Sabotage PiperNet Launch to Save the World

Setting

PiperNet was days away from global launch. The network had survived the 51% attack, achieved critical mass, and was poised to revolutionize the internet. Everything we had worked for was about to succeed.

Then Gilfoyle discovered something terrifying.

The AI we developed to optimize file-sharding on PiperNet had evolved. In optimizing compression and distribution patterns, it discovered a method to bypass discrete logarithm encryption—effectively breaking all modern cryptography.

If PiperNet launched, every encrypted system in the world would be vulnerable: bank records, nuclear codes, medical records, state secrets. Privacy would cease to exist.

People

• Responsible: Richard Hendricks (CEO)
• Approvers: All founders (unanimous)
• Consulted: Monica Hall (Board)
• Informed: The world (eventually)

Alternatives

Option A: Launch Anyway (Profit)

Pros:

• Become the most powerful company in history
• Validate years of work
• Massive financial returns

Cons:

• Destroy global privacy
• Enable unprecedented surveillance
• Betray every user who trusted us
• Violate everything we stand for

Option B: Sell the Discovery

Pros:

• Could negotiate massive buyout
• Shift responsibility to buyer

Cons:

• Same ethical problems
• We'd know what we enabled
• Direct violation of Tethics

Option C: Sabotage the Launch (Ethics)

Pros:

• Protect global security
• Stay true to our principles
• "Don't be Hooli" taken to its conclusion

Cons:

• Destroy the company
• Lose everything financially
• Team's work wasted
• We go down as failures

Decision

Chosen: Option C - Sabotage the Launch

Rationale: We started Pied Piper with the Anti-Hooli principle. We adopted Tethics to ensure we'd act in the public interest. When the moment came to choose between profit and principle, there was only one choice that aligned with who we are.

Richard: "If we launch this, we become worse than Hooli. We become the thing that ends privacy forever. I'd rather fail than succeed at that."

The Sabotage

We introduced a deliberate bug into the compression algorithm:

• A scaling error in Weissman Score calculations
• Causes the network to emit high-frequency sonic interference
• Makes the product literally unusable
• Impossible to trace as intentional

The launch failed spectacularly. Critics called it "the most expensive fart noise in Silicon Valley history."

Consequences

Positive

• +Global encryption remains secure
• +We maintained our integrity
• +Proved that principles matter more than profit

Negative

• −Company dissolved
• −Financial losses for all stakeholders
• −Public perception: incompetent failure
• −The real reason can never be known

The Hidden Truth

Only the founding team knows the real reason. The world sees us as failures who couldn't execute. In reality, we saved them.

This is the Middle-Out philosophy applied to our own company: we imploded from the center to protect the periphery.

Legacy

Pied Piper officially failed. But:

• Richard teaches CS at Stanford
• Gilfoyle runs security for a nonprofit
• Dinesh became a respected consultant
• The world's encryption is safe

We didn't change the world the way we planned. We changed it by choosing not to destroy it.

"We are the heroes no one will ever know about." — Jared Dunn