Final Word from Tuesday, August 24, 2021

PPF's chief of communications, Vladimír Mlynář, said soon after Petr Kellner's death in March that the founder of the investment group put his family first but also that merely being in the helicopter in the wilds of Alaska was extremely dangerous. Mlynář mentioned the wind and landing conditions on the mountain, as well as the strong countercurrents between the individual valleys that do "wild things" with a helicopter. Taking such a high-stakes risk while putting family first isn't a paradox exclusive to Kellner. Other prominent Czechs who loved their families dearly have died while challenging nature and their own capabilities, and countless others have had near misses. We wouldn't have mentioned Kellner's case now if his widow, Renáta Kellnerová, hadn't done so in PPF's annual report yesterday. She wrote that Kellner "sought a balance between freedom, risk and responsibility." The lesson for others who also seek such a balance might be to recalculate the freedom/risk/responsibility equation while they still can and to give somewhat greater weight to the part about responsibility to family. [ Czech Republic United States accident crash heliskiing heli-skiing freedom risk ]