Jeffrey Epstein's power came from working as a middleman who found out what powerful people wanted most and then supplied it — a warning about how easily reputations get captured.

• Epstein's main skill was appealing to other people's self-interest, not money or charm.
• He learned each person's weakness — sports tickets, a child's college admission, a medical miracle — and offered himself as the one who could deliver.
• Once someone accepted the favor and showed up at his home, they were inside his world and their name was tied to his.
• Robert Greene, author of *The 48 Laws of Power*, says he could imagine falling for it himself: after a stroke, an offer of access to a cutting-edge stem cell doctor would have been hard to refuse.

Outlook: As more names keep surfacing in the Epstein files, expect this "he gave me what I needed" pattern to explain most of the connections rather than any shared conspiracy.