In 1994, McKinsey & Company hired five new people to join what would later become the Prague office. David was amongst those five people. So was I and during the following two years I had a number of opportunities to get to know him. Below are a few recollections from these days. They reflect some of his humor, candor and penetrating thinking the way I remember it. 1. Prague office When we joined, there was no office, just a few rented rooms in hotel Praha. The only quality of that place was its location near airport. So everyone was really excited about moving into the first ‘real’ offices in the Prague center. It was a relatively small office building. Its address, Rimska 12, hosted not only the small McKinsey office, but also a few other companies, including the PWC auditors. Soon after moving in, we organized an ‘office-warming’ party. As the evening was progressing, the party was getting more and more into gear. Some time after midnight, we took a break, tuned down the music and stopped our disco dancing. Suddenly, David suggested: “Why don’t we call the PWC guys from upstairs and ask them to join us?”. Everyone liked the idea, so David just dialed their number from the phone at our reception and put the speakerphone on. Predictably, the phone rang a few times with no answer and then the answering machine replied with the usual “Thank you for calling PWC …”. David waited for the beep and then took a breath and recorded his message: “It’s 2 o’clock in the morning and I’m urgently seeking financial advice. And there’s no one to help me. God dammit!” 2. First project David’s first project was somewhere in Denmark and it was somehow related to his field of study which I believe was Genetics Biology. When I met him after his first two or three weeks there, he was completely beaming and it was clear he was enjoying the experience. I asked him how the study went and David replied something like this: “It’s great. There’s only two of us there – an Associate who pretends to be an Engagement Manager and myself. But the amount of work we managed to do there is incredible! Just incredible!” 3. At home in Prague It was easy for David to feel at home in Prague. Even though he grew up in California, his spoken Czech was impeccable. His parents clearly made an effort and the same applies to David. He also mentioned that he benefited from spending summer vacations with his grandmother in Czechoslovakia (behind the Iron Curtain in those days) and that he really enjoyed that. When I asked him what did he enjoy most about those visits, he said: “My grandma’s house felt like a technical museum. Everything looked awkwardly old. Like take the toilettes with a flush cord. I’ve enjoyed just flushing them over and over again!” But even being almost native did not prevent one from having some frustrating experiences – like with the cab drivers. Prague cab drivers have had a pretty bad reputation. One morning David would come into the office. Half upset and half with his wry smile he would say: “Terrible. Yesterday I got thrown out of a cab again. I jumped into one close to the office, because it was beginning to rain. I wanted to take a short ride, just a few blocks. And the cab driver told me – “I’m not going there – why don’t you take a walk!’” 4. Applying for a business school One thing that was great about McKinsey was that they would support their junior consultants to take their MBA – assuming the performance met expectations. So sometimes towards the end of 1995, we started the application process with writing the essays. I remember David sitting long hours on weekend in a meeting room in the McKinsey office with a red baseball cap, thinking and writing. I was putting my effort in as well and we have looked at each other’s essays and looked for feedback. David’s essay was something about him wanting to be a fireman when he was a kid and a fire broke out in their house. Mine was something about how I have improved my interpersonal skills over the last couple years. David’s feedback to my essay was disarmingly open: “The way you’ve written it makes you look like you used to be a complete idiot!”