FOREWORD I

We’re in a car heading to Flushing Meadows, New York, to watch the US tennis Open, and Michael is excited. He’s orchestrating an expedition to the extreme depths of the Puerto Rico Trench and there’s a gleam in his eye as he catalogs the researchers, vessels, institutions, and challenges. In this book, Michael probes in depth where that gleam comes from and seeks to illuminate what drives him and others to push the limits of achievement in business and exploration.

Explorers are a unique lot—driven by an urgent, restless need to keep finding new adventures and vistas. Michael and I share this passion as members of the Explorers Club, an iconic institution founded by polar pioneers in 1904, whose roster has included exploration luminaries of all stripes. Past honorary chair Senator John Glenn once described our institution’s mission as “curiosity in action,” and today over thirty-five hundred members venture to outer space, the poles, deserts, jungles, mountains, and—Michael’s special love—the oceans.

Explorers are also risk takers, so there’s sadly a long list of lives lost on that one journey too many: Amundsen, first to the South Pole, died in a plane crash rescuing an Arctic dirigible expedition; Explorers Club president Carl Akeley, having dispatched an attacking leopard with his bare hands and survived an elephant charge, died of a fever in the Congo while creating the famous mountain gorilla diorama for the American Museum of Natural History; Shackleton succumbed to a heart attack on a final return to frigid Antarctica. Fortunately for history’s sake, bad outcomes are much more the exception rather than the rule, since seasoned explorers are serious risk managers, too.

Michael believes that this need to keep pushing limits has both a biological and personality component. Not being a scientist, I’ll leave the dopamine deficiency hypothesis to those more qualified. At the same time, though, I heartily agree that so many explorers I’ve met seem to have a risk-taking personality that draws them back into the field again and again.

Like Michael, I’ve also seen these traits in abundance in the business world. During a three-decade career in finance, I came across many who had risk-taking personalities, although one size, of course, doesn’t fit all. If you’re a businessperson reading this book, you’ll enjoy fresh perspectives on names and deals you might recognize. And for those who don’t come from that world, this section of the book provides a thoughtful, understandable, and entertaining introduction to the realms of deal making and investing.

Michael is an original. That’s clear after a few minutes with him and even clearer as you get to know him better. If you haven’t met him, however, you have the opportunity here to experience his candor, intelligence, and, yes, ever-present sense of humor. You’ll learn about many things—investing, the ballet, and prehistoric sharks—and take away some valuable, hard-earned life lessons. And most importantly, you’ll see curiosity in action.

Respectfully submitted from the field (actually New York City, but you get the idea).

Ted Janulis

President Emeritus, The Explorers Club