Read Chapter 21: Smaller

The restructuring plan was fifty-eight pages and offended nearly everyone.

Lattice would remove background relationship surveillance from its default service.

Couples mode would become opt-in by event rather than persistent.

Predictive breakup prevention would end.

Premium would shift from continuous emotional guidance to discrete services: mediation sessions, communication workshops, shared planning tools and therapist referrals.

Elsewhere would remain experimental and scoreless.

Most controversially, Lattice would introduce a “graduation” state.

Users who formed a relationship could export their data, delete their predictive profile, and leave with no reactivation prompts.

Finance called it voluntary churn acceleration.

Eleanor called it success.

The board met Thursday.

Nathan opened.

“We can fight the regulators, preserve more revenue and probably survive eighteen months of litigation. Or we can accept that the architecture beneath our revenue model contains incentives we no longer wish to defend.”

The finance chair said, “You are recommending contraction.”

“Yes.”

“On Ms Vale’s plan.”

“Yes.”

“Are you planning to remain chief executive?”

Nathan smiled.

“For today.”

The vote began.

Four in favour.

Four against.

Celia held the final vote.

She looked at Eleanor.

“Your model sacrifices forty-one percent of projected three-year enterprise value.”

“If our existing assumptions are correct.”

“And if they are?”

“We become smaller.”

“You say that as if small is a virtue.”

“No. As if it is a size.”

Celia looked toward Nathan.

Then back to Eleanor.

“I spent my career making products difficult to leave.”

“I know.”

“Do you know why?”

“Revenue.”

“Because I believed retention proved value.”

She paused.

“Sometimes it does.”

“Yes.”

“Sometimes leaving proves value too.”

“Yes.”

Celia voted in favour.

The plan passed.

Nobody celebrated.

Within forty-eight hours, restructuring began.

One hundred and eighty roles would disappear.

Eleanor spent the next week in consultation meetings, compensation reviews and department redesigns.

The ethical plan had human costs.

That mattered.

She refused every attempt to describe layoffs as “right-sizing.”

People were losing jobs because leadership had built a company around a model it no longer defended.

She said that plainly.

Some employees respected it.

Others hated her.

Both reactions were reasonable.

On Friday evening, after the final consultation meeting, she flew to Montreal.

Theo met her at arrivals.

“You look terrible.”

“Romance.”

“I missed you too.”

He took her suitcase.

Outside, snow had begun.

Eleanor stopped on the pavement.

“What?”

“We passed the plan.”

“I saw.”

“We’re laying off one hundred and eighty people.”

“I saw that too.”

“I thought making the right decision would feel cleaner.”

Theo looked at her.

“There you go again.”

She laughed weakly.

He pulled her close.

For several minutes, she let herself be held without explaining anything.