Business is not just doing deals; business is having great

Host: The office lights burned low, casting long shadows over glass walls and scattered blueprints. Outside, the city glowed like a circuit board — streets alive with movement, cars pulsing through wet asphalt veins. Inside, it was quieter — the hum of servers, the faint tick of a clock, and the sound of two people who had stayed long past reason.

Jack sat at the edge of a desk, his tie loosened, sleeves rolled up, staring at a whiteboard filled with diagrams and deadlines. The smell of stale coffee hung in the air. Jeeny stood by the window, arms crossed, watching the skyline — that vast empire of glowing windows that looked, at this hour, less like opportunity and more like insomnia.

The office was empty, but their conversation had that strange, late-night intimacy — half professional, half confessional.

Jeeny: “Ross Perot once said, ‘Business is not just doing deals; business is having great products, doing great engineering, and providing tremendous service to customers. Finally, business is a cobweb of human relationships.’”

Jack: (smirking) “Cobweb, huh? I’ve seen spider webs stronger than some partnerships I’ve been in.”

Jeeny: (smiling) “That’s exactly what he meant. You can’t build anything lasting if you forget that people are the structure.”

Jack: “Yeah, but the irony? Most of us spend our careers pretending the ‘human’ part is optional. As if spreadsheets and algorithms do all the heavy lifting.”

Jeeny: “They don’t. They just measure the things we’re too afraid to feel.”

Host: A low rumble of thunder rolled outside — faint, but close enough to make the windowpane tremble. Jeeny turned, her reflection doubled in the glass — two versions of the same conviction.

Jack: “You really think business can be that... human? I mean, look at it. Numbers, deals, deadlines. It’s all pressure, no poetry.”

Jeeny: “There’s poetry in every good system. Even engineering. Even sales. The difference is whether you build for profit or for purpose.”

Jack: (laughs quietly) “Purpose doesn’t pay rent.”

Jeeny: “No, but it keeps you from selling your soul to do it.”

Host: The clock ticked louder. A few monitors still glowed blue, their light reflecting off the glass like cold fire. Jack rubbed his temples, the kind of fatigue that comes not from work, but from meaning slipping through your fingers.

Jack: “You know what I think business really is? It’s theater. Everyone’s performing competence, hiding panic, and hoping the audience buys the act.”

Jeeny: “Then good business is honesty — no scripts, just truth.”

Jack: “Truth doesn’t scale.”

Jeeny: “Maybe not, but it lasts.”

Host: She walked over to the desk, picking up one of the blueprints. It was a design for a product — sleek, ambitious, half-complete. Lines, numbers, formulas. But beneath all that precision was the faint trace of human fingerprints: erasure marks, margin notes, ideas rewritten a hundred times.

Jeeny: “You see this?”

Jack: “Yeah. Version seventeen.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Every great product isn’t an invention; it’s a conversation. Between the people who dream it, the ones who build it, and the ones who trust it enough to buy it.”

Jack: “You make business sound like therapy.”

Jeeny: “In a way, it is. It’s just people trying to solve pain — with steel, code, service, whatever tools they have.”

Host: The thunder rolled again — closer now. Rain streaked down the window in perfect vertical lines, the city dissolving into impressionistic blur.

Jack: “You ever notice how no one teaches that part in business school? They tell you how to optimize systems, not how to understand people.”

Jeeny: “Because understanding people can’t be taught. It’s learned through loss — missed deals, burned trust, bridges you wish you hadn’t crossed.”

Jack: (quietly) “And maybe a few you wish you had.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: The air in the room felt softer now, less tense — the rain providing rhythm to reflection. Jeeny set the blueprint down and looked at him, her expression gentler now, not teacher to student, but one weary believer to another.

Jeeny: “You know, I met Ross Perot once. Briefly.”

Jack: (interested) “Seriously?”

Jeeny: “My father worked on one of his projects. He said Perot had this way of making everyone feel like their job mattered — janitor or engineer. He remembered names. He looked people in the eye. That’s what a cobweb is, Jack — not hierarchy, but connection.”

Jack: (leaning forward) “You think that still works today? In a world where people get replaced by lines of code?”

Jeeny: “More than ever. The moment you forget the human web, you start building for ghosts. Products without empathy, leadership without heart — it collapses eventually.”

Jack: (sighs) “Yeah. I’ve seen it.”

Jeeny: “Then you know what I mean. Business without humanity is just math pretending to be meaning.”

Host: She moved toward the window again, watching the rain fall harder now, streaking the glass like moving light. Jack followed her gaze, their reflections merging in the pane — two silhouettes suspended between ambition and understanding.

Jack: “You know, maybe Perot was right. Maybe the real architecture of business isn’t balance sheets — it’s relationships. Every handshake, every late-night idea, every argument that leads to progress.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because the deal fades. The contract expires. But the connection — that’s the thread that builds the next one.”

Jack: “So what you’re saying is, the cobweb doesn’t trap people — it holds them.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. It’s delicate, but it’s design. A web only works if every strand shares the weight.”

Host: The lights flickered once. A brief power surge. The hum of machines paused, then resumed, steady as breath. The interruption seemed to punctuate the thought — fragile systems held together by shared effort.

Jack: “You think we could build a company like that? One where people matter more than margins?”

Jeeny: “Only if we define success differently.”

Jack: “How?”

Jeeny: “By measuring trust instead of turnover.”

Host: Jack smiled faintly — tired, but moved. He picked up a marker and wrote across the whiteboard in large, uneven letters:

‘Cobweb > Chain.’

Jeeny read it and nodded slowly.

Jeeny: “Exactly. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. But a cobweb — even when torn — can rebuild itself.”

Jack: “That’s… actually beautiful.”

Jeeny: “So is business, when it remembers it’s made of people.”

Host: The rain began to ease. The city’s lights steadied again, glowing gold against the glass. The clock on the wall ticked past midnight — another day born out of effort and endurance.

Jack gathered the blueprints, his movements slower, deliberate, like a man beginning to understand the blueprint of something greater than profit.

Jeeny walked toward the door, pausing before leaving.

Jeeny: “You know, Jack… engineering and strategy will build something strong. But empathy — that’s what makes it last.”

Jack: (softly) “And maybe that’s the deal worth making.”

Host: She smiled, nodded, and disappeared into the quiet corridor. Jack stayed by the window a little longer, watching the city breathe beneath the fading rain.

And as the storm settled into silence, Ross Perot’s words seemed to echo through the stillness — not as advice, but as a kind of architectural truth:

That business is not built from transactions,
but from trust.

That its structure is not concrete or code,
but connection —
each person, each idea,
a thread in a fragile, living web.

And that in the end,
what sustains every empire of ambition
is not profit, nor perfection,
but the simple, enduring grace
of people
who still remember
how to care.

Host: The last light went out.
The web held.