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HATTIE: It looks like Greek to me. So you printed
out the code.
DAVID: Yeah, this
is code printed out from our test server, and this is code printed out from an
installation that's going in on a customer server. And something's not quite
right on the customer server. Now it may be that we've got a discrepancy in
code, but it may be that we've got a discrepancy in the way the server's set
up. So I've printed out the two sets of code and I'm just running through,
comparing them. And I have found a small discrepancy here. So it's a simple
thing. We have a slash going back...
HATTIE: It's a
forward slash.
DAVID: ...and a
slash going forward.
HATTIE: That's the
only thing different in the two pages. DAVID: That's the only thing different,
yeah.
HATTIE: So now you
get to go to lunch, right?
DAVID: Yeah. Yeah.
There you go. One problem found.
MILES: Back in
1995, I worked for a company in the UK called UA Training. I was the director
of education there, and it's a large technical training organization. And just
at that time, there was the first glimmer of what was going to happen with the
Internet. And I thought to myself, `I don't want to work for a big corporation.
I want to get out there on my own again,' because I used to run my own
business. And I thought, `I can see something here. This is going to be big in
education.'
HATTIE: So when you
started, where did the money come from?
MILES: My own
pocket. We started--it was the HP story. We started in the back room of the
house, then we grew. David came and joined me. We moved from one room to
another room, to two rooms, built an office, moved out of there, moved into a
school, you know.
HATTIE: Why have a
partner? Why David?
MILES: Maybe I'm
the person who creates some vision and direction and gets out there and
evangelizes our message, and David's the guy who really runs the business.
(Voiceover) He's the guy who really sits behind the wheel and says, `This is
how we can achieve it,' `No, we can't do that.' But it's a balance.
HATTIE: Do you ever
fight?
MILES: Never. Not
true. We have vigorous debates.
HATTIE: How do you
get to a resolution?
MILES: It's very
easy. David's always right.
DAVID: The future
for us, I mean, our immediate future is in enablement, enabling customers to do
what they need to do.
MILES: You have to
have a balance between utter realism to face the hard decisions, but at the
same time, complete unwavering faith that whatever you're doing, you can adapt
to whatever the market circumstances are and keep going.
DAVID: Times of
change are unnerving and a little scary. So we have to be nimble, we have to
watch what's going on and go with where our customers' needs are and understand
those things.
MILES: And that's
what keeps you going because, yes, there are hard times. But when you hit those
hard times, if you don't believe you can come through them, you might as well
pack up and go home.
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