I'm not a Luddite, one of those 19th-century factory workers who destroyed machines because they thought industrialization would replace their jobs. On the contrary, I love new technology.
In the mid-'80s, I created what has become one of the largest and most successful self-insurance pools in the nation for political subdivisions. Part of this process was a feasibility study: That study occurred prior to the proliferation of Lotus 1-2-3 (predecessor to Excel) so I did all of my projections with an adding machine along with yards and yards of paper tape.
We used two-dozen Apple IIGS computers to leverage our employees' abilities to could keep the expense ratio for that insurance company under 27.5%—which compared favorably to the then-common expense ratio of about 35%. Using Appleworks and spreadsheets that I devised, my employees could quote a premium for the average city in under 30 minutes, something that would have taken them five to seven hours using paper and calculators.
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