The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 68: A Nice Girl From Wisconsin

Episode Date: August 1, 2017

The consequences of her choice would forever change the world.

This is the way I heard it. Abdul Fataa was not on a mission to create jobs. That much is clear. And yet, this mysterious Muslim is quite possibly the greatest jobs creator of all time. Of course, if you were affected by the explosions, explosions that left in their wake no less than 490,000 casualties, you might hold a slightly different view of Abdul Fattah. indeed you might wonder why such a man was even allowed in this country when abdul first arrived at the

immigration counter the agent said he appeared anxious like most of the other foreigners hoping to enter was there reason for concern depends who you ask yes he was Muslim yes he was Syrian but his papers were in order and his answers to all the mandatory questions were believable so the agent had no legal reason to detain him. And so, Abdul Fataa was welcomed into the United States and free to travel wherever he wished. Already fluent in English, Abdul chose Wisconsin as his base of operations. There, he went by the name of John Gendali. He enrolled at Wisconsin University, made friends easily, and quickly assimilated. He earned a master's degree and a PhD in economics and political science.

Obviously, Abdul was perfectly positioned to create jobs, but again, creating jobs was not Abdul's objective. Far from it. Abdul became a citizen as planned. He met a nice girl from Wisconsin as planned, and the nice girl fell in love with him as planned. But then the nice girl became pregnant. That was not part of the plan.

especially for the nice girl's dying father, a practicing Catholic who felt a decided lack of enthusiasm for the foreigner with the funny name who made his little girl pregnant. Marriage, he weezed, with an Arab over my dead body. The nice girl from Wisconsin loved the Arab from Syria, as well as the unborn baby she carried. But she also loved her dad, in much the same way that Gloria loved Archie Bunker.

She knew that marrying against her father's wishes would destroy their relationship just as surely as an abortion would destroy the life she carried. So the nice girl from Wisconsin gave her baby up for adoption and waited for her father to die. When he finally complied, she married her beloved Abdul, and the two went about the business of living happily ever after, except, of course, they didn't. They divorced. Abdul returned to Syria. His work was done, you see. The die was cast. And soon, a series of devastating explosions ripped across the United States. At Hewlett-Packard, the casualties numbered 16,995. At Kodak, the number was over 18,000. At Circuit City, an almost incomprehensible 42,974. No one, including the number was over 18,000. At Circuit City, an almost incomprehensible 42,974. No one, including the number was over 18,000. At Circuit City, in Circuit City, and almost incomprehensible, and almost incomprehensible 42,974. No one, including the FBI,

had ever seen such a brilliantly coordinated assault. At Motorola, the body count was 16,474. At borders, 16,600. The federal government alone lost over 43,000 people. Sprint, IBM, Erickson, Hasbro, Cisco, T-Mobile, Palm, Adobe, The carnage in Silicon Valley was so widespread, the press didn't even know how to report it, so they didn't. Like everyone else, they talked only about the devices themselves. They talked about the elegance of their design, the way they blew up, the way each one was carefully placed into a sleek and stylish box, the fact that each one had its own name,

like the bombs that ended World War II. But unlike Fat Man and Little Boy, these devices didn't destroy cities. They destroyed jobs. 490,000 jobs. When the nice girl from Wisconsin gave her baby to the nice couple from California, she didn't know he'd grow up to unleash the Macintosh upon an unsuspecting computer industry, nor did she imagine he'd launch the iPodian. iPod, the iPad, the iPhone, a devastating trifecta of job-killing devices that American businesses

were simply unable to compete with. But that is precisely what her little boy did. And the consequences, for better and worse, are still unfolding. As for the Syrian Muslim, who came to the United States looking for a better life, he appears to have found one. At 85 years of age, Abdul Fattah Jandali is a live and well, back in the USA, and overseeing a casino in Nevada. But his enduring legacy will be that of a man who did something that very few have actually accomplished, a man who actually created jobs. Steve Jobs. Anyway, that's the way I heard it.