Everything

The meeting didn’t last forever, but what Mr. Greene said kept echoing in Franz’s mind. Later that evening, when the humble nerd was dragging his exhausted body home, he met Philo – a wise friend of his.

It goes without saying that Franz told his friend what he thought.

To the surprise of Franz, Philo was less than sympathetic, “Although the argument is bitter to the palate, it is, nevertheless, a logical conclusion.”

“How could that be?”

“My friend, it is a romantic idea to run a department store that sells everything. For example, if you think it is not good enough to have dedicated areas for women’s fashion and cosmetics, and a counter for electronic device – say, tablet – is necessary, is it good enough if it sells only iPad and leave out Samsung, Nexus, Kindle Fire, and so forth? You may have a specialty nominally, but you certainly could not cover every subspecialty.”

“That may be true,” Franz scratched his head. He couldn’t really tell whether his friend was speaking the truth or irony.