Gordon Clark

Gordon Clark is a Texas engineer stuck selling typewriters and calculators at Cardiff Electric, still stinging from a failed startup that nearly ruined him. When a charismatic stranger named Joe MacMillan proposes reverse-engineering an IBM PC, Gordon can't resist the pull of a second chance, even as his wife Donna eyes the risk warily.

Scoot McNairy plays ambition as a nervous condition, all twitchy hope and half-buried shame. The writing refuses to make him a visionary; he's competent, insecure, and hungry for validation he never quite earned the first time, which makes every small technical victory feel like a man trying to outrun his own failure.