Two months later, as the I-Scream team meets with potential investors. Dr. Lee is pleased. The firm has enticed more than a dozen potential investing teams from around the globedue in part to Trevors research on the valuation of I-Scream. Dr. Lee even reaches out to Sam about Trevors great work, and Sam sends Trevor an email thanking him. Trevors team is proud of him and happy to see a well-respected employee rise to the occasion at such a crucial time in his career so much so that they plan to take him out for drinks to celebrate. That same day, Trevor gets a call from Ronnie, who seems a bit anxious. He tells Trevor theres been some unusual activity attached to one of his web scrapers, coming from a small site in India. Trevor asks what the activity might mean, and all Ronnie can tell him at this point is there may have been an issue with the scraper being identified, but its hard to tell. As he gets his coat, Trevors sense of accomplishment is suddenly a bit rattled. He hides his concern during drinks after a follow-up text from Ronnie tells him not to worry too much, it should be fine. A few days later, Trevor reads a Twitter post from one of I-Screams competitors, referencing their data as intellectual property. It went on to say that they are going to aggressively identify anyone who is using the data without their consent and ensure they are held accountable. Trevor immediately calls Ronnie on his private cell phone and asks if they are at risk. Ronnie confirms they did in fact use a bot to scrape the competitors site and that he was actually in the process of reviewing the fine print on the site. However, without a clear understanding of the legal jargon, its hard to know. Much of it seems ambiguous. Trevor and Ronnie debate what to do next. Trevor asks if the firm could take a hit if this is discovered. Ronnie replies, Yes, absolutelyand we could even be at risk personally. But lets hope it doesnt come to that. Trevor weighs the consequences of being identified against the chance that this is all nothing to worry about. For the first time in his career, he feels alone.

Discussion questions

What are the primary issues in this scenario that leave the firm, its clients and its employees open to substantial risk?

What assumptions did Trevor make that contributed to the challenging situations in this scenario?

What could Ronnie have done to help Trevor, while mitigating his, and the firms, exposure to risk?

If you were Trevor, what would you do next? What does your gut tell you?