All my life, I always wanted to be somebody. Now I see that I should have been more specific. – Jane Wagner
Undoubtedly you know the story of the Titanic, or do you? It is common knowledge that the “unsinkable” ship struck an iceberg and sunk in the early morning of April 15th 1912, killing over 1500 people. But do you know why the boat hit the iceberg? Because no one saw it in time.
At the last minute Second Officer David Blair was removed from the crew of the Titanic. In his haste he left a very small, but very important detail unchecked. Officer Blair forgot to leave a locker key behind. The key that he failed to leave was the only key that opened a locker, which housed a crucial piece of technology. It was the locker containing the binoculars for the lookout person in the crow’s nest, the person in charge of watching for icebergs.
In 1999 Harry Markopolis, a financial analyst, had some very disturbing inclinations about a wildly successful investments firm. After looking into the numbers for five minutes, Markopolis said he knew something was wrong. He approached the Boston SEC and the New York SEC on several occasions between 2000 and 2007 trying to bring a scandal to light. In his book, No One Would Listen he outlines his frustrations.
It wasn’t until 2008 when Bernie Madoff was arrested that Markopolis and his suspicions about the former NASDAQ chairman were confirmed. Countless, uninformed, trusting people were swindled out of their life savings by a crook with a map. Madoff led people exactly where he wanted them to be. The amount of money that Bernie Madoff stole is estimated between $20 billion and $65 billion. The reason the gap is so big is because no one is exactly sure when the Ponzi scheme started, or when the first person began to follow Bernie Madoff’s map instead of their own.
Margaret Cargill is not a household name. She was a decidedly shy person who tried to make a difference in her life. She certainly did not want accolades or credit for her philanthropic work, though she donated around $200 million to different charities during her life. That remarkable number was dwarfed upon her death when she left $6 billion to different charities, placing her at #1 on the Chronicles of Philanthropies ranking of charitable donations at the time. She became the most charitable person you’ve never heard of.
