Insanity Inc.

This is one game of "Jeopardy!" that you won't see on TV. In a packed conference room littered with beer bottles, soda cans, and pizza boxes, a bunch of know-it-alls are shouting answers. They're also objecting to premature buzzer-pressing, to the use of expletives, and, of course, to answers not given in the form of a question.

What looks like Alex Trebek's worst nightmare is a dream come true for Joe Liemandt. He's the 30-year-old founder, president, and CEO of Trilogy Software Inc., an Austin-based company that he started eight years ago, after dropping out of Stanford University. Liemandt leans back, shakes his head, and laughs. Here it is, 10 p.m. on a Tuesday, and about 200 of his most recent hires are having the time of their lives -- while being quizzed not only on the company's products, customers, and employees, but also on its legendary retreats to Las Vegas and Hawaii.

It's just another night at Trilogy University (TU), a highly intense, extremely unorthodox orientation program for the company's newest employees. These energetic recruits are fresh out of college, and thanks to TU, they feel as if they never left campus. Their first three months together amount to a crash course in software, in business, and in Trilogy culture. "It's more boot camp than business school," Liemandt says.

Trilogy is a rising star that's determined to become a much bigger star. It has 700 people and annual revenues of between $100 million and $200 million, and it plans to increase those numbers as fast as it can. Trilogy's ambitious goals are rooted in reality: The company is racing to keep up with demand for its "front office" software systems -- products that optimize and streamline complicated sales and marketing processes for big companies. Trilogy's customers, including IBM, Whirlpool, and Goodyear Tire & Rubber, spend millions of dollars on its technology.

Trilogy understands that the key to fast growth is to recruit the best people it can find, to get them up to speed as quickly as possible, and to turn them loose so that they can make an immediate impact. "At a software company, people are everything," Liemandt says. "You can't build the next great software company -- which is what we're trying to do here -- unless you're totally committed to that. Of course, the leaders at every company say, 'People are everything.' But they don't act on it."

Trilogy does act on that philosophy. How it does so is what makes this young company (average age: 26) so different, so successful -- and, at times, so crazy. "Look," says Jeff Daniel, 28, Trilogy's director of college recruiting, "I don't go around saying this is the place for everyone. It's not. But it's definitely an environment where people who are passionate about what they do can thrive."

In Search of Whiz Kids

What makes trilogy so distinctive? First, it aggressively pursues the least experienced people in the job market. At dozens of college campuses across the country, Trilogy recruiters prowl career fairs and computer-science departments, looking for students who represent what Daniel calls "a good technical and cultural fit." In other words, he looks for young, talented overachievers with entrepreneurial ambition and chutzpah -- people just like Liemandt and his four cofounders.

Recruiting is not just a high priority -- it's a company-wide mission. One of Trilogy's most active recruiters is the CEO himself. Some of the company's top software developers conduct first-round interviews. When Trilogy flies its top recruits (along with their girlfriends, boyfriends, or spouses) into town for a three-day visit, a dozen or more "Trilogians" join them on Sixth Street, the hub of Austin nightlife. A typical evening might include Southwestern cuisine at Z Tejas Grill, a variety show at Esther's Follies, and dancing at Polly Esther's, a '70s club. A morning of grueling, highly technical interviews might be followed by an afternoon of mountain biking, roller blading, or laser tag.

Last year, the company reviewed 15,000 résumés, conducted 4,000 on-campus interviews, flew 850 prospects to Austin for on-site interviews, and wound up hiring a grand total of 262 college graduates. This well-orchestrated wooing is time-consuming and expensive ($13,000 per hire), but it's worth every minute and every dollar, Daniel says. The people whom Trilogy courts are the whiz kids who will most likely develop the next hit software package. And if they don't do it for Trilogy, they'll do it for somebody else.

A second big difference between Trilogy and its competitors is evident in what Trilogy does with its new employees once it recruits them. Rather than bring its new hires along gradually, Trilogy tosses them the keys to the car and tells them to step on the gas. For three exhausting, exhilarating months, they "ramp up" at TU. When they're not learning about the software industry from Liemandt, they're improving the company's existing products -- or creating new ones. Liemandt assures his recruits that the company will push them to the limit and then reward them accordingly. Three weeks into TU '98, for example, he flew the entire group to Vegas, because class members had delivered so much so fast.