CHAPTER 6

Building a Video Empire

My perfect start-up: a hole-in-the-wall video store.

The year I responded to a classified ad in the New York Times advertising a video store for sale in Vermont, I was a desperate man. My career to date was nothing but a compilation of starts and stops: three years managing a rock band and six years off and on working at Bread & Circus and doing real estate. It was 1984, and I was living in Boston and calling myself a consultant. Truthfully, I was an unemployed and directionless thirty-six year old. Without a job, I struggled to keep some semblance of a routine. On weekdays, I rose, showered, and commuted to a friend's office, where I sat behind an empty desk and read the paper. I had a couple of job offers, ...

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