"There's something there. These people have money, like I said. They buy and sell in the stream of commerce. They often have to buy at a premium because the services and goods available to them are limited -- think of how a homeless person can't take advantage of bulk-packaged perishables because she doesn't have a fridge. They are the spirit of ingenuity, too -- they mod their cars, caves, anything they can find to be living quarters. They turn RVs into permanent homes. They know more about tents, sleeping bags and cardboard than any UN SHELTER specialist. These people need housing, goods, appliances, you name it. It's what Tjan used to call a green-field market: no one else knows it's there. You want something you can spend ungodly amounts of money on? This is it. Get every team in the company to come up with products for these people. Soak up every cent they spend. Better us providing them with quality goods at reasonable prices than letting them get ripped off by the profiteers who have a captive market. This plant is a living lab: this is the kind of market intelligence you can't buy, right here. We should set up more of these. Invite squatters all over the country to move onto our grounds, test out our products, help us design, build and market them. We can recruit traveling salespeople to go door to door in the shanties and take orders. Shit, man, you talk about the Grameen Bank all the time -- why not go into business providing these people with easy microcredit without preying on them the way the banks do? Then we could loan them money to buy things that we sell them that they use to better their lives and earn more money so they can pay us back and buy more things and borrow more money --" Kettlewell held up a hand. "I like the theory. It's a nice story. But I have to sell this to my Board, and they want more than stories: where can I get the research to back this up?" "We're it," Perry said. "This place, right here. There's no numbers to prove what I'm saying is right because everyone who knows it's right is too busy chasing after it and no one else believes it. But right here, if we're allowed to do this -- right here we can prove it. We've got the capital in our account, we're profitable, and we can roll those profits back into more R&D for the future of the company." Suzanne was writing so fast she was getting a hand cramp. Perry had never given speeches like this, even a month before. Tjan's leaving had hurt them all, but the growth it had precipitated in Perry was stunning. Kettlewell argued more, but Perry was a steamroller and Suzanne was writing down what everyone said and that kept it all civil, like a silent camera rolling in the corner of the room. No one looked at her, but she was the thing they were conspicuously not looking at. Francis took the news calmly. "Sound business strategy. Basically, it's what I've been telling you to do all along, so I'm bound to like it."