Looking into the darker side of business did something to me that I didn’t expect.
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We’re fascinated by extraordinarily wealthy people.
Their lives seem exclusive, and it’s natural to be interested in something so elusive.
We look at the rich for different reasons. Some of us may see them as our entertainment. We watch them to love them, and we watch them to loathe them. Some of us look to them for a blueprint, handout, or secret sauce.
Some of us look at them with disdain and contempt; sometimes those feelings are justified.
I look at them because I’m fascinated by the human behind the money. In an earlier piece of mine, I looked into what two of the richest men in history can teach us about money.
One of those men was Cornelius Vanderbilt, the steamboat and railroad tycoon. I was finishing up a biography about him while I created that piece. Earlier today, I finished that biography.
There was an interesting paragraph within the final pages of Vanderbilt’s biography as the author, T.J. Stiles, wrote about the Commodore’s final days. Oddly enough, the paragraph that caught my attention wasn’t about Vanderbilt.
It was about a sometimes-friend-sometimes-foe of Vanderbilt: Daniel Drew.
“I was always pretty luck till lately.”
Daniel Drew was visited by a reporter towards the end of his life wanted to learn more about his rise and fall.
“I had been wonderfully blessed in money-making,” he relayed to the reporter. “Got to be a millionaire afor I know’d it hardly.”
Only a handful of months before this, Drew was worth millions of dollars. He had invested in–and manipulated–many steamboat and railroad lines. By most accounts, there was little that Drew wouldn’t do to make money.
“I was ambitious to make a great fortune like Vanderbilt, and tried in every way I knew,” he continued telling the reporter. “But got caught at last.”
After many years of luxury, Drew went bankrupt in 1876 and died in obscurity three years later.
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A castle fit for a king.
98 rooms. 30 bathrooms. 25 fireplaces.
To say the least, Casa Loma is huge. There are secret passageways, a library with thousands of books, and three bowling alleys. It’s the epitome of wealth, and it’s as extravagant as the wealth of the man who designed it.
Sir Henry Pellatt amassed an amazing amount of wealth in the early 1900s. He inherited his father’s brokerage firm, then later harnessed the power of Niagara Falls in order to provide parts of the city with electricity.
Just before the first World War, Pellatt broke ground on his multi-million dollar castle. It’d take less than a decade before the bank owned it. He couldn’t afford his mortgage. Pellatt was in such an incredible amount of debt that he ruined the banks, along with thousands of people’s life savings.. He moved to smaller and smaller apartments as his time and money dwindled away.
The King of Casa Loma eventually moved in with his former chauffeur.
Saddled with debt, Sir Henry Pellatt died in 1939.
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The research for this piece was difficult.
I read story after story of men toppling from the top of their mountain. Those aren’t usually the stories I’m reading–or writing.
Usually I’m reading stories of men who have ethically risen to the top.
But what I learn from those people is much different than what I’ve learned from those who have fallen from grace.
In a way, I was anticipating that I’d become more cynical after looking at the darker side of business. You and I know people who look at the world of business through the lens of a cynic. Stories of corporate greed and manipulation are all around us. It’s not difficult to think that that’s the way the world of business really is.
Actually, looking into the darker side of business did something to me that I didn’t expect.
The dark stories made the bright stories brighter.
There are so many lessons that can come out of the stories about Daniel Drew and Sir Henry Pellatt. But there’s one lesson that stands out for me.
No matter how many Drews and Pellatts there may be in business, you absolutely don’t have to be like them to make money.
For as many unscrupulous, conspiring, manipulating men as you may think are in business, there are just as many people rising to the top of the world in a way that lifts others up with them.
These men chose their actions.
You can choose too.
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Photo: Flickr/Thomas Angermann