But it wasn't until 1999, when Glocer was overseeing Reuters' information division and its North and South American operations, that he began proselytizing for a complete overhaul of the Reuters system. It was the height of Internet fever, and Reuters, like just about every company in the world, knew it needed to come up with a plan for dealing with the Web. Glocer was the chief table pounder.

Then, after reading the company's press release and a subsequent report by chief table-pounder Ashok Kumar from Piper Jaffray, I realized that the reason so many Ancor-anatics have been so revved up over this company no longer existed."