Chapter Five — The Man in the Turtleneck The Promise of Digital Cash — Craig Wright

I owned perfectly good suits. Some of them had been made specifically to accommodate the considerable inconvenience of being me. I liked them. They fitted. As far as I was concerned, the matter of what Craig Wright should wear had been satisfactorily resolved.

Then somebody decided I ought to look like Steve Jobs.

A fucking turtleneck.

I had come to England to establish a research organisation. Apparently, the first item requiring development was the scientist.

There were photographs to arrange, journalists to meet, answers to prepare. There was a way I was supposed to sound. There was a way I was supposed to behave. Somewhere in this collection of improvements, the person whose life was being presented was becoming a regrettable complication.

Unfortunately, they had begun with the actual Craig Wright. This was not an especially cooperative raw material. It came with opinions, bad language and a deeply unreasonable wish to decide what it meant before somebody else decided how to sell it.

I was not asked to become more accurate. I remember being asked to become more manageable.

Now, there is an entirely reasonable case for making me more manageable. People who have worked with me could assemble it without leaving their desks. I was impatient, arrogant and frequently unpleasant when I thought someone was wasting my time. A little restraint would have improved both my professional relationships and the blood pressure of those around me.

But restraint was not what I thought I was being offered. I felt I was being given a part to play, with the clothes and the words already selected.

I had spent years making myself into a very particular kind of difficult man. They appeared to think the difficulty could be removed without affecting anything important.

I disagreed. Loudly, as it happened, which did not greatly assist my argument.