Wolff-Von Barronov Corporation

The Wolff-Von Barronov Corporation (also known as WVBCorp) was founded in the 2020's as a merger between the Wolff Family Corporation and the Stone Key Corporation.

The Stone Key Corporation

Chris von Barronov's initial stake in the corporation came from old family money he had inherited and which was invested in the Stone Key Corporation.

The Wolff Family Corporation

John Wolff's initial stake in the corporation came from money mysteriously handed to his mother and father by a man claiming to be a long-lost great-uncle. (See the short story The Reason for more of this backstory.)

John's sister Becca has a stake of her own in the corporation, assets originally co-mingled with those of the Wolff Family Corporation, of which she was the CFO until the merger. She now sits on the board of, and is a senior investment strategist with, WVBCorp.

The merged corporation

The merged corporation receives all royalty payments from the U.S. Government for use of the two principles' invention, the Heinlein-Alcubierre Drive. All members of the two families may draw on the corporation's assets, though only the first two generations really have unlimited drawing power; the third generation has significant drawing power, and after that the allowances go down incrementally, in order to preserve the initial investment.

There is a version of WVBCorp in both Timeline 0 and Timeline 1. Both were/are funded pretty much identically.

While Ariela Rivers Wolff is not from Timeline 0, she has assets of her own in the Timeline 1 version of WVBCorp, which were not switched from one timeline to the other when she herself switched timelines, but to which she has access via WVBCorp in Timeline 0. Since both versions of WVBCorp are massively flush, and both are owed more by the U.S. government than the U.S. government will ever be able to pay them, nobody from the families in either timeline cares which timeline her assets actually "live" in. Occasionally Ariela goes back to Timeline 1 to visit her real mother and father, and often she returns with a bag or case full of U.S. Gold Dollars to transfer into Timeline 0's WVBCorp accounts to at least partially cover her expenses and those of her daughters and grandchildren. But again, nobody actually cares if she does that or not.

In The Lion in Paradise, Part II, Yael Wolff Fox obliquely describes the corporation, which she just considers "the family":

"You have no idea," she said, as she fell in with Jack and started walking, "how much a name means in this stupid world.  I'm going to have to start traveling incognito.  I mean, they find out I'm a member of a family so rich, its biggest creditor is the government and the government will never be able to charge it taxes again, even if the government could charge it taxes, and they get all squealy and clingy."

Corporate Governance

John Wolff is President; Chris von Barronov is CEO and Chairman of the Board. Originally, Becca Wolff was the CFO; this position passes to Alicia von Barronov in the 2050's.

WVBCorp is a closed corporation, held privately, with only family members (either blood relations or married-ins, the latter always closely vetted before being offered seats) on its board.

Assets and Expenditures

The corporation's assets in 2044 totaled somewhere around $500 trillion (GD$500 billion), with accounts receivable (mostly from the U.S. government) in almost an equal amount; thus, its net worth in 2044 approaches $1 quadrillion (GD$1 trillion). Its cash outlays as of the same period are, surprisingly, comparatively tiny, only about $200 billion (GD$200 million) per annum, which are offset in more or less equal amounts by warrants drawn on the U.S. Department of the Treasury. As John Wolff puts it, "It's just hard to spend that much money, so we don't try."

By the end of The Lion in Paradise (2321), the corporation's assets probably approach GD$200 trillion, with accounts receivable again in about the same amount due to the massive U.S. Space Force fleet buildup since 2100.

Corporate alliances

WVBCorp doesn't really have any major corporate alliances, though it has significant ties to BaeNorGrumLockMart (because of the drive) and to SpaceX (with which it is the majority (51%) partner in the Warp Message Relay System).

Philanthropy

As of 2044, of the $200 billion (GD$200 million) in annual expenditures, about 25% is dedicated to philanthropic pursuits. About half of that goes into a charitable foundation (WB Cornerstone Partners, Inc.) which endows the maintenance and upkeep of Masonic buildings worldwide. WB Cornerstone Partners does not pay local salaries or membership-related expenses; it merely endows buildings and property in perpetuity for the use of the Fraternity. (The fraternal bodies that occupy those buildings are still expected to pay their own way via the collection of membership dues and so forth.) Several notable and famous edifices thus endowed are the Indianapolis Scottish Rite Cathedral, the House of the Temple in Washington, D.C., and the George Washington Masonic Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia; but there are many others which benefit.

The other half of the Wolff-Von Barronov philanthropy goes to secure the future of other, non-Masonic famous and venerable buildings and properties. As the corporation's public information states, the corporation is not interested, per se, in funding people, because that is already done by thousands of other philanthropic groups; rather, the corporation focuses on architecture of cultural and historic importance, for example, Notre-Dame de Paris, whose renovation begun in the 2020's had stalled by the 2030's for lack of funding. In 2050, the corporation also provided senior funding for the restoration of the Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan, which were destroyed in 2001 by the Taliban. Over the years it has also funded the restoration of a number of historic statues and memorials destroyed or desecrated during the U.S. political upheavals between ca. 2015-2024.