He asked whether she had liked the aquarium, which meant he had read something somewhere that Elliot could not immediately identify. He recommended the white fish. He talked for 10 minutes about the early years of the company, about Richard Callaway sleeping in the office. in 1993 when the trucking contract nearly collapsed and he told the story so well and with such evident affection that. Elliot found himself liking the man and then found himself noting that he was being made to like the man. You know what I've always thought about internal controls.
Conrad said over coffee everyone treats it as a cost center. It's the only function in a company whose actual product is trust. I've read your reconciliation Mayos for four years, Elliot. May I call you Elliot? They're the only documents in the board packet I read start to finish.
That's generous. It's accurate. I don't give compliments. He turned his cup a quarter turn on the saucer. We're creating a role vice president of corporate risk.
It reports to the audit committee rather than the executive team, which is unusual and which I fought for. compensation is 460 base with equity that vests over four years. I'd like you to take it. It was Elliot calculated instantly and without pleasure slightly more than double what he made. It was a house in a district with a good middle school. It was a college fund that stopped being a hypothesis.
It was in every measurable sense the ceiling of what a man like him could expect from a life like his. and it had arrived on a Tuesday in October 8 days before a board vote. What would you want me to do in it? Elliot asked. Do Conrad looked genuinely surprised. And the performance was excellent.
The job risk frameworks committee reporting. The same thing you do now with a better chair. And what would you want me to stop doing? Conrad smiled and let a moment pass. And when he spoke, his voice had not hardened at all, which was somehow much worse.
Sometimes the smartest person in the room, he said, is the one who knows when to stop asking questions. I appreciate the offer, Elliot said. I'm going to decline it. Take a week. I don't need one.