Mickey Drexler

When I started at Bloomingdale's as a buyer, Alexander's was a discounter across the street, and every time Alexander's had something that we had at Bloomingdale's, we'd have to meet price. I didn't really want to be in a business where I had no control over my inventory, the value of my inventory.

I don't size up their grades or their board scores. Because in America today, that's just an advantage certain people have. I size up the give and take, the speed of thinking, what I perceive as ambition. I say, 'Tell me about your high school jobs.' And I love people who worked in coffee shops who were waiters and waitresses.

It got to the point where most of my time went toward writing novels. I would still occasionally write short stories, but only when I was commissioned by an editor to write for a themed anthology or special issue.

Well, there's no question that the law passed in 1996 was flawed. It deregulated the wholesale market, meaning the price that the utilities had to pay energy companies for power, but not the retail market.