Two months later, our team began developing a new recommendation algorithm. The core technology: optimizing machine learning models for personalized content recommendations.

This was precisely my specialty. My MIT doctoral dissertation had focused on this exact topic for four solid years.


I told David I wanted to lead this project.

He said no.

"Let's have Mike take the lead, and you can support him. Seeing how he handles these problems would be a good learning opportunity for you."


Learning opportunity?

Ridiculous. I have a PhD specifically in this field.


Mike has a bachelor's degree and two years of work experience, and I'm supposed to learn from him. Sure, he has more industry experience—I'll give him that.

So I'll "support" him.

But what "support" actually meant—I was stunned by their shamelessness.

Mike had me completely scrap and rewrite his entire solution from scratch because his initial model was slow, inaccurate, and memory-hungry.

I did as instructed. The result: training time dropped from eight hours to under five, accuracy jumped from 73% to 88%, and memory usage was cut in half.

During the code review, the entire team gathered to see the results.

The engineers were genuinely impressed.

"This code is beautifully written," someone remarked.

"This optimization technique is brilliant," another added.

The CTO himself attended this review—something he never did—having heard about the impressive new algorithm.

He projected my code onto the large screen, examining it line by line.

Nodding slowly.

"This is publishable research," he said. "We should write a paper and submit it to a top conference. NeurIPS or ICML would be appropriate."

My heart raced.

The chance to publish industrial research outside academic circles thrilled me.

"Can I be first author?" I asked, trying to sound casual. "Since I developed the entire algorithm from scratch..."

"We'll co-author it," the CTO interrupted. "You and Mike will be second authors, and I'll be the corresponding author. Industrial papers work this way—the CTO represents the company. Standard procedure."

"But Mike's original proposal is gone. Every line of code is mine, written from scratch."

"Emma." The CTO's smile remained fixed while his voice turned to ice. "This work was completed on company time with company resources. The company owns this IP, and as CTO, I represent the company. That's perfectly reasonable. You should understand that."

I wanted to argue further, but I caught David shaking his head from across the room, his expression pained.

I gave in.

"Fine," I said. "Second author works too."

I didn't think it was fine at all.

But I held my tongue.

For the next two months, I worked on the paper. I did virtually all the work.

I wrote the methodology section, ran the experiments, created every figure and table, and formatted the entire paper to conference specifications. I also responded to all reviewer comments.

Mike read through the final draft once, said "looks good," then told me to go ahead while he would "check it once more" before submission.

The paper was submitted.

Soon after, the acceptance notice arrived in Mike's inbox.

He immediately forwarded it company-wide: "Thrilled to announce our paper 'Efficient Gradient Optimization for Large-Scale Recommendation Systems' has been accepted by NeurIPS! A major achievement for the team!"

I opened the attached PDF and checked the author list.

Michael Peterson, corresponding author, Chief Technical Officer

David Miller, Engineering Lead

Mark Chen, Senior Engineer

My name wasn't there.

I scrolled up and looked again.

Maybe I missed it?

No.

Three names.

None of them mine.

My hands started shaking—not from nervousness.

From rage.

The kind of anger that makes your entire body tremble.

I stood up and marched straight to the CTO's office. No knock—I pushed the door open and walked in.

"Why isn't my name on the author list?"

The CTO looked up, feigning surprise. "Emma, this was a team project. Everyone contributed."

"The entire team's code combined doesn't equal half of what I wrote," I said, enunciating each word. "This algorithm, from start to finish, was designed by me alone."

"But it was developed using company resources," Michael said calmly, as if explaining to a child. "The company owns this intellectual property. As CTO, I represent the company, which is perfectly legitimate."

"You explicitly told me I would be second author."

"I don't recall saying that specifically," Michael frowned, his expression shifting to concern. "Emma, are you under too much pressure lately? You seem tense. Perhaps take a few days off? Mental health is important, and we have excellent benefits in that area..."

I stared at him.

His expression was sincere, caring, even sympathetic.

As if I truly had misremembered.

As if I were actually mentally unstable.

I laughed from pure rage. I'd seen this trick before—my ex pulled the same stunt two years ago, denying his words then suggesting I was "overthinking," "paranoid," and "too emotional."

"I'm fine," I said, my voice arctic. "I don't need a vacation."

I turned and walked to the door. At the threshold, I looked back.

"Michael, you'll regret this."

He laughed. "Is that a threat?"

"No," I said. "It's a preview."

That night at home, I didn't even remove my coat before opening my laptop to check the code repository.

Every line of code I'd written had a commit record—who wrote it, when it was written, what was changed—all documented.
The system doesn't lie.

I started taking screenshots, one after another.

Thousands of commits over the past year, hundreds of thousands of lines of code, all bearing my name, all with timestamps.

All on record.

Screenshot, save, screenshot, save.

My hands grew stiff, but I didn't stop.

Each saved image felt like loading a bullet—ammunition for my revenge.

After the screenshots, I searched my emails for anything related to the paper. I found Michael's reply from two months ago when I'd specifically requested written confirmation about authorship.

"Thank you for taking the lead on algorithm development. You will be listed as the second author, and I will be the corresponding author representing the company."

The wording was crystal clear. That was his promise.

I compiled everything and saved it.

Backup. Backup. Backup.

One last thing.

I opened LinkedIn and reviewed messages from the past few months.

Three stood out—all from female partners at venture capital firms.

The messages were similar: my technical background impressed them, and if I ever considered starting a business, they'd love to chat.

At the time, I'd dismissed them as professional courtesy—nothing serious.

Now I needed to know if they meant business.

I drafted a brief email.

"Thank you for your interest in my work. I believe we should talk. Are you available to meet next week?"

I sent it to all three.

All sent.

I shut down my computer and sat in darkness. The apartment was silent except for distant traffic.

I'd just initiated something irreversible, and my heart hammered in my chest.

But I wasn't afraid.

I was ready.

I was fucking ready.