A Tale of Two Canals

Hey friends 👋,

The article I was planning to send out today got a little delayed. So, instead, I'm sharing a little book BTS with you. Here's the story of Ferdinand de Lesseps.

When you picture the person who pioneered the Panama Canal, you probably imagine Teddy Roosevelt. But decades prior to the U.S. getting involved in the project, marring the Isthmus of Panama and uniting the Atlantic and Pacific was actually the vision of a different mustachioed man: the French entrepreneur and aristocrat, Ferdinand de Lesseps.

Lesseps spent his early career as a diplomat in Egypt. His job was to make people like him and, by proxy, France. He spent his time meeting with Egyptian leaders, hosting parties, and taking an interest in the history of the nation.

Of all the moments in this ancient civilization's rich history, Lesseps was particularly interested in the three-year period when Egypt was under French control. He often poured over the stacks of survey notes Napoleon and his men had left behind about the region.

One day, while sifting through these dusty documents, Lesseps came across something intriguing: a plan Napoleon had concocted to connect the Mediterranean and Red Sea with a canal ninety miles east of Cairo through the Isthmus of Suez.

Lesseps wasn't an engineer. He didn't know how to design or dig a canal—let alone one of this size. But as he burst open the doors of the archives holding those initial sketches, he was energized with that naive thought most founders have before they begin a new venture: "How hard could it be?"

For five years, Lesseps pitched politicians, the press, and the people of France on his vision for a lockless canal that would allow ships to sail straight from Europe to Asia. Some, especially the British, laughed at his impossible proposal. A canal of this type and magnitude would surely fail.

Eventually, though, Lesseps' charisma, confidence, and persistence prevailed. The project was approved, and the land was granted to France by Egypt's viceroy. Once construction began in 1859, Lesseps made numerous trips back and forth from the site, monitoring progress and boosting morale and relations between the nations.

A decade later, as the first ship made its way through the gates in 1869, Lesseps got to experience one of the greatest joys of being human: seeing something move from your imagination to reality.

Lesseps returned to France a celebrated hero, and the Suez Canal remains one of the most important trade routes in the world to this day.

If Lesseps had stopped there, his legacy would be the inspiring story of someone willing a dream into existence. But instead, he got cocky.

After his success in Suez, Lesseps felt he could move mountains. So, he decided to try and do that literally.

The California Gold Rush had made trips from the Pacific to the Atlantic more frequent. But the lack of a waterway between the oceans meant these trips were also fickle and inefficient.

To Lesseps, this was exactly the same problem he'd just solved in Suez. So, to a coalition across the continents, he proposed that with his previous experience and visionary leadership, he could construct an even larger lockless canal straight through Panama.

At this point, Lesseps was a living legend, but people weren't entirely convinced his confidence was justified. Panama was an incredibly mountainous region with miles of foliage covering constantly changing terrain. Not to mention, the weather could be dreadful.

Multiple engineers Lesseps consulted with to craft designs urged him to consider a more traditional, lock-based canal that would take boats up and down the mountains. But Lesseps could not be deterred.

He was a visionary. He could see the future. And it was lockless.

With his confidence, charisma, and past success at Suez, Lesseps raised the equivalent of a billion dollars today for the Panama Canal—a significant portion of it coming directly from ordinary French citizens willing to risk their wages and hitch their wagons to Lesseps' venture out west.

When construction began in 1881, the problems with Lesseps' plan became immediate. Lesseps visited Panama once before starting the project...during the dry season. Now, in the wet season, the constant rain washed each day's work away and often buried the excavation equipment.

The rain washing away their work, however, quickly became the least of the workers' concerns. The standing water inside the newly dug canal became a breeding ground for mosquitoes, and outbreaks of malaria and yellow fever became overwhelming.

Project managers and engineers at the site urged Lesseps to abandon the project and reconsider the design. But Lesseps, monitoring progress from his home in France, believed in his vision and paid their pleas no mind.

When investors and world leaders would ask Lesseps for project updates, Lesseps would use his storytelling prowess to massage the messages from his site managers. And on the three trips Lesseps took to Panama, he would carefully control what he and visiting dignitaries saw.

In Lesseps' mind, his vision was taking shape slower than expected but just needed more time. In reality, half of the workers who were sent to the site died. Most of them were Panamanian.

By 1889, when investors finally found out about the crisis at the Panama Canal, 20,000 people were dead, burned in piles to prevent the spread of disease.

Lesseps and two of his partners were charged with fraud by the French government. Lesseps' partners fled the country and never served their sentences. Lesseps died before going to prison. His sons served his sentence in his stead.

I'm planning on using this story to talk about the dangers of success bias, ambition, and the pressure put on founders to act like "visionaries".

I'd love to know what you think of the story of Ferdinand de Lesseps. Thanks for reading and I'll hopefully have a more normal article for you next week 🙏.

Until next time,
Drew