Ferdinand was a gold trader. He was a lawyer for mining companies. When he entered politics in l949 he had tons and tons of gold. When Bill Gates was a college dropout Ferdinand already possessed billions of dollars and tons of gold. It wasn't stolen.
With engineering I view this year's failure as next year's opportunity to try it again. Failures are not something to be avoided. You want to have them happen as quickly as you can so you can make progress rapidly.