Philipp Benedikt

Around midnight on Sept. 26, 1983 some new USSR satellites detected launches of US nukes, heading towards Russia.

Thanks to Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov -the responsible person in the USSR's anti-nuclear early detection center at the time- this wasn't the last day in history. He didn't know that the satellites had just mistaken the reflections of sunlight as a missile launch but he thought something like this: 'Why would the Americans send 5 missiles to wipe us out, that doesn't make sense, they have thousands of warheads .'

Even though his protocol would have dictated him to report the 'US missiles' to his superiors, who quite likely would have initiated an immediate counterattack, he didn't . ...More In fact he did nothing.

I'm not associated with Mr Petrov in any form, but he serves as a constant reminder of how important it is to do your own thinking.

I've been an active investor for over 10 years, mainly focused on companies in the fields of technology and engineering, I currently live in Frankfurt, Germany.