Page 2 of Ideal Life

She took a deep breath, then pushed the elevator button before slipping her hand into the crook of his elbow. “Thanks again for being my ‘date,’ even though you have to hop on a flight in a few hours. I really appreciate you taking a red-eye to your poker competition, just so you could be here tonight.”

He said something quietly that she couldn’t quite make out because the elevator dinged and the doors opened, and then it was forgotten as they stepped inside.

Ideal Life was Talia’s brainchild. She’d conceived it in the fourth year of her neuroscience PhD at Stanford. She was supposed to have been working on her dissertation, but one afternoon while at lunch with Sam, the conversation had drifted to Talia’s memories of her mom and dad, who—to be frank—had been terrible parents. They were the kind of people who had partied hard when they were young, but then they didn’t outgrow it even after they’d had kids. Vera and Dave had gone out with their friends almost every single night, and Talia had been the one to make sure that groceries were bought and that the laundry got done and that her little sister, Libby, understood her homework and went to bed at a reasonable hour.

If only their parents had had some kind of scaffolding around their lives to gently intervene whenever they got a call from a friend to come out for “just one drink.” If only there had been something to nudge them to ignore the FOMO and stay home with their little girls instead. Because when they had been present, they had showered Talia and Libby with love. If only they’d had some guidance to teach them to prioritize.

That memory was how Ideal Life was born.

Talia’s concept was this: Using a combination of brain activity readings and customers’ personal histories and habits, Ideal Life’s AI created personalized profiles of what behaviors each customer was likely to act on in the future. Ideal Life would then help them optimize their positive lives by heading off their negative tendencies.

For example, if a former alcoholic’s friends invited her to a bar, Ideal Life would gently suggest that she offer to meet up with them earlier for dinner at a restaurant instead.

Or if someone had previously suffered a heart attack and needed to be on a heart-healthy diet but had a penchant for Kentucky Fried Chicken, Ideal Life could help redirect them when their cravings began to steer them toward the drive-through.

These recommendations showed up in whatever form the customer preferred—they could be notifications on phones or a voice inside earbuds or a customized avatar “Friend” that popped up on Omni 3Ds, augmented reality lenses that looked like regular plastic-framed glasses.

These Ideal Life “Friends” were inspired by Sam’s favorite book from childhood, The Golden Compass. Each character in the series had their own distinctive daemon, which was like the person’s “inner self” in the form of an animal. Sam had always wished for his own daemon and daydreamed what form it would take.

This is what Talia thought of when she wanted to create a virtual assistant for Ideal Life users. After all, why shouldn’t everyone have bespoke software, tailored especially for them?

Her Ideal Life Friend was a cartoon bee wearing a crown with a personality inspired by Queen Elizabeth, who would buzz into her Omni 3Ds’ field of vision when it wanted to help Talia. Other users had created photorealistic versions of their grandmothers, or an anime version of a favorite teacher. Ideal Life was hoping to make licensing deals in the future with Disney for their Marvel superheroes and animated movie characters. In any case, Ideal Life’s customers loved being able to design their own virtual Friends—it made the suggestions to remediate their lives so much more palatable and felt truly personal.

That popularity of Ideal Life Friends in augmented reality was what had piqued Omni’s interest.

When one of Talia’s early investors had called to tell her that Omni was thinking about acquiring Ideal Life, Talia had literally fallen out of her chair. She’d nursed the bruise on her hip for over a week afterward, but it had been worth it.

Because if—when—Omni bought Ideal Life, it wouldn’t just be one of many third-party apps on the smart glasses. Omni would integrate Talia’s technology through all of Omni’s global social media and communications functions. That was 3.5 billion people.

Which meant Talia’s childhood dream of making the world a better place was finally coming true.

Sugiyama—the eponymous restaurant of the world-famous chef—was sleekly elegant, all white marble floors and high ceilings and gold accents on the wall sconces. Deep, cream armchairs surrounded tables made of dark walnut. And in the center of the restaurant on a raised platform was a glass sushi bar, where all the diners could watch the chefs slice perfect slivers of fatty tuna and delicate yellowtail that had been flown in overnight from Tokyo’s famous Toyosu Market.

The second Talia and Sam walked into the restaurant, glasses of champagne were put into their hands. She would only fake-sip tonight—male business leaders were allowed to drink heavily and slur speeches and still be declared geniuses, but women were held to a higher bar. Whether fair or not, Talia had learned that her success depended, in large part, on understanding what the unspoken rules were, because what mattered the most to her was expanding Ideal Life’s reach so she could help more people. If she had to sacrifice a few glasses of champagne along the way, so be it.

Sam, on the other hand, took a long gulp of his.

“You doing all right?” Talia asked. “I know this is a lot of people.”

“I like people. It just takes a minute of adjustment.”

“We can hover here together as long as you need.” Talia had been dragging Sam out to events their entire friendship, so she was very familiar with the brief transition phase he needed to shift from living in his own head to being in the real world.

If allowed to, Sam could spend a lifetime happily lost in thought, pondering philosophical questions or logic puzzles or immersing himself in the fictional realms of books he read. He was neither introvert nor misanthrope. It was more that his extreme intellectual curiosity made him introspective, and he spent the majority of his time thinking or having debates in his head. Shifting into “public mode” with other people for company (besides himself) required a minute, and Talia had always been the best facilitator of this because she understood him.

Sam drank a little more of his champagne but left about half in the flute. “Here,” he said, reaching for Talia’s glass. “Let’s swap.”

“Aw, an almost-empty flute,” she fake-cooed. “This is the best celebration gift you could have gotten me.”

“Oh, hush,” he said. “It’s just the right amount so that no one will try to refill it, but not so full that you’ll get teased for not drinking.”

Talia shook her head and smiled. “Sam Chang, you are my favorite person.”

He shrugged. It was effortless between them. Always had been.

Ryan Higashi, general partner at Luminary Innovation Fund and the very first investor in Ideal Life, approached them. “Ah, the woman of the hour!”

“Sorry,” she whispered to Sam. “Incoming, and I can’t stop him.”