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Soon, thanks to his site, he will be able to create endless numbers of dates in seconds. His company's research has categorized women into seven archetypes, including "the princess," "the career/professional" and "the trendy/wild." The company's team of engineers has figured out a way to make dating as predictable as an episode of Providence. "Once we knew what a princess finds romantic," says Lombardi, "then it was number crunching. It's based on a least-squares algorithm, and it tells you what date is the best match." In the future, apparently, no one will have sex.
On one Thursday afternoon 29 days before the launch, TheMan.com's programmers are hammering out the code that will run the website. One of them lets out a whoop, and everyone rushes to huddle around a computer screen. Mouths agape, they look as if they're witnessing a birth, even though most of them have no idea what they're watching. "We have stuff coming in for the first time," yelps Pravin Kumar, the company's 36-year-old chief engineer. "Stuff is coming from and going to the database!" He turns to Lui and gives him a high five. "You're getting that tattoo!"
That tattoo may prove to be the only thing of permanence for Lui and Lombardi. If TheMan.com hits IPO pay dirt in two years, the pair will probably collect their stock options and step aside to let a gray-haired manager run the company. Of course, the chances are high that the company will go under before that. Only 1 in 30 companies that receive venture-capital funding ultimately goes public. But none of the Valley's new entrepreneurs are paying attention to that--in part because many are congenitally optimistic but also because in Silicon Valley there's no such thing as risk. Should people choose not to buy strip-poker date packages over the Internet, Lui and Lombardi can go back to their VC in two years, wiser from their experience, and get even more money for their next idea. Nor is the tattoo a risk. If the entire Internet economy boom goes bust, they can return to their consulting jobs wearing their failed-start-up tattoos like designer labels. Even Kumar, the engineer, embraces the illogic of the system. "No other place rewards failure like Silicon Valley," he says. "If this is the company that makes it big, then great. If not, I'll do it on my own."