Paul was a creature of the New Economy, but he was also an old American. He was a carrier of a strain in the American character that refuses to be encumbered by the past. It’s an ethos that says you don’t have to do what your father did, that indeed you don’t have to do what you yourself were doing six months ago—or even yesterday. Consistency doesn’t matter. Only invention matters.

— A Truck Full of Money by Tracy Kidder (Page 249)