A Qualified Lead
"I saw you were in marketing?" the woman says. She stirs her overpriced juice to punctuate the statement with a question mark.
Cozy wood walls. Quick wifi. Palo Alto. The cafe's half dozen Apple Butterfly keyboards fall silent as its patrons stop pretending to work.
Despite the stakes, her suitor finds sudden confidence: "Oh yeah," he says, "I work for a cloud-based SaaS startup." It’s the longest sentence he’s said the whole time. "We're using AI to enable synchronized lead generation and tracking across distributed teams."
"Wow," the woman says, leaning in. "What’s it called?"
Across the room, a blonde girl turns noise canceling back on. It could have been a job interview. I guess first dates are.