Talking to Strangers

by

Malcolm Gladwell

Bernie Madoff was an American financier who operated the largest Ponzi scheme in history. In 1960, Madoff founded the brokerage fund that would grow into Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. He served as the company’s chairman until his arrest in December 2008. Gladwell explores Madoff’s Ponzi scheme in Chapter Four to illustrate Tim Levine’s Truth-Default Theory in action. While many investors had ample reason to suspect Madoff of fraud—and many did suspect him—they “defaulted to truth,” choosing to believe that they weren’t being lied to and that Madoff’s fund was legitimate.

Bernie Madoff Quotes in Talking to Strangers

The Talking to Strangers quotes below are all either spoken by Bernie Madoff or refer to Bernie Madoff. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Default to Truth Theme Icon
).
Chapter 4 Quotes

The difference between Markopolos and Renaissance, however, is that Renaissance trusted the system. Madoff was part of one of the most heavily regulated sectors in the entire financial market. If he was really just making things up, wouldn’t one of the many government watchdogs have caught him already? As Nat Simons, the Renaissance executive, said later, “You just assume that someone was paying attention.”

Related Characters: Malcolm Gladwell (speaker), Nat Simons (speaker), Bernie Madoff, Nat Simons
Related Symbols: The Holy Fool
Page Number: 96
Explanation and Analysis:

What sets the Holy Fool apart is a different sense of the possibility of deception. In real life, Tim Levine reminds us, lies are rare. And those lies that are told are told by a very small subset of people. That’s why it doesn’t matter so much that we are terrible at detecting lies in real life. Under the circumstances, in fact, defaulting to truth makes logical sense. If the person behind the counter at the coffee shop says your total with tax is $6.74, you can do the math yourself to double-check their calculations, holding up the line and wasting thirty seconds of your time. Or you can simply assume the salesperson is telling you the truth, because on balance most people do tell the truth.

Related Characters: Malcolm Gladwell (speaker), Tim Levine, Bernie Madoff
Related Symbols: The Holy Fool
Page Number: 99-100
Explanation and Analysis:

If they came for him, he concluded, his only hope would be to hold them off as long as possible, until he could get help. He loaded up a twelve-gauge shotgun and added six more rounds to the stock. He hung a bandolier of twenty extra rounds on his gun cabinet. Then he dug out his gas mask from his army days. What if they came in using tear gas? He sat at home, guns at the ready—while the rest of us calmly went about our business.

Related Characters: Malcolm Gladwell (speaker), Harry Markopolos, Bernie Madoff
Related Symbols: The Holy Fool
Page Number: 106
Explanation and Analysis:
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Talking to Strangers PDF

Bernie Madoff Quotes in Talking to Strangers

The Talking to Strangers quotes below are all either spoken by Bernie Madoff or refer to Bernie Madoff. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Default to Truth Theme Icon
).
Chapter 4 Quotes

The difference between Markopolos and Renaissance, however, is that Renaissance trusted the system. Madoff was part of one of the most heavily regulated sectors in the entire financial market. If he was really just making things up, wouldn’t one of the many government watchdogs have caught him already? As Nat Simons, the Renaissance executive, said later, “You just assume that someone was paying attention.”

Related Characters: Malcolm Gladwell (speaker), Nat Simons (speaker), Bernie Madoff, Nat Simons
Related Symbols: The Holy Fool
Page Number: 96
Explanation and Analysis:

What sets the Holy Fool apart is a different sense of the possibility of deception. In real life, Tim Levine reminds us, lies are rare. And those lies that are told are told by a very small subset of people. That’s why it doesn’t matter so much that we are terrible at detecting lies in real life. Under the circumstances, in fact, defaulting to truth makes logical sense. If the person behind the counter at the coffee shop says your total with tax is $6.74, you can do the math yourself to double-check their calculations, holding up the line and wasting thirty seconds of your time. Or you can simply assume the salesperson is telling you the truth, because on balance most people do tell the truth.

Related Characters: Malcolm Gladwell (speaker), Tim Levine, Bernie Madoff
Related Symbols: The Holy Fool
Page Number: 99-100
Explanation and Analysis:

If they came for him, he concluded, his only hope would be to hold them off as long as possible, until he could get help. He loaded up a twelve-gauge shotgun and added six more rounds to the stock. He hung a bandolier of twenty extra rounds on his gun cabinet. Then he dug out his gas mask from his army days. What if they came in using tear gas? He sat at home, guns at the ready—while the rest of us calmly went about our business.

Related Characters: Malcolm Gladwell (speaker), Harry Markopolos, Bernie Madoff
Related Symbols: The Holy Fool
Page Number: 106
Explanation and Analysis: