Chapter 1. WHY GIVING UP CONTROL IS INEVITABLE

You may not know who Dave Carroll is, but United Airlines wishes it had never heard of him.

One March day not long ago, Carroll was a United passenger waiting for takeoff. He looked out of the airplane window and couldn't believe what he was seeing. Out on the tarmac of Chicago's O'Hare airport, he saw baggage handlers tossing suitcases, sometimes dropping them on the ground. Among the items were guitar cases—and the alarmed Carroll, an independent Canadian musician and songwriter, realized that these were his guitars being thrown back and forth.

Carroll called over a United flight attendant and asked her to check into what was happening outside. As Carroll related in an interview, "She physically held ...

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