Fast Talk: 9/11/02

Rono Dutta

President
United Airlines
Elk Grove Township, Illinois
The world has been through a lot. The employees of United Airlines have been through a lot -- and more. It wasn't until two weeks after September 11 that I gave myself permission to grieve. I was at the opening night of the Chicago Symphony. I just listened to the music and cried. And kept crying.

I am still grieving. But shock has given way to determination. September 11 forced us to get rid of the BS in our thinking. Before September 11, we wanted to be the biggest and best airline. Today, we just want to survive. Before September 11, we believed that size would forgive a lot of our errors. Now we have no room for error. Before September 11, we took a lot of things for granted: that business would always get better, that demand would grow. We no longer take anything for granted.

That said, our sense of purpose has never been greater. We are returning to our core values. Whether it's in advertising, product positioning, or the way that we view ourselves and our customers, we're more sincere in what we say and what we do.

Business has become more real.

Rono Dutta (rdutta@ual.com) and another top executive at United Airlines had gathered in then-CEO James Goodwin's office to report that air-traffic control had lost contact with United Airlines Flight 175 when Goodwin notified them that a plane, which was reported and later confirmed to be American Airlines Flight 11, had just struck the World Trade Center. From there, they watched on TV as their own plane struck the South Tower. Moments later, they learned that they had lost contact with United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania about an hour after the initial attack.

Tom Leighton

Cofounder and chief scientist
Akamai Technologies Inc.
Cambridge, Massachusetts
The day that took the life of my friend and cofounder was also the day that demonstrated the value and the power of our technology.

It was Danny Lewin's idea to take an academic project that we'd been working on, enter a business-plan contest at MIT, and create Akamai. He was our chief technology officer, and he was on board American Airlines Flight 11. Not a day goes by that I don't think about how Danny's death has changed the lives of the people here.

Yet the day that we lost Danny was also the day that this company shined. It was a peak day for Internet volume, and many sites simply couldn't handle it. We signed up all kinds of new customers on September 11 -- news sites, airlines, and government agencies -- and handled their traffic. For many Internet-service providers, the only traffic they could deliver that day was Akamai traffic.

Today, there is a heightened sense of urgency. We've always believed that the work we do is important; now we believe it more strongly. We always took our work personally; now it's even more so. I spent at least four hours a day with Danny for several years. He was killed while working for the company that we created. If that doesn't create an extra edge, what would?

Tom Leighton cofounded Akamai Technologies in 1998 with Danny Lewin and a team of scientists at MIT. Leighton had been working late with Lewin the night before September 11.

Joseph Noviello

Executive vice president, chief information officer, and director
eSpeed Inc.
New York, New York
We are proof that when tested, even under brutal circumstances, people rise to the occasion in miraculous ways.

The morning after September 11 and the days and weeks that followed, we worked around the clock to restore our systems and save the company. People did whatever it took. Those whose managers had died showed their skills as natural leaders. Their instincts for what to do were so strong. They figured out how to contribute based on what they knew. Many of us slept on cots at our computing center in Rochelle Park, New Jersey, where we had duplicates of everything that was destroyed at our offices in the World Trade Center. ESpeed was up and running when the bond market reopened two days after the attacks.

The need to get back to work was intense, and it was amazing how much everyone accomplished. We worked to restore this company for Fred Varacchi, our president, who was such a mentor to me, and for Joe Giaccone, our global infrastructure manager. I can walk into Rochelle Park today and see the eSpeed-orange wall that Joe insisted we paint. It was his passion and persistence that convinced us to create the backup data center in the first place.

Fred, Joe, and so many of the people we lost that day had such an effect on me. I am now more aware than ever of the effect that I can have on other people -- and the commitment that requires.

Joseph Noviello and four eSpeed executives were scheduled to go on a fishing trip the morning of September 11. Cantor Fitzgerald, the bond-trading firm, and eSpeed, an electronic-trading operation almost wholly owned by Cantor, lost 658 of their 900 employees.