Kurt Eichenwald

Kurt Eichenwald carved out a formidable career as an investigative reporter with a singular focus on the dark corners of American business. Starting at The New York Times in the late 1980s, he became a fixture on the Wall Street beat, developing a knack for unraveling intricate webs of deception in boardrooms and trading floors. His work went beyond mere reporting; he crafted detailed, novelistic accounts of high-stakes fraud, most notably in his book 'The Informant,' which chronicled the lysine price-fixing conspiracy at Archer Daniels Midland. That book's adaptation into a major film underscored his ability to translate dense financial malfeasance into mainstream storytelling. Eichenwald's career later included high-profile roles at Vanity Fair and Newsweek, where he continued to pursue long-form investigations, though not without controversy. His life took a dramatic turn in 2016 when he suffered a severe seizure triggered by a strobe-light GIF sent to him online, an event that highlighted the personal risks faced by journalists in the digital age. Through decades of work, he established himself as a dogged figure who held power to account, often making the esoteric world of corporate crime understandable and compelling to the public.