A freighter sails through the Bosphorus toward Istanbul. Below deck, traveling under a fake name, is a man who was once one of the most famous businessmen in America — now a fugitive, about to be arrested by agents boarding at dawn.
This is the story of Samuel Insull — Thomas Edison’s personal secretary who went on to single-handedly build the modern American electric utility industry, brought power to millions of ordinary homes across 32 states, then built a fragile pyramid of holding companies on top of it that collapsed completely in the 1929 crash, wiping out hundreds of thousands of small investors, including his own employees.
We break down exactly how the holding-company pyramid scheme worked, why it took the Great Depression to expose it, the bizarre international manhunt across Europe that followed, his surprising acquittal at trial, and the genuinely tragic ending: a man who built an empire, dying penniless on a Paris subway platform with just a few coins in his pocket.
If you want to see who builds something real before it all comes crashing down, subscribe to Dollar Drama.
00:00 Cold Open: The Freighter
01:19 Welcome to Dollar Drama
01:46 Origin: London & the Edison Years
03:32 Chicago: Building the Utility
05:18 The Opera House & Lifestyle
06:28 ELI5: The Pyramid Scheme
07:57 The Crash
09:25 The Flight Across Europe
11:11 Capture & Trial
13:15 Aftermath
15:01 Closing Thesis
#TrueCrime #FinancialHistory #GreatDepression
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