Bernie Madoff

His penthouse apartment is only three blocks from my office. In fact, I can see the building when I look out my office window. Frankly, I never thought about it, cared about it, or even knew about it before January. But now, I can’t help but think about it every time I look out the window.

Not that he is there any longer. No, he traded his penthouse apartment for a 10 x 10 state owned and operated cross-bar motel room. Whether he has a cell-mate or not, I don’t know. His wife, on the other hand, is still living in the penthouse…..at least for the time being.

Of course, I am talking about Bernie Madoff.

I knew who Madoff was, in that I remembered him from the days when he was chairman of NASDAQ, but I never knew about his Investment Securities LLC. Not that I would have, because I didn’t have millions of dollars to invest….and in this case, thank God.

Others, primarily Jewish and rich, knew him quite well. Many Jewish charitable organizations such as the Jewish Cultural Institution Group and Yeshiva University invested their money in his fund. Little did they know, it was nothing more than a Ponzi scheme. A scheme that he ran for almost 20 years. A scheme that cost investors, by some estimates, a total of over $60 Billion.

It has been interesting to be in New York, and see and hear the public reaction to Bernie Madoff’s guilty plea to running an investment scam that was essentially a Ponzie pyramid. Expressed feelings have run the gamet from outrage to bitter, especially among the Jewish community about the damage caused by his scandal to the image of the Jews. One writer in the New York Post called him “an ememy of the Jewish people.”

Being someone who has spent his life evaluating, coaching and trying to understand human personality….I AM primarily an H.R. professional, after all….I have spent some time thinking about this man Madoff. How did he gain so much trust? Why did people believe in him so much? Why did they entrust him with their entire, at least for some, retirement and wealth? Especially when he was such a cheat and crook?

It was hard to understand. Hard to explain. Where did he learn to cheat? To lie? To steal? And to do it in the face of regulators, lawmakers and the public in general. To believe that he was above the law, and could do whatever he pleased, and do it in whatever way he wanted. After all, HE….was Bernie Madoff.

And then I learned an important detail. Just after finishing high school, Mr. Madoff headed south to get his life education. In 1956 he was a freshman…..at the University of Alabama.

And that explains it all.

WJLaneSR