REPLY TO ALL, WITH HISTORY.(e-mail exchange between Jim Rogers and Dmitry Alimov)

Jim Rogers, the so-called Indiana Jones of finance, is among those businessmen who, though not exactly hard-knocks graduates (Rogers attended Yale and Oxford), feel that the important lessons for achieving success are more apt to be gleaned from, say, a motorcycle ride across Siberia (Rogers holds two Guinness World Records for travelling around the globe) than from any formal schooling, least of all an M.B.A. program. Nonetheless, Rogers, like many moguls, is a happy participant in the B-school lecture circuit, on which C.E.O.s, studio executives, and authors get paid essentially to recount their own achievements, and perhaps to promote their latest projects--in Rogers's case, a new book, "Adventure Capitalist."

It was during one such appearance, at Harvard Business School the other day, that Rogers, wearing his usual bow tie and employing his Alabama drawl, first encountered Dmitry Alimov, and set off a chain of correspondence that future students would do well to examine. It is a case study in making a name for oneself, or making a fool of oneself--depending on your point of view. Dmitry, who is twenty-nine, is a native of Russia and a former employee of Gazprom, the Russian conglomerate. Like Rogers, he is an inveterate international traveller; unlike Rogers, he dresses the part of a post-Soviet European (white jeans, big collars, "Armani-type stuff"), and has chosen to enroll in business school. (He's HBS '04.) Dmitry is also the type of business student who raises his hand a lot, as he did when Rogers hammered on one of his favorite themes--that Russia, though full of adventure, is devoid of real capital ("It's a disaster spiralling downward into a catastrophe"), and unworthy of investment.

Dmitry stood and aired his disagreements. Rogers more or less dismissed them. So that night, Dmitry wrote Rogers an e-mail. "I am the 'lad' who disputed your factual claims with regard to Russia today," it began. He identified three specific allegations that Rogers had made: people are leaving Russia ("wrong"); Russia's oil production is declining, and oil companies are not reinvesting ("wrong and wrong"); investors are abandoning Russia ("wrong again"). "Many people, including future leaders at Harvard Business School, listen to you," he concluded. "It would be very unfortunate if they were misled by your inaccurate statements. Finally, if nothing else, it is not good for your own public image." He added a postscript: "I took the liberty of sending a copy of this e-mail to my fellow students so that we can set the record straight."

Round two came the following morning, in an e-mail reply from Rogers: "I rarely suffer fools gladly, and even more rarely bother with chauvinistic know-nothings, but since you sent this ludicrous canard . . ." Dmitry was gullible, Rogers said, for believing in data provided by the Russian government and the World Bank, among other things. "If you really believe all this codswallop, why are you in business school?" ...