I Deleted My Ten Million Empire Chapter 2

I walked out of his office and back to my desk in the bullpen.

The dozen or so people in the open-plan office were all aggressively staring at their monitors, pretending they hadn't heard a thing. But the air was thick with their sideways glances.

I sat down. I woke up my iMac.

I typed in the master password for the creator dashboard.

The main page of Curated Living loaded. Ten million followers.

The profile picture? I took it. The bio? I wrote it. Below that, a grid of one thousand, two hundred video thumbnails stretched endlessly down the screen.

I knew the anatomy of every single thumbnail.

Video #1: Filmed in my cramped studio apartment with my iPhone. It was raining that afternoon, the natural light was garbage, and I used a $15 ring light from Amazon to illuminate my face. I recorded it seventeen times.

It got three views.

Video #100: Finished rendering at 4:00 AM. My hands were physically shaking when I hit 'Publish'. That was the video that went viral. We gained half a million followers in forty-eight hours. Derek texted me: "Great work. Get us to five mil and we'll talk equity."

We hit five million. The equity never materialized.

Video #800: A summer outdoor shoot. It was a hundred and five degrees on the pavement. I was carrying the tripod, the Sony rig, and the mics by myself. I threw up twice from heat exhaustion, went home, and edited until 3:00 AM.

By Video #1000, the account crossed eight million. Derek took the entire office out for an omakase dinner to celebrate. Everyone except me.

"Talia's deep in the edit," he had told them. "Let's not break her flow."

I ate a cup of instant ramen at this exact desk.

Twelve hundred videos.

Behind every single one was a graveyard of 3:00 AMs, cold sweats, fevers, and the solitary weight of hauling camera gear through hundreds of miles of city blocks.

I moved the cursor to the 'Creator Tools' tab.

Clicked.

'Content Management.'

Select All.

Twelve hundred checkboxes turned blue simultaneously.

A warning dialogue box violently popped up on the screen: Are you sure you want to delete all selected content? This action is permanent and cannot be undone.

My hand hovered over the mouse.

It wasn't hesitation.

It was grief.

These pixels were my lifeblood. Three years of my actual life, given form.

But they were trapped in a shell that didn't belong to me anymore.

When we launched the page, the company was nothing but a disorganized startup. The account was registered under my personal phone number, my personal Social Security number.

Derek always said we needed to sit down and transfer the ownership to the LLC.

He just kept "forgetting."

Actually, he didn't forget. He just didn't think it mattered. He looked at me—a thirty-two-year-old woman with bills to pay and family relying on her—and thought I was tethered to this desk forever. He thought I was nothing without the platform he graciously allowed me to build.

He really thought that.

I took a breath. A deep, lung-expanding breath.

And I clicked Confirm Delete.

A shriek shattered the quiet of the bullpen.

"SHE'S DELETING THE VIDEOS!!"

I hadn't even heard Kenzie creep up behind me. Her voice was shrill enough to crack the glass partitions.

Chairs screeched as the entire office stood up.

Derek's door flew open. He bolted out. "What the hell is going on?!"

Kenzie pointed a manicured finger at my monitor, the blood draining entirely from her face. "She deleted them! All of them! Over a thousand videos! They're gone!"

Derek crossed the room in three massive strides.

He hit my desk just in time to see the progress bar.

Deleting... 87%... 92%...

"Talia! Are you out of your fucking mind?!"

He lunged over my shoulder, clawing for my mouse.

I slammed my hand over his wrist, my grip like a vice, and shoved his arm back.

"Do not touch my machine."

"Do you have any idea what you're doing?! Do you know how much capital is tied up in those videos?! The brand deals! The ad roll-outs! We have three massive sponsored posts going live next week!"

The progress bar hit 100%.

Deletion Complete.

One thousand, two hundred videos. Vaporized.

The grid vanished.

There was nothing left but a barren white screen. A ghost account with ten million followers, staring into a void.