I was working a double shift—breakfast and dinner—trying to bring home four hundred dollars in tips to keep the lights on. I was exhausted, terrified, and running on caffeine and panic.

Then, Adrien Keller walked in.

If you don’t know the name, you haven’t opened a business journal in the last decade. He is worth 4.2 billion dollars. A self-made tech mogul, a German immigrant who built a software empire from a basement in Queens. He was on every Forbes list, usually described as “reclusive” or “enigmatic.”