The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich

of a social system. It is extremely efficient; it saves a lot of trouble to have a fair degree of reliance on other people’s word. . . . Trust and similar values, loyalty and truth-telling, are examples of what the economist would call ‘externalities.’ They are goods, they are commodities; they have real, practical, economic value; they increase the efficiency of the system.” 9
    I experienced Rich’s trust firsthand. It took several years before Rich agreed to meet with me. However, when he decided that he would make himself available for this book, he gave me free rein. I did not have to grapple with his lawyers as I had expected. He did not insist on the right to revise my manuscript. On the contrary, he accepted my desire to independently research and write the book. He guaranteed my complete control of its contents.
    Dictum meum pactum
—“My word is my bond.” Traders have used this Latin phrase ever since the sixteenth century when carrying out business over long distances in situations where written contracts were impractical.
Dictum meum pactum
has been the motto of the London Stock Exchange since 1923. Rich identifies with this centuries-old merchant tradition. When I asked him about his most important leadership principle, Rich answered, “My principle is to perform what I say I’ll do. Performance.”
    When I asked Robert Fink, who has served as Rich’s lawyer for many years, about his client’s strengths, he simply looked at me for some time without saying a word. It seemed as if he were contemplating whether I would believe his answer. He then said, “Rich is a man of his word. Beingreliable, keeping your word, being honest—these are the reasons he is successful.” Trust and dependability were decisive factors in the commodities trade in the 1970s. At that time the markets were much less transparent than they are today. There was no Internet, and there were no mobile phones; there was no constant flow of business data from news service agencies such as Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters. It was not as easy to compare prices as it is today. Whoever had access to trustworthy business contacts was at a great competitive advantage.
“Don’t Let Them Eat Your Soul”
     
    Rich’s people repaid their employer with a high degree of loyalty and an above-average willingness to perform. They were “short on diplomas and long on work ethic.” 10 It was not unusual for employees to work fifteen or sixteen hours a day. “I enjoyed my duty,” a trader explained when talking about his work at the company. “I was in the office at a quarter to eight in the morning. I left at 1:00 A.M . I went Saturday and Sunday. I was in the office on December twenty-fifth or on January first. All the other traders were there as well.” He then confided that he was later treated for work addiction.
    One of the few women in the business admitted to me during a ride in a taxi, “We commodities traders are addicts.” She gave up the job many years ago, but she still follows the daily price of bauxite and knows if workers are on strike in Guinea, one of the main producers of the ore. It seems that this addiction can be kept under control, but it can never be cured. I spoke with several traders who continued to carry a list of their most important contacts’ telephone numbers or names of refineries and their production output in their wallets for years after they had gotten out of the business. A former Rich employee told me one of the wives of the five founders warned him, “Don’t let them eat your soul.”
    Rich’s traders could sometimes achieve celebrity status within theirindustry, and if they were successful they could earn even more money than an investment banker. The company is proud of the fact that it has created more millionaires than any other company in Switzerland. Rich’s employees were encouraged to become shareholders in the company from its inception—quite a revolutionary step in those days. “I wanted my people to work for ‘their’ company and profit from its success,” Rich explains. Even the secretaries received company stock.
    “The person has to have a fire burning,” Rich said when I asked him about his hiring criteria. “He or she has to have a passion for business. They have to be willing to work hard and long hours. They have to be able to insist and insist.” One of his top managers says that the flat hierarchy and the open-door policy set the tone. “Marc’s