Most consultants billed by the hour. Sapient promised a price and a deadline up front, and kept its margins by finishing on time. The Cambridge, Massachusetts firm built client/server and internet software for big organizations using QUADD, its own workshop method where clients worked alongside its staff to design the system. Sapient went public in April 1996. Within weeks the stock traded as high as $58.25, and in October it came back to sell more shares at $46.50.

Two Founders, One Promise

Jerry Greenberg and J. Stuart Moore founded Sapient on November 6, 1990, and served together as co-chairmen and co-chief executives. Their bet was that clients hated open-ended consulting bills and would pay for certainty. That meant Sapient had to price each job right and keep its people busy. Revenue grew from $950,000 in 1992 to $503 million in 2000. By 1999 internet work made up more than 70 percent of revenue.

Bubble, Bust, Publicis

Sapient's IPO priced at $21 a share in April 1996, raising about $32.4 million, and it listed on Nasdaq as SAPE. The October 1996 offering in this filing sold 1,040,000 more shares. The stock soared through the dot-com years, then fell as low as $0.75 when the bubble burst. Sapient rebuilt with engineering teams in India. Publicis Groupe bought it in 2015 for $3.7 billion, and it lives on as Publicis Sapient.

Cover: Small-horned owl, pine, and crescent moon, Utagawa Hiroshige. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for an owl under a crescent moon (sapient, wise).