The Tullmans
Glen, 42, chairman and CEO, Allscripts Healthcare Solutions; Howard, 56, chairman of the board, the Cobalt Group

"Selling a magic trick is [like] selling a product."
Shortly after Howard Tullman left home for Northwestern University, his parents, a women's apparel salesman and a homemaker, moved with their five younger children from Highland Park, Ill., to New Jersey. That's when Glen, 14 years Howard's junior, took ownership of the magic tricks Howard had stashed away. "He claims my mother gave them to him," snorts Howard. Howard eventually forgave his kid brother, hiring him out of Oxford University at his company, Certified Collateral, an insurance data provider. Both have since helped launch more than a dozen different ventures. Glen runs Allscripts, a Libertyville, Ill., medical handheld-technology firm; Howard, who lives in Chicago and New York, is chairman of the board of the Cobalt Group. "When we get together these days," says Howard, "it's mostly at Democratic fundraisers and family performances." Not magic shows, though both believe that preteen prestidigitation helped prepare them for the boardroom. "Selling a magic trick," says Howard, "is no different from selling a product or idea."

FORTUNE
Monday, November 12, 2001
By Scott Gummer

Movies