Paul had already been talking for months about how he’d like to buy a BMW 750Li, the model that was the longer version with more back seat legroom. After some egging on by his colleagues, Paul, after the Cisco meeting, placed some phone calls to a number of car dealerships. He found the right model and color at Sonnen BMW in San Rafael and asked the dealership to prep the car in one hour for pickup. The cramped five stopped at the dealership, about halfway home, and after a two-minute test drive Paul approved the car.
Bob says, “It was the fastest car purchase I've ever seen.”
Paul, a big fan of great movies nicknamed his new car the "cruising vessel," in honor of the flick, Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Scott Adams, in his Dilbert comic strip, has a lot to say about engineers as entrepreneurs . . .
Moral of Paul’s story? It doesn’t matter what you drive - an automobile or an engineering team - as long as you are innovating and collaborating.
[1] Here are Paul’s own humble words on his contributions to the ‘454’: “I was not the person who came up with the ‘454’ idea, or many of the system requirements. However, I was instrumental in figuring out how to implement (or design) the product, and managing the intersection of desired features, and what was actually possible (or what we figured would be possible inside of a year). Other than that, it's mostly true [what’s listed in your complimentary sidebar,] but there were certainly many others on our team who made critical contributions to the product architecture and design.”