“Scott showed up with a few boxes one day,” says Justyna Chrupek of the day she found out about the project that would take over her life for the next 18 months. Her assignment: Gather 3,500–4,500 books for a new hotel. Scott Greenberg, her boss, is the CEO of SMASHotels and behind the science-inspired Hotel EMC2, which opened in Chicago last May, and its New American restaurant, the Albert, named after you-know-who. “In my head, this was a simple, easy project,” says Chrupek, Greenberg’s executive assistant. “I had no idea.”
