 Random House Audible presents E-Boys by Randall E. Strauss E-Boys, the right answer the guy, no special emphasis on either the or guy, but no intervening pause either the guy, that's the person needed to have a startup once it has grown beyond a seed to it, a stud, ideally a big honking stud or a total fucking stud, he or yes she, will not lack for balls at least in one sense, but in another will work as nuts off or as ass off, these being valuable pieces of anatomical real estate you never hear works his index finger off, a high hustle guy a total can-do guy, a winner smart, someone with integrity off the charts scrappy, a kick-ass dude, a nail-eaten nutcrushin, that tropey again decision maker, a competitor with killer instincts someone who attracts and hires A's, unafraid to hire above himself a player, a hitter finding the guy, finding the right answer for companies in need, was Dave Burns world for ten years, thanks to happenstance Burns career as a search guy had begun at the age of 22 in cold-call hell freshly graduated in 1985 from a small school Bryant College with a business degree, he had an appetite for work during his last two years of college he had taken a full course load worked at IBM virtually full-time as a marketing assistant captain the lacrosse team and led buddies in sundry intramural sports and in what in the 1980s was defined as the back half of work hard play hard the lock and load party for example, the dorm door was locked and a concoction of liquor and Kool-Aid that filled a giant garbage can in the room center was drunk until every person was loaded he had his coterie of mates to whom he was fiercely loyal but outside that circle he was not a gregarious person in fact he was unable to mix without putting many on the defensive he walked with a chip on his shoulder that he took no pains to disguise he had a particular aversion to anyone who status derived from inherited privilege a college friend would later liken his attitude to that of a ghetto hardened tough if it was given to you don't think you're better than me his own family had prospered from blue collar routes working for General Motors his grandfather was a union leader who worked 42 years on the assembly line at the tarry town New York plant and his father Gus had followed directly out of high school sample complete ready to continue