter, I am most grateful for the continued use of a corner of Erlich’s garage as sleeping quarters. You’re a good man, Mr. Bachmann, and I promise: Hands off the Fages!

Oh, Jian Yang. Despite Erlich’s feeling that fresh digs might jump start his next app, Jian Yang has wrapped himself in the banner of the Bear Flag Republic, and its powerful legal protections against tenant eviction—laws which I myself have mixed emotions about.

The last time we spoke, dear readers, I was trying to come to grips with reality. To be more specific, the upsetting reality that Richard Hendricks—the man I admire most on this big blue marble (tied with Herb Cohen the visionary author of several books about negotiation strategy)—has been forced from the helm of Astroport and replaced with an interloper. Yes, for a time it seemed that Action Jack’s presence would be a positive. To wit, he did snag us snazzy new offices and handle much of the tedious administrative tasks that Richard chafed at as CEO. But, sadly: He has turned out to be nothing more than a wolf in sheep’s easy-fit chinos.

Richard and the rest of us have from the very beginning seen Astroport as a potentially revolutionary platform company. But, thanks to the whim of Jack and his army of salespeople—who resemble nothing so much as corn-fed date rapists escaped from a frat at some nightmarish Midwestern land-grant university—we have now been forced into being an appliance company. Making the Astroport Boxes: rectangular, glorified thumb drives that resemble nothing so much as old Betamax machines. And I can most definitely assure you, having grown up in the foster care system: I do not enjoy being forced into a box against my will.