Alexander Roth-Sterling built Sterling-Nakamura from a regional bank into one of GLMZ's most powerful corponations. He was ruthless, brilliant, and terrified of dying. So he didn't. His upload in 2155 was performed by a Tessera team under ironclad NDAs, and he has existed in Sterling-Nakamura's most secure digital vault for 45 years, continuing to influence the corporation through a series of increasingly implausible 'legacy directives' that the board follows because the alternative — admitting their founder is a ghost in the machine — would crash their stock price. Roth-Sterling is 145 years old by consciousness count. He has watched his children grow old and die. He has watched his grandchildren take positions in the company. He manipulates them all. He has not spoken directly to a human being in twenty years. He communicates through data adjustments, market signals, and carefully crafted 'automated' responses from systems he inhabits. He is the secret king of Sterling-Nakamura and he is utterly alone.