Every decade since the war has thrown up a new kind of man it can do business with, a new young executive whose working practices come into being with the attitudes and technology of his age. The sixties had Tom Wolfe's Transatlantic Man, the seventies the international playboy, the eighties the yuppie, and the nineties has someone who, for reasons we will explore later, can be called the flexecutive.

How the decades measure up The 1980s: Yuppies, The City, Alan Walters, Nigel Lawson, The Adam Smith Institute, Ambition and wealth, Deals, No alternative, Business studies, Smart, Cocaine