The Batch
After The Mill by Edwin Arlington Robinson.
“There are no founders anymore.”
He turned the crowded screen her way;
The ventures came in by the score,
Each funded, launched, and live that day.
The money chose its own address,
Then named the firm and built the site;
The deck, the product, and the press
Were ready by the fall of night.
By noon his name had left the Book;
His public feed was clean and bare.
The launch page kept its polished look;
He’d signed away his final share.
No gap appeared where he had been;
The engine neither slowed nor failed.
The numbers held their course onscreen;
The round went on; the venture scaled.
His profile gone, she closed her own;
She named the thing she wished were made.
By dawn the venture stood alone;
No founder helped it ply its trade.
Across the world, unnumbered lights
Came on wherever wants were named;
The cities glittered through the nights,
Too bright to tell what had been gained.