Boston Edison stainless steel corrosion

John Wolff (Tom's freshman adviser) diagnoses overnight failure of all stainless steel in the Boston Edison plant after their first shipment of Venezuelan oil arrives post-WWII. Vanadium in the oil forms an oxide that strips the protective chromium oxide off stainless steel. Wolff charges $5,000 (≈$200–300K today) for the one-sentence answer. Frames Tom's broader theme of expert knowledge as economic asset.

John Wolff was my thesis adviser when I was a freshman. John had the office that I'm in now. He told me this story when I was a freshman. He got a call one morning from Boston Edison. They needed a consult, because overnight all the stainless steel in their whole plant had just rotted away to nothing. And he said, Well, I know the answer, but it will cost you $5,000. $5,000 in the late 1940s was like two or three years' salary — kind of like $200,000 or $300,000 today. He was going to extort a fair amount of money out of them, because he knew the answer. He'd been looking at impurity elements in oil for ten or fifteen years.

Setup only — the case is introduced (Boston Edison stainless steel falls apart overnight; Wulff demands $5,000 fee in advance; identifies the new Venezuelan oil shipment as the cause) but the recording cuts off before Tom finishes the story of why the Venezuelan oil caused the corrosion.

John Wulff, late 40s, early 1950s, gets a call one morning. Boston Edison, who generates electricity, had just had all the stainless steel in one of their electrical generating plants fall apart overnight by corrosion. John Wulff gets the call and says, I know what your problem is, but I'm not going to tell you the answer unless you agree to a $5,000 fee. Well, $5,000 in 1950 was like two or three years' salary for an engineer. A lot of money. They said, well, if you're right, we'll pay.