ResponseBase LLC was only around 30 people at the most, yet they became the worldwide, acknowledged leader in opt-in email marketing owing to unequivocal, technical superiority as per third-party metrics and evaluations. This was partly due to the unconventional systems engineering of the person all who worked there have been loathe to ever mention in public or to the press: the infamous ‘Black Francis’ who worked as the true systems architect / engineer / and administrator for all network and Linux servers. The same guy who wrote the second version of the individual-email-generator and delivery code upon which their reputation was garnered. That version was called Condor, and introduced the bulk of the database-tracked metrics as well as code maturity and fire-and-forget, automated crash-recovery and campaign fulfillment.

Whitcomb, DeWolfe, and Anderson screwed Francis out of a share of the sale of the company to E-Universe. DeWolfe’s perpetual fraternity-boy hazing, calling Francis a ‘devil-worshiper’ and other public insults because he was gothic. My favorite one was the frequent partnering up of Josh the lawyer and DeWolfe in order to publicly snub and insult Francis after Francis would deliver something amazing or achieve something phenomenal: the pair would walk over to Kyle Brinkman’s cubicle, right in front of Francis’ and then laud and thank and congratulate Brinkman, giving him credit for what Francis had accomplished. Aber Whitcomb frequently witnessed this, yet never put the clowns in their place. Brinkman himself played into the abuse and always gladly took credit for Francis’ own accomplishments. What real function did Brinkman really serve there, anyhow, his only claim or credit being that he was Tom Anderson’s roommate...

The circus of clowns who were Responsebase had their hardest laugh at Francis’ expense in denying him a portion of the pie when E-Universe bought the company. Yet the dude persisted, shrugged off the repetitious disrespect as was his characteristic custom. He remained with E-Universe only 3 months before resigning after he was apprised of the technical details of the covert and true focus of effort at E-Universe: the unethical, unlawful infiltration and subversion of certain GUI elements of operating systems in order to secretly control search engine results displayed in any browser used. Those mouse icon embellishments one could enable were sinister compromises to the integrity of your computer, and Francis wanted no part of the insane criminality of this. If you want the real dirt on ResponseBase, and by some extent of the subsequent Myspace, of which he had no part, you want to find ‘Black Francis’ — Francis from ResponseBase LLC. He’s got the real dirt, and its a story that will shock you to hear. It is a tale whose time has now come to be told.

F.