فصل 43

Section VIII

Embracing Explosive Expansion

43

The Medical Manager Sprouts Wings

If you had asked me in 1995 what I thought the future of Personalized Programming looked like, I would have told you that we had grown about as big as we could, and the challenge was going to be staying at the top of our industry. If you had asked me about my surrender experiment, I would have told you that the relentless practice of letting go of myself in order to fully embrace what was unfolding around me was having a profound effect on my spiritual growth. It had, in fact, become my way of life. I had seen time and again that letting go not only led to amazing results, but it also left me in a state of profound inner peace. I was not in charge; life was in charge, and there was an underlying sense of enthusiasm and excitement about getting to see what was going to happen next. After all, just look at what had happened so far.

By the end of 1995, Personalized Programming had grown to seventy-five employees and had enough work to keep us busy for a very long time. I loved what we were doing, and we were obviously very good at it. Our revenues had reached ten million dollars a year, and since most of that was royalty payments, we were profiting five to six million a year. The Medical Manager itself was more than fifteen years old by then, and it was touching the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. In my limited view of things, I saw us going on like this for the foreseeable future.

The first clue that dramatic change was once again on the horizon came when I learned that Systems Plus and many of the dealers were discussing the possibility of merging together into one company. Apparently, they felt this would help them compete better at the national level. Soon afterward, I received a visit from one of our larger dealers, John Kang, who was headquartered in Tampa. He informed me that he had been working on a proposal to consolidate the Medical Manager dealers into a combined company. He laid out his plan of initially purchasing Personalized Programming, Systems Plus, and three or four of the larger dealerships. He explained that it would take a large initial investment, but he already had that lined up. John’s presentation was very professional, but I didn’t see why Personalized Programming had to be involved. I told him that I would be willing to legally commit to providing The Medical Manager software to the new company. He then dropped the bombshell: any investors in the company would insist that the foundational software be owned by the company itself.

I was very uncomfortable with the thought of selling Personalized Programming. But I was even more uncomfortable thinking that I would be the reason that all these hundreds of dealers, and Systems Plus, were unable to get their hard-earned value from their businesses. I told John I was not interested in selling the business at any price, but if my reluctance was truly in the way of everyone else’s dreams, I would have to give his proposal some consideration. I told him he could come back to see me if he succeeded in getting others to buy in to his plan. What I was really hoping, however, was that the whole thing would just fall through by itself.

John returned a few weeks later having obtained buy-in from some of our largest dealers as well as Systems Plus. The handwriting was on the wall—this was becoming like all the previous times I had to put aside my strong personal preferences and surrender to what was manifesting before me. I didn’t like it one bit, but I was fully committed to seeing where the path of surrender to life was going to lead me.

John Kang made me a persuasive offer for Personalized Programming that included both cash and stock in the new company. He then set out on the difficult journey of merging five businesses into one and raising the funds needed to pull the merger off. The bankers decided it would be best to raise the necessary $150 million by selling shares of the new company publicly. The date for an initial public offering (IPO) was set for early 1997, but a lot of work still needed to be done.

What a world to be thrown into. Personalized Programming had grown gradually from its humble roots of one employee—me. It was now a very well organized, highly successful private company. This level of organization was not going to exist when a bunch of independently run businesses first get thrown into a pot together. There were going to be the expected power struggles, dealer acquisition issues, and constant legal and financial issues to be ironed out. Nonetheless, I didn’t allow myself to get caught up in all those negative thoughts. I just remained open and completely intrigued by what was unfolding.

It was decided that the new company would be called Medical Manager Corporation. I must admit, I liked that. I flashed back to 1981 when I was finishing the software and first came up with the name “The Medical Manager.” Fifteen years later, Medical Manager was now going to become a public company. Standing at the threshold of this major event, I was totally in awe seeing where my experiment with surrender had managed to lead me.