“Daniel handles the network flags now, and you know how rigid he gets about unauthorized vendor charges.”

He reached into his pocket and tapped his fingers against the fabric.

“I built this company from nothing,” he said, staring at the oil portrait of my grandfather above the mantel.

“We built it together,” I said.

“Of course,” he said.

“But the technical framework, the late nights coding the foundational architecture.

That was me.”

I thought about the thirteen original patents sitting in the blue folders twenty feet away.