Interlude - Index of

Vision | 163
started writing in the past tense, as if our hopes had already
come to pass and I was describing how it all happened. (The
inspiration came from a science fiction series by Robert Heinlein
called the Future History Stories.) I shared my Future
History with the people I had interviewed, to see if I got
their input right. Some sent me long e-mails clarifying their
thoughts, and some even wrote in the past tense—future history
style—so that I could incorporate their words directly
into my paper. It became a group effort.
This Future History took on a life of its own. The VP
of marketing at the time, Mark Santora, asked me if his staff
could read it, and when I agreed, he asked if I would lead a
strategy offsite for his group, using the paper as a foundation.
(Remember, I was still VP of engineering at this point, so writing
corporate strategy documents and leading offsite meetings
for other groups was not my day job.)
That offsite was so well received that Dan asked me to do
the same thing for his staff. The two offsites provided feedback
Ranch during construction, he noticed a newly painted building and
mentioned to an aide—just in passing—that he’d thought it was going
to be a slightly darker shade of brown. The next day, George walked
by and saw that the building was now painted a darker brown. He told
his aide, “I was just making a comment—I didn’t mean you should
repaint it!” George walked by the building the next day, and it was
light brown again. I do not know if these events actually happened,
but they ring true.
I was in a meeting where a VP joked about something that Dan
“found very interesting.” A member of the VP’s staff responded, “What
interests my boss’s boss really clenches up my anus.”