Challenge #04899-M150: Illusory Brilliance

There is a time of apogee, when things work and fame and fortune is yours. But it doesn't last, your body can't maintain the strain of peak performance. it comes sooner for some than others. Some teach, train or coach, keeping their love of their passion. Some trade on their fame, for good or ill. And some find another life no longer connected to that which drove them. -- Prompey

Nothing is permanent. Flowers wilt. Mountains erode. Oceans rise, as the wise say, and empires fall. Nevertheless, there are always those who refuse to believe that what goes up must also come down. Those who will not acknowledge that a meteoric rise to fame always ends in a disastrous fall to infamy.

Witness Frances Montcroix, risen to fame and fortune on the best reputation that money could buy. Sailing along on a homespun reputation no more solid than gossamer. Further observe the pattern of their behaviour.

Step one - venture capital. Find a business in the process of starting up that could contain great potential. Step two - give them a lot of money in return for an impressive title. Step three - give the business every possible advantage so that the actual brains behind it all have the easiest time making it succeed. Step four - take all the credit, take over, and tell the brains behind it all to take off. All whilst arranging steps one and two on at least two other ventures. Step four - stamp their personality all over the established product, making it their brand.

Step five - enshittification.

Step six - complete shock and stunned surprise as the business they embossed themselves all over begins to tank. Step seven - put the less appreciated in charge to take the blame. Step eight - move the attention to somewhere lower in the order of operations and continue on in blithe ignorance of the wreckage in their wake.

The cycle had gone on for years, with Frances Montcroix claiming all the glory and ignoring the wreckage in their wake. Living the dream, doing whatever they wanted and never suffering a consequence.

But consequences are patient. They have a way of catching up on people.

All it took was for the big brains to band together and make something better than anything Frances was doing. They refused Frances' money and crowdfunded their proposal. They got their customer feedback and considered it seriously. They ran tests to see which worked best. They were publicly funded, ran polls about features every week, and refused to sell to Frances.

Gathering loyalists to vilify them did not work. The truth was too difficult to obfuscate. Customers started leaving Frances' holdings in droves.

And that was when all the hidden truths came out. With receipts.

The house of cards that Frances Montcroix had built over decades only took a week to fall down. In the wake of that came the criminal charges. Things that could immolate his remaining reputation. Things that could put him into prison for the rest of his life.

Frances spent a large amount of their remaining fortune desperately looking for somewhere that would keep them away from the law.

Such a pity that they had spent decades accruing malice and distrust in every country. When Frances had the money to get away with everything, they did. Now that they were scraping for funds -relatively speaking- the criminal justice was waiting. Sometimes, with blunt instruments.

Frances had to retreat to their last remaining apocalypse-proof yacht for safety. Keeping out in the middle of the ocean where it was too much trouble to go get them.

There was just one problem.

Nobody wanted to work for them any more. They were left with just their own mental resources and a ship they barely knew how to operate. On the fourth week sinking into the realisation that they were left with nothing, Frances had to admit that justice might not be so bad.

[Photo by Enric Moreu on Unsplash]

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