DEC-, Wang-, and IBM-compatible products followed, and in 1990 EMC introduced the technology for which it is best known today, the bundling of arrays of disks to handle the massive storage and rapid-retrieval demands of IBM- mainframe users. EMC went public in 1987, survived two down years tied to a product glitch (later traced to face powder from Japanese assembly-line workers), and has lately soared. Sales more than doubled in 1993, to $783 million, while net income quadrupled, to $127 million. Egan's EMC stock alone is worth nearly half a billion dollars.
"There's got to be a they before there's a we," says Egan, paraphrasing somebody, he's not sure whom. There has always been a "they" -- Cifrino and his son, the classy friends on the Cape, IBM -- always someone for Egan to set himself against, someone to fight and unseat. Rich as he is, Egan now burns as hot as ever. He stokes the fire in his employees by making bets against them, by giving them big odds on meeting a product deadline or on solving an engineering riddle and then putting up his own money and demanding they do the same. He hopes like hell he'll lose, because then, of course, the company wins, and Egan gets to play the tough guy in front of the troops and pay the winners in cash. He likes to show up unannounced, with all the money in $20 bills, stuffed into a briefcase. The last time he lost, he paid out $80,000. "I've got a lot of money," he says. "Money's not a problem."
And the "we"? That's his company and his family, which in many cases are one and the same. He has three sons and one daughter, all of whom have worked for EMC at one time or another, all of whom, he says proudly, are millionaires. Two sons run the family capital-investment firm (real estate, mainly), Carruth Capital, named after the finest street on Egan's paper route in Dorchester. The other son is EMC's vice-president of sales and marketing. Egan's wife, Maureen Fitzgerald, is EMC's second-largest shareholder. His sister works in corporate communications. His brother-in-law is the chief financial officer. All over the company -- in telephone marketing, in facilities management, and among the engineers -- are Egans and Fitzgeralds, no apologies necessary. ("He's a good man," Egan says as he passes a young man in the hall. "He also happens to be the father of two of my grandchildren.")
And who's on the board? "Ha-ha-ha! Me, my wife, my son, and my brother-in-law." Plus four others, but they hardly count. "Let me settle the board thing with you," he says. "I want only one thing from the board: compliance. Directors can make only one of two statements. It's either 'I agree' or 'I resign."
* * *
Callaway came from money; Egan was poor. Callaway was coddled by an illustrious family that traces its roots to 15th-century England; Egan was on his own, ashamed of his father and his family's place in the community. Callaway played golf at the country club as a boy; Egan played baseball and basketball in leagues sponsored by the Catholic Youth Organization. Callaway went away to a fancy college and studied a subject that interested him; Egan went to a commuter college and studied a subject he hoped would pay off. Callaway did his service Stateside, out of harm's way, in a post that launched him on his career; Egan rode a helicopter during the Korean War, mainly so that Uncle Sam would help him pay for college. Callaway left home after college and never looked back; Egan can't seem to put Dorchester behind him. Callaway's are glamour products -- golf clubs and fine wines; Egan's are commodities -- office furniture and computer storage devices. Callaway has been married four times, and his current wife is the only one who was over 30 when he married her; Egan has stayed married for 39 years. Callaway's children are on their own, scattered around the world, and none has ever worked for him. ("You can't mix business and family," he says.) Egan has a son who lives next door to him in Hopkinton, and he hands out jobs like family chores. ("If you've got kids as good as mine, I'll hire 'em," says Egan.) Callaway voted for Clinton; Egan voted for Bush. Callaway is lean, dignified, handsome; Egan is none of those things. Callaway eats only healthful food, half a turkey sandwich and tomato soup for lunch; Egan likes bacon on his hamburger. Callaway is calm, confident, of regal bearing; Egan is nervous, angry, an alley fighter. Callaway says that in order to be successful, you can't be afraid to fail: "Fear of losing is what inhibits most people and keeps them from being entrepreneurs." Egan says the opposite, that fear of failure is what drives him: "I worry about losing. I worry about failing."
They're flawed -- they share that much. Though we applaud their deeds, would any of us trade lives with either one? How many would choose, for instance, to shoulder Egan's rage, or to cope with the pain and upheaval implied by Callaway's three failed marriages?
And yet we're drawn to them. Like the crowds surrounding Callaway in Anaheim, men and women from around the world, waiting for a handshake, a word, hoping for a moment of concord with a master. Like the judges, stars themselves on a national stage, captivated by the steep, lifting arc of Egan's journey. Like the visitor meeting them for the first time, startled by the vivid empathy each inspires.
They don't show us how to live, but they do enliven us, each with his own dramatic (and dramatically different) expression of what a human being might accomplish -- provided one conquers doubt, banishes ambivalence, sets aside competing claims, and attends mainly to one task. When we look through their eyes, the world is a bigger place. A place where we might dream, and having realized our dreams, dream again.
