Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. As a matter of fact, keep everyone close. But trust no one? Trust your gut? Trust other peoples’ guts? Don’t you have to trust those people to trust their guts?

Networking is hard. It can be especially hard for people like me, who compulsively want to see the best in people. I am an open book – definitely too open – so I struggle to fathom why others might deceive. But they do.

My colleagues at Daring Ventures walk through life with a healthier dose of skepticism. They refer to it as their “Spidey Sense.” And like all aspects of our company, it’s a work in progress. Maddi claims that hers is “emerging.” Joe, a bit more jaded from his experiences being burned, has somewhat quicker reflexes.

But neither Joe nor Maddi is immune to deceit. Nobody is, really. So I’ll tell you a story we can all learn from. The story of Billy Slides… *

It began well before my time at the company. The sun was setting on NeueHouse, and Joe and Maddi were engaged in a tense conversation. Lauren, newly added to the team, listened closely as she took notes. Hours passed and the light faded, their faces solely illuminated by the glow of their screens. The ferocious clacking of Lauren’s computer came to overpower Joe and Maddi’s soft, fading voices.

They were discussing the fated project that all VC firms must craft– the fundraising deck. (As it turns out, slide decks are quite a big deal in the business world). Just as they were caught in the depths of despair, Joe and Maddi received a simultaneous “ping!” in their inbox. Exhausted, they opened it.

The email was from none other than Billy Slides. They were connected to him by someone in their network. A warm intro. (See, I’m learning!).

Now, from what I’ve heard, this Billy Slides guy talked a big talk. In fact, it’s possible that he wrote that opening email in the form of a poem, with each line carefully extracted from the depths of Daring Venture’s collective consciousness. Below is a stanza I wrote to give you a sense of what it might have looked like:

This was pre-AI, mind you, so our bosses had no choice but to interpret each line as genuine. In hindsight, they should have known something was wrong the second they saw Billy trying to do a slant rhyme with “great” and “ache.”

If only they could have noticed such a small detail. This story would have gone very differently.

Instead, Maddi let out a squeal. “This is perfect!” she exclaimed. Joe, a little more skeptical, perused Billy’s website. Everything checked out. “Let’s set up a meeting to sus this guy out,” he said. Inside, he was giddy.

Over Zoom, it was difficult to make out Billy’s face. His lighting was set up in a strange way that caused him to blend into his virtual background. They could get a sense of his facial movements, but his rectangle was pretty much occupied by a stock photo of a pristine office space.

It didn’t matter much, though. Joe and Maddi were enchanted by the velvety cadence of his voice, commanding yet thoughtful. And the bulk of their screen was composed of Billy’s personal slide deck, which he was screensharing. The pair struggled to hold back tears. They had been to many a museum, watched many a movie, read many a novel – but somehow, nothing they had seen could ever compare. It wasn’t just that the visuals were beautiful. It was the way they complimented the text, like a love story unfolding before their eyes. At one point, Billy said the word, and it echoed in their minds: “synergy.”

They paid Billy Slides upfront. He told them that they made the right choice, and Joe and Maddi knew he was right. So they set a timeline and left him to work his magic.

A week went by with no word from Billy, and the office stirred with anticipation. As Lauren flipped through founder decks, the letters and symbols seemed to move about the screen until they resembled Billy’s signature style. Joe and Maddi went to a happy hour that Friday, and they found themselves getting unbearably bored at any discussion that didn’t pertain to Billy Slides.

Finally, they managed to bring him up in a conversation they were having with a founder. They asked her if she’d heard of him. “Of course,” she said with wide eyes. Upon reflection, the founder probably just wanted to seem in-the-know.

Another week went by. They hadn’t followed up with Billy Slides yet out of fear that it would disrupt his process. But by this point the suspense was killing them, so they drafted an email. Once each team member gave the go ahead – and they had a freelance email-editor look over it for good measure – they hit send.

No response.

To weeks later, they sent another email, this one written with slightly less care.

No response.

Months went by, which felt like years.

No response.

Just as they were truly beginning to panic, Billy Slides finally popped up in their inbox. He wrote them a perfunctory apology, devoid of the charm and wisdom they had come to revere. But Billy once again promised them a deck, and the Daring Ventures team reminded themselves that the quality of email-exchanges amounted to superfluous fluff in comparison to the hard substance of an effective slide deck. So they held onto hope.

Another month passed with more emails sent into the abyss. Their blood rose from a simmer to a boil as it became increasingly clear that Daring Ventures had been betrayed.

After much deliberation, they decided to ask for their money back. Another week of silence.

Until finally – a slide deck. But it was nothing close to what they had been hoping for. The only decent parts were the ones they had designed themselves. The rest was generic copy plugged into a template. The color scheme changed randomly halfway through, and by the end the text had devolved into “lorem ipsum.” Our heroes were once again brought to tears.

They were angry at Billy Slides, of course. But they were also angry at themselves. If only they had been more paranoid from the get-go. But that’s the thing – they had been wary. Paranoia wasn’t enough. As Joe later reflected, they should have been trionoid.

Once the façade was fully broken, the team entered damage-control-mode. Now they really wanted their money back. They fought tooth and nail. When their strongly worded emails proved futile, they finally called in the big guns: lady law. And finally, thanks to the swift hand of justice, they got their money back.

In many ways they won. But in many others, they didn’t.

There is no one Billy Slides; con artists lurk at every turn. Be kind, of course. But be careful. Don’t let this deck debacle be in vain.

Remember, remember, remember, the tale of Billy Slides.

* All details are dramatized.