The Tale of Icarus

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The Tale of Icarus The Tale of Icarus In an investment classic “Practical Speculation”, the authors, Victor Niederhoffer and Laurel Kenner, write about the dangers of managerial hubris. Daedalus, a brilliant engineer, earned much honor from Crete’s King Minos by building a splendid palace with a running-water system. Daedalus also built a labyrinth to hide the Minotaur, the monstrous issue of the king’s wife’s passion for the white bull of Poseidon. When King Minos learned that Daedalus had assisted the queen in consummating the union, he imprisoned Daedalus. Daedalus secretly fashioned wings from wax and feathers for himself and his son, Icarus, to escape to Sicily. When the time came, Daedalus counseled his son: “Icarus, I advise you to take a middle course. If you fly too low, the sea will soak the wings; If you fly too high, the sun’s heat will bum them. Fly between sea and sun! Take the course along which I shall lead you.” But Icarus could not resist the temptation to soar high into the sky. His wings disintegrated as the sun softened the wax, and he plunged into the sea. Hubris is the sin to which the great and gifted are most susceptible, and it provided Greek tragedians and historians with a rich source of material. Recounting the punishments of heroes who aspired to godly heights provided catharsis, scholars say, allowing Greek audiences to cleanse themselves of fear and pity without becoming paralyzed by those emotions. Some writers presented the hero as wholly blameless. Aeschylus, for example, believed that the gods begrudged human greatness and inflicted hubris on men at the height of their success. Twenty-five centuries later, hubris is still a potent force in our lives, from the moment we reach out as toddlers and challenge the gods with our invincibility by touching the stove’s red-hot burner. We all have our own examples of hubris. There is story of Old Man Hemingway. Hemingway was in the habit of ending meetings with lower-level executives by picking up a copy of the New York Times and holding it in front of his face. One day he was found dead, with 15 bullet holes in his paper. Apparently, a lower-level employee, enraged by his boss’ hubris, knew the newspaper gesture only too well and took the opportunity to do him www.capitalideasonline.com Page - 1 The Tale of Icarus in. In Wall Street’s tragedies, hubris often turns out to have been the culprit. The late historian Robert Sobel, surveying the past century of business downfalls in his 1999 book “When Giants Stumble: Classic Business Blunders and How to Avoid Them”, prominently featured hubris in his list of 15 deadly sins that destroyed such leading companies as Osborne Computer, LTV, Schwinn, and Packard Motor Car. (Sobel’s list also included nepotism, nonstrategic expansion, cutting corners, isolation, and dependency.) The sense of being above the world is basic to hubris. The revered British negotiator Sir Harold Nicolson pinpointed the attitude in his 1939 classic, Diplomacy: “The dangers of vanity in a negotiator can scarcely be exaggerated. It may bring in its train vices of imprecision, excitability, impatience, emotionalism, and even untruthfulness.”” www.capitalideasonline.com Page - 2.
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  • The Story of Icarus
    The Story of Icarus King Minos looked out of the window and spotted the boat that his messenger had just mentioned. Ordinarily, he was not interested in those entering or leaving Crete but one of the passengers had been banished from Athens. All reports described him as a genius. He had even fooled Hercules with his inventions. The King smiled; this man was going to be very useful. A short while after Daedalus had arrived on the island of Crete, he was taken to the palace and asked to become the King’s master craftsman. “I have a way to use your skills,” explained the King. “There is a Minotaur who terrorises Crete and we have been unable to contain it. I need you to build a maze that it will not be able to escape from.” Pleased that his reputation had followed him, Daedalus set to work. Helped by his son, Icarus, the pair designed and built an incredible labyrinth. When it was finally finished, the Minotaur was captured and locked away. The people of Crete celebrated and thought that Daedalus and Icarus were heroes. Weeks later, Daedalus was approached by a man named Theseus. He explained to Daedalus that he planned to slay the Minotaur but that he needed Daedalus’s help to navigate the labyrinth. Unable to ignore the idea that this was a truly heroic act, Daedalus agreed. King Minos’s daughter joined them and the three completed their mission before escaping the labyrinth. Immediately, Theseus fled back to Athens with King Minos’s daughter beside him.
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  • The Flight of Daedalus Long, Long Ago Lived a Proud and Terrible King
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