A TAXI DROPS TWO CANADIANS in front of the Bell Atlantic offices in Manhattan. “Your market is minutes,” the bald one, Jim Balsillie, tells the leadership of the telecommunications firm. “So your biggest competitor isn’t other cell phone companies, it’s home phones and office phones—those are free minutes, those are wasted minutes. So how do we get those minutes back?”
A black limo pulls up in front of the Frito-Lay factory in Rancho Cucamonga. “My people? They’re tired of the same old flavors,” a janitor named Richard Montañez tells the CEO. “See, I grew up with a lot of flavors, and I’ve been searching for that taste in everything I buy ever since.”
A white limo pulls up in front of Nike world headquarters in Oregon. A marketing executive, Sonny Vaccaro, beseeches Michael Jordan to sign an endorsement deal with his company, the only one that sees his true potential. “I’m gonna look you in the eyes, and I’m gonna tell you the future,” he says to the young basketball player, just months away from entering the NBA. “You’re gonna change the fucking world.”
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