Tjan smiled. "If you were making staplers I wouldn't be here, because there's no profit in staplers. Too many competitors. Toothbrushes are a possibility, if you were making something really revolutionary. People buy about 1.6 toothbrushes a year, so there's lots of opportunity to come up with an innovative design that sells at a good profit over marginal cost for a couple seasons before it gets cloned or out-innovated. What you people are making has an edge because it's you making it, very bespoke and distinctive. I think it will take some time for the world to emerge an effective competitor to these goods, provided that you can build an initial marketplace mass-interest in them. There aren't enough people out there who know how to combine all the things you've combined here. The system makes it hard to sell anything above the marginal cost of goods, unless you have a really innovative idea, which can't stay innovative for long, so you need continuous invention and re-invention too. You two fellows appear to be doing that. I don't know anything definitive about the aesthetic qualities of your gadgets, nor how useful they'll be, but I *do* understand their distinctiveness, so that's why I'm here." It was longer than all the speeches he'd delivered since arriving, put together. Suzanne nodded and made some notes. Perry looked him up and down. "You're, what, an ex-B-school prof from Cornell, right?" "Yes, for a few years. And I ran a company for a while, doing import-export from emerging economy states in the former Soviet bloc." "I see," Perry said. "So you're into what, a new company every 18 months or something?" "Oh no," Tjan said, and he had a little twinkle in his eye and the tiniest hint of a smile. "Oh no. Every six months. A year at the outside. That's my deal. I'm the business guy with the short attention span." "I see," Perry said. "Kettlewell didn't mention this." At the junkyard, Tjan wandered around the Elmo-propelled Smart car and peered at its innards, watched the Elmos negotiate their balance and position with minute movements and acoustic signals. "I wouldn't worry about it if I were you," he said. "You guys aren't temperamentally suited to doing just one thing." Lester laughed. "He's got you there, dude," he said, slapping Perry on the shoulder. Suzanne got Tjan out for dinner that night. "My dad was in import-export and we travelled a lot, all over Asia and then the former Soviets. He sent me away when I was 16 to finish school in the States, and there was no question but that I would go to Stanford for business school." "Nice to meet a fellow Californian," she said, and sipped her wine. They'd gone to one of the famed Miami deco restaurants and the fish in front of her was practically a sculpture, so thoroughly plated it was. "Well, I'm as Californian as..."