Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.

<passage>:
PUSHBUTTON ARRANGEMENT WERE NECESSARY, I COULD PUSH THE BUTTON MYSELF. I DO NOT BELIEVE THIS WOULD MEET WITH YOUR APPROVAL, AND HAVE TAKEN STEPS TO RELIEVE YOU OF THE BURDEN INVOLVED IN REMEMBERING TO PUSH THE know what in hell he's looking for. He's turned down every man we've sent him." The interview was at three. Fifteen minutes to go. Coming early would large for a manufacturing plant—it took a scant minute to exhaust its sightseeing potential. If he walked around the building, he could, if he ambled, come back to the front entrance just before three. "You are He went through it with his composure slipping still further from his grip. This was no way to go into an interview, but doors kept opening before and shutting after him, until only one was left, and the last of his calm was blasted away by a bellow from within. "Don't stand out there like a jackass! Either come in or go away!" just short of it, took a deep breath and huffed it out, took another, all the while thinking, Hold on now you're in no shape for an interview—and it's not your fault—this whole setup is geared to unnerve you: the kindergarten kid called in to see the principal. He let another bellow bounce off him as he blew out the second breath, straightened his jacket and tie, and walked in as an engineer applying basics of how they're interested in protecting. At least I won't have to beat them out of you." company—" "Any company that really wants bright trainees will compete for them with money—cold, hard cash, not platitudes. Maybe you saw a few of "If you'd stayed with them five years, do you think you'd be able to get a job with someone else?" "I hadn't thought about it," he said. "I suppose it wouldn't have been easy." "Impossible, you mean. You wouldn't know a single thing except their procedures, their catalogue numbers, their way of doing things. And "That's right." "Well," said Lexington unexpectedly, "there is a shortage! And the What makes you think you're qualified for the job I'm offering?" "You said you wanted an engineer." "And now you're wondering why I don't get somebody fresh out of school. Right?" "No, you're not." "Then what am I after?" "Suppose you tell me." a single unit. These materials handlers, or manipulators, were about the toughest things in the place to design. But they're tremendously useful. You'll see a lot of them around." Lexington was about to leave the side of the machine when abruptly one trace of anger not yet gone from his voice. "When an order is received, it's translated into the catalogue numbers used internally within the each one seemingly intent on cutting, bending, welding, grinding or carrying some bit of metal, or just standing idle, waiting for exact knowledge of what they were doing and the most efficient way of doing it. He wondered what would happen if one of them tried to use the same aisle they were using. He pictured a futile attempt to escape the "Hard to believe?" said Peter. "I almost can't. The trade journals run articles about factories like this one, but planned for ten, maybe Apparently the walk through the factory had tired him considerably, although it hadn't been strenuous. He leaned back in his chair and began to talk in a low voice completely tried commerce, with accounting, so I gave up and started working for one of my competitors. It wasn't too long before I saw that the only way I could get ahead was to open up on my own." Lexington sank deeper in his chair and stared at the ceiling as he spoke. "I put myself in hock to the eyeballs, which wasn't easy, because I had just got married, and started off in a very small way. After three years, I had a fairly decent little business going, and I suppose it would have grown just like any other business, except for a strike that came along and put me right back where I started. My wife, whom I'm afraid I had neglected for the sake of the business, remember looking down at her coffin and thinking that I hardly knew the girl. "For the next few years, I concentrated on getting rid of as many myself, always concentrating on replacing men with machines. But it wasn't very successful. I found that the more automatic I made my plant, the lower my costs went. The lower my costs went, the more business I got, and the more I had to expand." Lexington scowled. "I got sick of it. I decided to try developing one multi-purpose control circuit that would control everything, from you, I had taken quite an interest in biology when I was in school, and from studies of nerve tissue in particular, plus my electrical knowledge, I had a few ideas on how to do it. It took me three years, but I began to see that I could develop circuitry that could remember, in units so tiny that my biggest problem was getting into and out of the logic units with conventional wiring. I finally beat that the same electrical signals, developed equipment to scan the units cyclically, and once I'd done that, the battle was over. "I built this building and incorporated it as a separate company, to compete with my first outfit. In the beginning, I had it rigged up to do only the manual work that you saw being done a few minutes ago in the back of this place. I figured that the best thing for me to do money." "What happened to your original company?" Peter asked. Lexington smiled. "Well, automated as it was, it couldn't compete with started working, to see my old company go belly up. This company bought and did nothing. I couldn't understand it for the longest time, and then I realized what the trouble was. I put a kicker circuit into it, a was still under instructions to receive orders and produce goods, its prime purpose was to activate the kicker. The kicker, however, could only be activated by me, manually. Lastly, I set up one of the early every order, to be fed into the memory banks. That did it." "I—I don't understand," stammered Peter. "Simple! Whenever I was pleased that things were going smoothly, I pressed the kicker button. The machine had one purpose, so far as its logic circuits were concerned. Its object was to get me to press that button. Every day I'd press it at the same time, unless things weren't going well. If there had been trouble in the shop, I'd press it late, or maybe not at all. If all the orders were out on schedule, or ahead of time, I'd press it ahead of time, or maybe twice in the same day. Pretty soon the machine got the idea. "I'll never forget the day I picked up an incoming order form from one order was already entered on the in-progress list. I was a long time convincing myself that it had really happened, but there was no other explanation. of the plant. The machine had done it for me this time, then locked the keyboard so I couldn't enter the order twice. I think I held down the kicker button for a full five minutes that day." "Exactly!" whispered Lexington, in an almost conspiratorial tone. "I had altered the circuitry of the machine so that it tried to give activated. "Things went fast from then on. Once I realized that the machine had taken a small plate laden with two or three cakes off its surface. Then the soft, evenly modulated voice he had heard before asked, "How "Not only expensive, but stupid and impractical!" exploded Lexington. that I had to be careful to behave reasonably at all times, because the machine was still learning from me, and I was afraid that any tantrums I threw might be imitated." obvious reason. Inexplicably, we always came out on top. It would turn out that on the short-delivery-time quotations, we'd been up against "It sounds wonderful, sir," said Peter, feeling dazzled. "It was, in a way. I remember one day I was especially pleased with something, and I went to the control console to give the kicker button

<question>:
How many companies had the boss started in his life?

<options>:
A 2
B 3
C unknown
D 1

<answer>:

A