Those attracted to the modest salary at Insys were people who yearned to be drug reps, usually for the first time. “We were willing to give them the shot where most companies would not,” Babich said. While Insys spoke to investors of its “cost-efficient” sales force, the terms used internally were more frank, more crude. Top executives discussed their intention to hire reps who were PhDs—“poor, hungry, and driven.” Or that’s how the term first started being used. Later it morphed into “poor, hungry, and dumb.”
