"That white cabin really isn't worth the price, if I may say so, sir."

"IDC wants it."

The real estate agent grinned, flush-faced.

"Well, anything IDC wants, IDC gets."

"We use positive corporate policy, yes," said Corbish.

"I read about you in Forbes, I believe, Mr. Corbish. You are one of the youngest vice presidents at IDC."

"There are thirty vice presidents at IDC," said Corbish coldly.

"You're exceptional, according to what I read."

"We're all exceptional."

"Then how do they decide who becomes president?"

"Whoever makes the strongest contributions becomes president. We know, down to the very digit."

"Yes," the salesman agreed. "I've heard that mentioned about IDC, that your advanced computer research puts you a generation ahead of everyone eke in the field."

"Positive corporate approach," said Corbish coldly. He endured the real estate salesman's never-ending sales talk all the way back into San Francisco, thirty miles to the south.

Corbish would not have had a man like that in his organization. He didn't know his job. A good salesman stops selling when he has made the sale. More often than not, he can lose an already-made sale by offering too much information. One should only give a prospect enough information to make the sale and no more.

Information was the true base of power of IDC. Other companies made computers. Other companies designed computer programs. Only IDC had the whole package, the designing, the pure science, the construction and the operation. Competitors were into computers; IDC was into information.

But no corporation could thrive with only one product, and as IDC moved farther into acquisitions of lumber, oil, coal, aluminum, transistors and real estate—not just the purchase of a little Pacific coastline house, but vast tracts of undeveloped land—the executive teams began to realize that they needed even more information. There was a scarcity of knowledge about what went on in those other fields.