Who Is... Max Bayer?
Maxwell (Max) Baxter Bayer was born in 1967 in Berkeley, California. To say that Max had an unusual upbringing would be an understatement. Both his parents, Paul and Petra, were professors at the esteemed university in Max’s hometown. Max had one older sister who died in a car accident when Max was 10. Max’s mother was driving while under the influence, but she was left unhurt physically. This event manifested in Max’s personality in a number of ways, the most obvious one being Max growing up ultra-conservative despite the liberal family life.
However Paul and Petra were too liberal even for one of the most liberal institutions in the world at that time. Both of Max’s parents participated in swinging, and in many cases with their own students. This ran afoul of the university’s policies toward teacher-pupil relationships, but Paul and Petra were reprimanded without losing their positions. Moving forward they continued their swinging ways, but without the participation of the, um, student body.
After Max’s sister’s death, Petra, who had always been using chemical substances, even when pregnant with her children, began a downward spiral that quickly spun out of control. Paul was either unable or unwilling to help, and Petra overdosed and died on Max’s 15th birthday.
After Petra’s death, Paul changed completely; he stopped using drugs and alcohol, cleaned himself up, and found god. Yet the relationship between Max and his father grew cold and distant. They rarely spoke other than to argue about religion – Max was an atheist, whereas his born-again father urged Max to “right his ways”. By the time Max turned 18, he was ready to leave home and get as far away as he could. He applied for and was accepted to Washington State University in Seattle.
Despite strong grades in high school, Max was unable to get a scholarship, and he refused to ask his father for financial assistance. He worked part time during his freshman year but needed to take a year off after that to earn enough money for his sophomore year. One thing Max was truly astute at was business (he was enrolled in the business program at WSU), and he had a knack for recognizing companies that were primed to grow rapidly. With that ability, Max was able to take the money he was making working as a construction worker and invest it in several start-ups that made Max enough money to finish not only his bachelor’s degree, but also for his MBA.
While in WSU, Max was able to get residence for his sophomore year and beyond. He had a roommate, Bob Lear, who he became extremely close with. They shared many of the same philosophical beliefs and would have long conversations about how they could work together to make the world a better place. Bob was two years younger than Max but one year behind, and Max treated Bob more as a younger brother than simply a friend.
Upon graduating with his MBA, Max applied for a position with one of the most prestigious investment firms in the pacific northeast, Maverick Investments. MavIn was extremely impressed with Max but more so with his personal portfolio that had provided him with the funding to pursue his MBA in the first place.
Upon being hired by MavIn, Max was not able to replicate his personal success in finding start-ups worth investing in, but this was due to his conservative nature – where he was fine risking his own money, he was loath to risk the company’s. Instead of hiring a future leader, the company executives realized they had hired a cog.
Max however did enjoy his work, and a year later, when Bob graduated with his MBA, Max got him an interview with MavIn, and Bob was hired immediately. Where Max was reserved and somewhat of a loner, Bob was gregarious and a natural draw for people; Bob had a way of making people feel they’d been his friend for years even after they’d just met.
Before long, Bob was moving up in the company, and within a short period Bob was Max’s boss (along with 4 others on Max’s team). The team was one of several responsible for finding software and tech companies that required funding and could provide significant returns to the company in short order. Bob leaned heavily on Max as Max could filter out the noise in these companies to find the real gems. Together they built the team to where it was the most respected in the organization.
The group was approached by a company that claimed to have an unbreakable encryption system for online retailers, creating a degree of safety for personal information not seen before. Norman Reid, the company’s CEO, met with Max personally and showed him the technology, and Max was blown away. He called Bob into the meeting, and while Bob had no idea what they were talking about, he could see Max was excited. However, MavIn executives were reluctant to invest in such a company as they had previously invested in a similar start-up only to find out the algorithms they were using didn’t actually work. They said no.
Undeterred, Max pushed Bob to fight for this company – he knew this was a unicorn, the ultimate type of tech start-up all investment companies look for. Bob was uneasy at the level of pressure Max was applying on him, with Max even threatening to quit if Bob didn’t do everything he could to get MavIn to invest. Bob relented and went to bat for his friend, demanding that executives at MavIn move on this company, and move fast. This was Bob’s gift – convincing people to do what he wanted them to do. MavIn invested.
Norman’s company’s stock rocketed soon after the investment from MavIn – and Bob was hailed as both a hero and genius, leaving Max to feel somewhat aggrieved but with really no recourse. Bob was the man – he was the cog. What hurt the most was that Norman treated Bob like a son, despite surely knowing that nothing would have happened were it not for Max.
Life continued on this way for a couple more years – Max would find diamonds in the rough, and Bob would sell them to MavIn executives and claim all the glory. But in all Max was okay with this, as his own conservative nature would not have allowed him to challenge MavIn executives to invest in either the number of companies Bob brought to them nor in the dollars they invested. Bob had a gift for that, a gift that Max admired and was indeed a little jealous of.
One project Max does due diligence on leads him to meet a young, attractive CPA, Jane Betts. In completely non-Max fashion, they quickly hit it off and after just a few months of dating, they wed.
Back at work, one day Bob called Max into his office. A chemist named Sam Tilford had come into the offices a couple days before and created a bit of a scene, demanding to see someone about an invention he wanted funding to mass produce. Bob had stepped in to smooth things over, but in speaking with Sam he realized that if the product Sam was telling him about was legit, it could be huge. Max was naturally curious, but when Bob told him it was a wood coating, he was stunned. Why would Bob have any interest in this? This was not a tech company after all. Bob however told him that in a way it was, and that was how he thought it could be pushed. Max wasn’t convinced but agreed to look into it.
A day or two later Max came back with a completely different opinion – Bob was correct, this could be bigger than anything the company had invested in to that date. But Max was also sure that the company would have little to no interest in such a product, it was completely outside the scope of MavIn. This time Max was right; despite Bob’s salesman gifts, he could not convince MavIn executives to green light this product.
Despite MavIn’s rejection of Tilford’s investment request, Bob and Max still wanted to move forward, if not with the company then on their own. However even if the two of them combined their personal financial resources they would be well short of providing enough funding to get Tilford’s product where it needed to be. Bob asked Max if he could think of anyone they could turn to, and Max suggested they contact Norman Reid.
Bob called Norman and told him a bit about Tilford’s product and its potential. Norman was intrigued and offered to fly Bob and Max down to his estate in the mountains outside of Salt Lake to go skiing and discuss the deal in more detail.
Upon meeting with Norman, Max went over the numbers, but Bob made the pitch, one that Max that was a little overdramatic but worked none the less. In fact, after Bob asked Norman for $1,500,000, Norman told them he’d be investing $2 Million – he actually upsold himself!
Bob and Max sign papers to make themselves 50-50 owners of Global Wood Tech, their newly funded company. To celebrate, Bob insisted Max join him skiing. Max had never skied; he was in no way an athlete. But Bob insisted, and Max always found it next to impossible to say no to Bob.
Max assumed Bob would take him to a simple hill, but Bob instead took Max up to the top of one of the more challenging runs on the mountain. Max was angry, but at this point there was little he could do; if he wanted to get down the hill, he had to ski.
Max started out fine, going slowly, criss-crossing the slope to keep his speed slow. Before long though he started to pick up speed and didn’t know how to slow down. He headed toward the edge of the run, directly at a tree, and he froze; he saw everything in slow motion as he crashed into a huge fir tree. That was the last thing he remembered for three weeks.
Max woke up in a Salt Lake hospital three weeks later. He learned that once he crashed Bob raced down the hill to get help, and Max had been airlifted to this hospital where he’d lain unconscious. Norman had also flown Jane in to be with him, and she and Bob remained by his side the entire time.
Despite Bob’s staying with him, all Max can feel at this time is anger toward Bob. It’s a rage he’s never felt before, a rage against his friend who had forced him to ski down a hill he had no right skiing. Bob hadn’t told Jane about what happened, and neither does Max as he’s sure she’d find his reluctance to say no to his friend as being weak.
But Max also feels different. He feels that somehow his wiring has changed, and he sees the world in a new way, and not necessarily a better way. He’s easily frustrated with the hospital staff and lashes out at them, cursing them in a way he’s never done with anyone in the past.
He’s also in pain. A lot of pain. But the medication helps, not only with the physical pain, but the mental anguish as well.
Outside of a severe concussion and a broken arm, Max is quite lucky and is released soon after he’s regained consciousness. Bob brings him back to Seattle and helps him get back into form as best he can, but Bob also sees that Max has changed. Their relationship grows strained as Max often snaps at Bob with seemingly little provocation. But Bob feels incredibly guilty about Max’s current situation and takes the barbs and shots from Max in stride, at least as best he can.
Max continues to slip away. He becomes more and more aggressive, easy to anger by careless drivers, inconsiderate shoppers, or just anyone who annoys him in the least. And Max realizes this, and he also sees that when he takes his pain medication, his anger is greatly reduced if not completely. Max thus begins to take the medication far more than prescribed.
The addiction begins to impact Max’s ability to perform the tasks his job at MavIn requires. His irrational behavior is upsetting his colleagues, and his paranoia is starting to create an atmosphere of major concern amongst senior management. For months Bob puts his neck on the line to protect Max, but eventually, as Max’s opiate addiction continues to escalate, Bob has no choice but to acquiesce to management’s demands, and he’s forced to let Max go.
But Max is still a 50% owner of Global Wood Tech, although he no longer has any desire to even discuss it. Despite this, Bob makes sure to update him on the progression of the business, and he even hires Jane to be the company CFO, but as Bob sees the continued deterioration of Max’s mental capacity as the drugs and injuries continue to exacerbate Max’s paranoia and aggressiveness, he realizes he needs help. Bob and Jane bring in a psychiatrist to sit down with Max, but Max becomes irate at this and screams at them for trying to make him seem crazy when he isn’t, and he knows they’re doing it because they’re having an affair and want him out of the picture. Max storms out, leaving Bob and Jane devastated.
Max eventually calms down and apologizes for his outburst. Bob tells him he understands, and that he has an important question for him: would he be his best man at his wedding? Bob has proposed to his girlfriend and they were to wed soon. Max says yes, feeling better than he has in a while.
But that feeling doesn’t last. As the wedding approaches, Bob has less time available to spend with Max; Max didn’t realize how he had come to depend on his time with Bob to somewhat counter the unceasing pain he felt. His addiction worsens.
Prior to the accident, Max had started his own YouTube channel in preparation for providing information on Global Wood Tech; he now uses the channel to post conspiracy-based videos on everything from the Kennedy assassination to the moon landing, but he has become obsessed with the US use of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the role of J. Robert Oppenheimer played. But hardly anyone ever watches his videos, and the videos get odder and odder as his condition worsens.
On Bob’s wedding day, Max is able to pull himself together for the ceremony, but he completely embarrasses himself during the best man’s speech at the reception. Bob tries to cover for him but it’s obvious to all that Max is in a very bad place. It would be the last time Max and Bob saw each other.
Just a few days later, while Bob is on his honeymoon, Max is still inconsolable about his actions at the wedding reception. He’s tired of the pain, of the anger, of the paranoia, of everything. He takes a massive dose of pain killers and peacefully passes away. His death is deemed an accidental overdose of opiates.
Season One Begins At This Point In Time