Any of us might stumble into deep stupidity any time, through little fault of our own
Terry Robinson was an American entrepreneur who made millions in commercial radio. But he died broke, having sent a big chunk of his fortune to a man who’d approached him with an investment opportunity involving vast quantities of gold bullion, allegedly hidden in caves throughout the Philippines. The man, Jim Stuckey, said he needed cash upfront to pay off the cave guards, whereupon the hoard would be theirs to share. And so, in multiple payments over several years, Robinson paid up. His daughter, Maggie Robinson Katz, tells the story in an enthralling two-part instalment of the New Yorker Radio Hour podcast, based on recorded calls between the two men, in which she dwells on one question above all: how could a man smart enough to build a business empire fall for what looks like such an obvious scam?
Except, as the psychology writer Maria Konnikova points out in the podcast, entrepreneurial types are actually more susceptible to being conned. They’re risk-takers who trust their own judgment, and know too much caution can be fatal: the trait that made Robinson a success was the same one that spelled his undoing. If he’d been a hyper-sceptical shrinking violet, he’d never have struck it rich; but nor would he have wired hundreds of thousands of dollars to a man whose manifestly bonkers story of hidden gold literally involved the biblical Ark of the Covenant.
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