I’ve been casually reading Arthur Koestler’s memoir Arrow in the Blue and found this observation about ‘moneymaking’ in relation to his father’s business pursuits. The passage happens right after several pages of description of various quixotic business attempts his father made while Arthur was young:
“The truly remarkable thing about all this seems to me that with a mentality as described, my father was, during long stretches, a highly successful businessman. As I grew up I became more and more puzzled by the paradox that a person with such a gullible, and indeed childlike, character could be capable of extracting money from the hard world of commerce. Much later, when I became acquainted with some really big money-makers, the paradox became even more pronounced. The financial heavyweights who have crossed my path - publishers, art-dealers, bankers, movie producers - have been without exception idiosyncratic, eccentric, irrational, and basically naive individuals; almost the exact opposite of the popular image of the hard, shrewd businessman. Apparently, the shrewd, cold, calculating type is mainly to be foundin the light and middle-weight categories of business; while moneymaking on a truly large scale is a special talent, unrelated to intelligence, like playing the trombone or roller skating. And alas, it is not hereditary.”