Opening day was a Saturday. I couldn’t be there because my father insisted I go to an insurance brokers’ training course, which met for thirteen weeks beginning that day. My father, who had never been to college and didn’t hold out much hope for my chances as an entrepreneur, reasoned that this would be my “insurance policy” to earn a living, since I could always work in his brokerage if all else failed. Failure, however, was the farthest thing from my mind. All day long as I sat in that class, I looked across at the IBM building and thought: Who knows, soon maybe I’ll be as big as them. All day, in my mind’s eye, I saw my partners Alex and Eric (later to become Father Eric, an Episcopal priest) taking people’s driver’s licenses and $10 bills and handing tourists the tape players. In my mind’s eye, the tape players were going out not three, but five times. (Saturday was, after all, a busy day.)

I heard not a word the instructor uttered that day. I couldn’t wait for the class to end. I drove the ten miles south from White Plains to midtown Manhattan at breakneck speed, blinded part of the way, not by the setting sun, but by the gold in my eyes.
By the time I burst into our office in the Empire State Building half an hour after closing time, Alex and Eric were lying on our expensively carpeted floor, apparently too exhausted from dealing with the hordes of tourists to even stand up. Their giddily jovial mood, however, couldn’t hide the magnitude of our success from me. “Tell me,” I demanded. “How many tours did we rent today?”

“Guess!” they guffawed back, obviously wanting to milk this triumphant moment for all it was worth.

“Six hundred,” I replied, starting with the lowest reasonable answer that could account for this sort of intoxicated mood.

“No, guess again.”

I had been too conservative. Of course, three times a day was too low for a full day. We’d actually done four times. “Well, what do you know, eight hundred!” I shot back.

“Guess again, you’re not even close.”

Now I saw the reason for their exuberance. They began to cackle wildly. I couldn’t believe it, five times a day! The tape players must barely have had time to recharge. Five times a day—this was better than $2.5 million profit a year. Even before we increased our inadequate supply of players and tapes. Five times a day! We were rich beyond belief. I was going to cut Eric in on the windfall. I wasn’t greedy, plus, at this moment, I loved everyone. “A thousand,” I finally cried, beaming. “I can’t believe you actually did a thousand! We’re rich.”