My Friend Kevin Was Once Hit By a Bus

I do hope he doesn’t mind me blowing up his spot

Dave Balter
Balterer
Published in
4 min readJan 2, 2025

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My friend Kevin was once hit by a bus.

You may know him, and I do hope he doesn’t mind me blowing up his spot.

It goes like this: Kevin was early at Facebook. Real early, like employee #12 early. I know this because Kevin had applied for a job at BzzAgent which, to his great fortune, didn’t pan out. And so a few months later he came by our offices, to thank me for the interview and our discussion (Kevin is what some might label a ‘mensch’). He noted he’d be moving across country, to Palo Alto, to see if they might make something important out of Facebook. Straight truth: I thought he was nuts.

You’re probably already a few steps ahead of me: financially, Kevin did well. Real well, like comfortable for life, and surely swiss bank accounts and caviar and Bentleys — and then he replaced all of his teeth with 24k gold (ok, that parts not true). In one of life’s great ironies, Kevin eventually ran a division of Facebook that required some approvals for BzzAgent to run programs, so I’d have to call him to grovel for allowance. “Remember when I was in your office?” Kevin would reminisce. And then he’d mic drop: “oh, hey, check it out, I just sold [insert many many zeros] of Facebook stock.”

Things for Kevin seemed good, real good.

But then, many moons later, Kevin was hit by a bus, literally. A mini school bus to be exact — it sped illegally through a crosswalk on a snowy afternoon in the South end of Boston. Kevin’s skull was cracked and he nearly died; a miraculous few seconds of medical excellence and he was closed up with dozens of staples and stitches that ran zig zag around his shaved head. Kevin would recover. Kevin was thankful. He was saved. Kevin was fully healed, except, well, except for one complexity: Kevin lost his sense of taste and smell.

And here’s where details matter. One of Kevin’s passions was food, it didn’t matter if it was the finest of dining or a roadside stand that would make Anthony Bourdain proud. And, to make matters worse, his passion for food was matched only his appreciation for wine which, as any sommelier will tell you, requires a highly tuned sense of smell. So here was Kevin, loaded Breaking Bad-style, and unable to tell the difference between a tater tot or a truffle fry; Kevin who started to swill Bogle Cabs ($8.99 a bottle) and Meiomi Pinots (only slightly more) because, well, because he couldn’t smell or taste the difference.

So I ask of you: what if you could earn all the money you could imagine, but lose your sense of taste and smell along the way. Would you make the trade?

While you ponder that, I have another friend for you. And you may know him as well so, if you don’t mind, let’s just call him E.

You probably are aware of E. He co-founded a company, it’s a big one, real big, public big, brand name big, thousands of employees big. E is remarkable. He’s capable, charismatic, friendly, chatty, funny, smart-as-a-whip. E deserves every single dollar he’s pulled from the company over many years of tireless effort. E lives the good life: all the toys you’d want, multiple homes, VIP excursions to concerts and courtside seats at events. E has interviewed ex-Presidents; he’s spent time with famous musicians.

E is good looking, he’s tall and his energy begs recognition when he enters a room. And — get this — E has so much money that he shaved his incisors and embedded diamonds in the tips (also not true, but would have been cool if it was).

And yet.

And yet, E lacks one thing: a perpetual, long-term relationship with a significant other. E has many friends have already settled down, had kids, bought into the white picket fence and American dream scenario. But not him. E remains occasionally taken (he dates well) although is more often than not, single. E once confided in me that after about 18 months, he finds himself at odds with the existence of, well, of co-existence. It’s not like he doesn’t try; some women have even moved in, expecting to be the one, but invariably even they don’t last. E appreciates his time with his lovers — but the grip of consistency fails him.

So a similar mind game: would you exchange the long-term happiness of a soulmate, for your own business empire with unlimited fortune and power?

So that’s it. No, I don’t have a pithy little bow to tie it all together, but you can do the math here. Maybe the next time you smell the overpowering scent of fresh flowers, or gag on the taste of foie gras, or the next time you chastise your spouse for not emptying the dishwasher, or maybe have a wonderful evening on your 10-year wedding anniversary, go ahead and ask yourself, would you give it all up just to have your teeth tattooed with titanium?

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