Had the economy continued to deteriorate, had the world drifted toward further polarisation and confrontation, or had the microcomputing market become increasingly fragmented and unable to evolve industry standards able to sustain a viable application market, we would not be here today plotting how best to steer Autodesk through the uncertain times ahead. Indeed, we might not be here at all. But, in 1982, the downtrends in so many things economic, political, and technological began to turn up ever so subtly. Slowly things began to improve. Perhaps, as the 1980s pass into the last decade of this century, we'll see a world very different from the dark world of today and, if we draw our plans carefully and strive to make them real, the fruit of our labours may have grown into an enterprise that leads its industry into that new decade.
Small changes add up.
Reality eventually will out. If we fail, we go back to our jobs and chalk it off to experience. The year is 1990. Every two cents invested in Autodesk stock has grown to more than sixty dollars. Today, we're worrying about filling our treasury.