On a trip to Budapest, Paul visited a government run copy center, one of the few copy centers available in Hungary. In fact, copiers that members of the public could use were extremely rare—perhaps...

On a trip to Budapest, Paul visited a government run copy center, one of the few copy centers available in Hungary. In fact, copiers that members of the public could use were extremely rare—perhaps not surprisingly: In Communist countries the last thing the government had wanted was for ordinary people to have access to a means of sharing information. The opportunity in post communist Hungary was obvious to Paul, and on a return visit home, he contacted me [Ken Chaletzky] and Dirck Holscher, college friends of Paul’s who operated a successful chain of copy centers in Washington, D.C., called Copy General. Paul asked us if we would like to help him open a copy center in Budapest. We were a little skeptical about the concept, but we signed on.