It is over fifteen years now since I met my first really dumb multimillionaire, and it made quite an impression on me. Up till then I had thought that you needed brains to make money: I was used to being asked “If you’re so clever, why aren’t you rich?” but this was the first time I’d met someone to whom I could have said “If you’re so rich, why aren’t you clever?” At least I myself could not have said it, because I do not have that kind of courage, but it would have been a fair question.
A version of this article appeared in the July 1977 issue of Harvard Business Review.
