Avez-vous déjà entendu parler de Timothy Dexter, ce type qui pourrait bien être le plus chanceux des mauvais hommes d'affaires de l'histoire ? Au 18e siècle, ce marchand américain a pris certaines des décisions commerciales les plus ridicules—et s'est tout de même enrichi grâce à elles ! Il a une fois expédié du charbon à Newcastle, une ville célèbre pour avoir trop de charbon, et a quand même fait un profit. Il a aussi envoyé des chauffe-lits (utilisés pour chauffer les lits) aux Caraïbes, où il fait extrêmement chaud, mais les gens ont fini par les acheter pour faire du sirop de mélasse ! Dexter était tellement doué pour faire fonctionner des idées terribles que les gens ont commencé à penser qu'il était un génie. Son histoire est un rappel sauvage que parfois, même les pires idées peuvent rapporter ! Animation créée par Sympa.
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FunTranscript
00:00And what if we said that there was once a man who sold coal in Newcastle,
00:05heaters in the tropics, and stray cats in the Caribbean?
00:09We could think that all this is drawn from a sketch,
00:12but it is indeed the story of Timothy Dexter.
00:17Born in 1747 in Malden, in Massachusetts,
00:21the financial situation of his family was not brilliant,
00:25and would never have allowed him to access an adequate education.
00:29At the age of 8, he left school to work in a farm.
00:34At 16, Timothy became an apprentice tanner in Boston,
00:37a job then perceived as one of the most ungrateful,
00:40but whose salary was reasonable.
00:43His masters enjoyed a rare expertise in the work of Moroccan leather,
00:47very popular with fashion lovers of the time.
00:50At 21, Dexter started his own business,
00:54manufacturing leather gloves and leather pants.
00:57Despite the agitation that reigned in Boston after the new taxes and the famous Tea Party,
01:02Timothy chose to stay in town.
01:05His constancy was soon rewarded when he met Elizabeth Frottingham,
01:09a rich widow who fell under his charm,
01:12and they soon got married.
01:14He was delighted to live in the U.P. district of Charlestown in Boston.
01:18However, his new neighbors, great bourgeois like John Hancock and Thomas Russell,
01:24who were then one of the richest men in the country,
01:27did not consider him as their equal,
01:30and saw him as a ruffian who had simply married a wealthy woman.
01:35Unable to tolerate such a rejection,
01:38Dexter decided to prove to them that he was worthy of their respect.
01:42He undertook to obtain a position in the public service
01:45by submitting dozens of petitions to the authorities of his hometown.
01:50Finally, the authorities allowed him to cut a tailor's job,
01:54a deer inspector.
01:56His mission was to monitor the deer population in the city,
02:00although the last faun has deserted the surroundings for nearly 19 years.
02:05Nevertheless, Mr. Dexter was pleased with this role and went to the second phase of his plan,
02:10to get rich.
02:12He opened a store in the basement of his wife's house
02:15and managed to put several thousand dollars aside.
02:18In 1771, the Continental Congress introduced a new paper currency,
02:23the Continental Dollar,
02:25for a value of about 250 million dollars.
02:28The merchants refused this new currency,
02:31but it continued to be printed en masse,
02:34flooding the market and rapidly losing its value.
02:37An expression was even invented,
02:39it is not even worth a Continental.
02:42Concerned about their image and eager to support modest citizens,
02:46Dexter's wealthy neighbors began to buy his tickets almost entirely devalued.
02:51Seeing this as an opportunity,
02:53our hero invested all the savings of the couple
02:56to buy a large amount of his depreciated tickets.
02:59His audacity was crowned with success.
03:02With the adoption of the Constitution of the United States,
03:05the holders of these Continental Dollars
03:08were able to exchange them for 1% of their original value.
03:11The large amount of tickets Dexter owned
03:14allowed him to become immensely rich.
03:17Convinced that this new fortune would finally allow him to win the friendship of his neighbors,
03:21he was once again rejected.
03:24Estimating that the problem came from their character and not his,
03:27Dexter decided to move with his family near the Newburyport port,
03:31still in Massachusetts.
03:33He now had enough money to buy a fleet of ships,
03:37a well-stocked squirrel,
03:39a sumptuous castle with a view of the sea,
03:41and luxurious furniture, including a carriage engraved with his initials.
03:45Dexter particularly appreciated that he was referred to as a lord.
03:49He appealed to the greatest sculptors in Europe
03:51to design more than 40 gigantic wooden statues
03:54that came to embellish his property.
03:57Among these statues were those of George Washington,
04:00Thomas Jefferson, John Adams,
04:02and of course, Timothy Dexter himself.
04:05The plaque under his effigy proclaimed him
04:07first in the East as in the West.
04:09And the greatest philosopher in the Western world.
04:12The total cost of these sculptures was equivalent to that of the entire domain,
04:16arousing astonishment among passers-by.
04:18Dexter's wife, embarrassed by this ostentatious display,
04:22ended up leaving the house
04:24and the residence gradually transformed into a frivolous palace.
04:28His new neighbors did not enjoy his company
04:31and hoped to ruin it by giving him the worst financial advice.
04:35One of them suggested to Dexter to sell bassinoirs to the Antilles.
04:39Very popular in the 18th century,
04:41these brass utensils, equipped with long sleeves,
04:44were used to heat the beds.
04:47But the Antilles, this tropical region where it is always hot,
04:50did not stop our hero.
04:53Dexter bought 42,000 bassinoirs,
04:55loaded nine ships,
04:57and took to sea under the incitement of his neighbors.
05:00Upon arrival in the Caribbean,
05:02he quickly realized that no one needed heaters.
05:06Without getting rid of them,
05:08he then made them pass for amelas,
05:10which he sold to the sugar plantation owners.
05:13All wanted to buy at least three or four,
05:16and Dexter made a coquettish profit,
05:19with a margin of 79% per item.
05:22He also managed to sell wool mittens on the spot,
05:25which Asian merchants bought from him,
05:28to export them to Siberia.
05:30Selling heaters in the tropics proved fruitful.
05:34But who would dare to export coal to Newcastle?
05:37Thus, a merchant persuaded Dexter
05:40that anthracite was very popular
05:42in the largest coal mining city in England.
05:45Without doubting reality,
05:47he went to the United Kingdom.
05:49But luckily, upon arrival,
05:51the miners were on strike,
05:53and he managed to resell his coal to Newcastle,
05:56by clearing a large margin.
05:58He regained his castle as a winner,
06:00with a barrel and a half of silver coins
06:02as a reward for his efforts.
06:04Dexter then made an even more extravagant commercial decision,
06:08by shipping winter gloves to the South Pacific.
06:11He arrived at Point Nommé
06:13to meet Portuguese sailors on their way to colder climates,
06:16who bought him his merchandise.
06:18Dexter also managed to sell
06:20the 340 tons of whale bones he had accumulated,
06:23thus monopolizing the corset market for ladies,
06:26as well as coal machines,
06:28pickaxes, toys, and even typewriters,
06:30making a lot of money.
06:33At some point,
06:35the proliferation of Newburyport miners
06:37became completely unmanageable.
06:39During a municipal council,
06:41the decision was taken to get rid of them.
06:43But Dexter offered to buy them and take care of them.
06:46And of course, he found a way
06:48to resell them at a high price.
06:50The owners of warehouses in the Caribbean,
06:52faced with an invasion of rats,
06:54were eager to get the felines.
06:56It may seem that these decisions
06:58were only the result of eccentricity or impulse,
07:00but the biographers who looked at his choices,
07:03concluded that he had actually developed
07:05a real strategy.
07:07Dexter had understood that the key to success
07:09was to identify the goods missing on the market,
07:12to accumulate them in large quantities,
07:14then resell them at the price of his choice.
07:17The choice of these goods was often atypical,
07:19but, in the end,
07:21the strategy worked.
07:23At the age of 50,
07:25Dexter published a book entitled
07:27A Pickle for the Knowing Ones,
07:29in which he criticized the authorities
07:31and complained about his wife.
07:33The book contained nearly 9,000 words,
07:35but no punctuation,
07:37with an orthograph and a capitalization
07:39typical of his style.
07:41Here is a sample of his very particular English.
07:43Dexter himself financed the first edition
07:46and distributed it for free.
07:48Against all odds,
07:50the book met success
07:52and was reprinted eight times.
07:54In the second edition,
07:56he added a whole page
07:58full of punctuation marks,
08:00in response to critics
08:02who regretted their absence in the first version.
08:05He invited his readers to insert them freely,
08:07where he deemed it necessary.
08:10Dexter was deeply concerned
08:12with the opinion of others throughout his life,
08:14to the point that he even
08:16simulated his own death
08:18to observe who would attend his funerals
08:20and how he would behave.
08:22He put an end to the masquerade
08:24when he noticed that his wife
08:26did not seem war-torn by his simulated tripping.