Andrew Caldwell was forty-two years old, founder and CEO of Caldwell Dynamics, an artificial intelligence and machine-learning company valued at more than eight billion dollars. He was flying to London for five days of board meetings and negotiations that would determine whether his company’s long-planned European expansion would finally move forward.
Normally he traveled alone, worked through flights, reviewed contracts in peace, and treated time in the air as just another conference room with better wine.
But this trip had gone wrong before it even began.
His wife, Claire, had undergone emergency surgery four days earlier and was still recovering in the hospital. She could barely sit up, much less care for a baby. Andrew had suggested canceling the London trip.
“You can reschedule,” he had said from beside her hospital bed.
“No,” Claire replied immediately, pale but firm. “This deal matters too much. Take Lily with you. It’s five days, not five months.”
“How am I supposed to manage a baby and negotiations at the same time?”
Claire had given him the exhausted look of a woman who had already spent six months doing exactly that while her husband traveled between time zones and boardrooms.