Jennifer Egan

Thirty-three is still young enough to register as “young.”

Registering as “young” is especially welcome to those who may not register as “young” much longer.

Kline’s masterwork, a slender monograph containing algorithms that explained trust and influence among members of a Brazilian tribe.

Even now he felt the whiff of his father’s disapproval—for having overreached, or become a celebrity (and thereby a target), or failed to heed his father’s lectures (delivered liberally to this day from the helm of a small motorboat his father used to fish along the Florida coast), whose refrain, to Bix’s ears, was: Think small or get hurt.

Could you start again without chucking everything?

His original Vision—that luminous sphere of interconnection he’d conceived during the East Seventh Street years—had become the business of Mandala: implementing it, expanding it, finessing it, monetizing it, selling it, sustaining it, improving it, refreshing it, ubiquitizing it, standardizing it, and globalizing it. Soon that work would be complete. And then?

Above all, he had to maintain; fulfill his roles of husband, father, boss, tech icon, obedient son, major political contributor, and indefatigably attentive sexual partner. The man who longed to return to the university, in hopes of provoking a fresh revelation to shape the remainder of his life, would have to be a different man.

In the new world he’d helped to make, no one would ever need to open a physical encyclopedia

Miranda Kline’s algorithms have helped social media companies to predict trust and influence, and they’ve made a fortune off them.

“To hell with God,” Fern said. “I’m worried about the Internet.”

ablaze with hope