CLERMONT, Fla. — Here, where the Florida Citrus Tower offers panoramic views of big-box retailers and backyard pool cages built atop the former orange groves, the 19-year-old college student vexing the world’s richest man chose to meet at a Panera Bread. He dug into a bowl of macaroni and cheese.
His suburban hometown’s best quality, he said with no irony ― skipping right over the nearby wax museum featuring every U.S. president — is the short drive to Orlando. But for a guy with Jack Sweeney’s interests, there is another advantage to Florida’s flyover country: proximity to one of the world’s busiest airports.
Sweeney’s father, a technician for American Airlines, introduced Jack to the magic of flight tracking when he was a boy. When the elder Sweeney commuted from Dallas, Jack’s mother, a teacher, remembers her son checking the computer to let her know, “Dad’s almost home.”
