Let us go beyond the anecdote. There may be a “fooled by randomness” effect here, of making a causal link between Onassis’s success and his modus operandi. I may never know if Onassis was skilled or lucky, though I am convinced that his charm opened doors for him, but I can subject his modus to a rigorous examination by looking at empirical research on the link between information and understanding. So this statement, additional knowledge of the minutiae of daily business can be useless, even actually toxic, is indirectly but quite effectively testable.
