Standard Oil, every mention

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every year anyone David Rosenthal 180Ben Gilbert 135David Senra 1

Verbatim, from the transcripts: the passages where Standard Oil comes up

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Coca-Cola: The Complete History & Strategy (Audio) · Acquired Nov 24, 2025 · 3 mentions

  • ▶ 6:41 David Rosenthal So if you remember back to our standard oil series a couple of years ago, one of the biggest industries in post civil war America was oil of a certain kind, but it wasn't the same kind of oil as standard oil.
  • ▶ 7:42 David Rosenthal So going back again to our Standard Oil series, John D.
  • ▶ 3:52:13 Ben Gilbert If you liked this episode, go check out our episodes on Berkshire Hathaway, Standard Oil, Rolex, or Trader Joe's.

Epic Systems (MyChart) · Acquired Apr 21, 2025 · 2 mentions

  • ▶ 18:31 David Rosenthal A callback to our Standard Oil episodes.
  • ▶ 18:33 Ben Gilbert I believe that, because wasn't our conclusion on Standard Oil that the Rockefeller Foundation is the initial funder of the nation's medical schools?

TSMC · Acquired Jan 21, 2025 · 5 mentions

Mars Inc. - The Chocolate Story (Audio) · Acquired Dec 16, 2024 · 1 mention

Meta (Audio) · Acquired Oct 28, 2024 · 4 mentions

  • ▶ 6:18:24 Ben Gilbert Uh, most recent one, or maybe it was a couple ago, is with, uh, Daniel Yergin, who is the author of The Prize, which is a book, David, you and I almost read a whole bunch of it for Standard Oil, and then we realized
  • ▶ 6:18:37 Ben Gilbert Standard Oil is sort of over, at least the chapter of Standard Oil that we were covering within, like, the first two chapters of his book.
  • ▶ 6:18:43 Ben Gilbert And so it's basically everything from the end of our Standard Oil episode forward on the geopolitics of oil that ended up shaping and informing our world today.
  • ▶ 6:22:01 Ben Gilbert If you liked this episode, listen to our NVIDIA series, listen to our Microsoft series, uh, I don't know, maybe go listen to our Standard Oil series.

Microsoft Volume II: The Complete History and Strategy of the Ballmer Years (Audio) · Acquired Jul 22, 2024 · 1 mention

Hermès (Audio) · Acquired Feb 20, 2024 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 1:38 Ben Gilbert That's right, listeners, today we tell the oldest story we have ever told here on Acquired, older than Standard Oil or The New York Times.

Novo Nordisk (Ozempic) · Acquired Jan 22, 2024 · 1 mention

Visa (Audio) · Acquired Nov 27, 2023 · 4 mentions

Doug Demuro on Analyzing the Car Industry, Creator-Led Businesses, and Porsche Follow Up (Raw Video) · Acquired Sep 20, 2023 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 1:23:54 Ben Gilbert I don't think in the time period most consumers knew the name John Rockefeller, but they knew Standard Oil.

Sessions: David Senra (Founders Podcast) · Acquired Mar 29, 2023 · 2 mentions

Holiday Special 2022 · Acquired Dec 19, 2022 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 33:17 Ben Gilbert So did Standard Oil by applying technology to the old way that you used to extract oil from the ground.

Enron · Acquired Nov 29, 2022 · 3 mentions

  • ▶ 12:00 David Rosenthal So if you go back to our episodes on Rockefeller and Standard Oil, the initial energy markets in the US were
  • ▶ 12:08 David Rosenthal Like, it was Standard Oil, right?
  • ▶ 12:10 David Rosenthal And then when the government brought the hammer down on Standard Oil and the energy monopolies, everything got regulated, and utilities, energy producers, all became regulated government entities where prices of energy were set by the…

Qualcomm · Acquired Nov 15, 2022 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 21:06 David Rosenthal Is one Erwin Marc Jacobs, an American born in 1933, as we mentioned, in scrappy New Bedford, Massachusetts, which used to be, I believe, the wealthiest town in America during the whaling era, as we discussed during Standard Oil or…

Amazon.com · Acquired Aug 16, 2022 · 1 mention

Walmart · Acquired Jul 19, 2022 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 8:56 David Rosenthal Sam and the Walmart story is like the bridge between the business America that was John Rockefeller and Standard Oil and Amazon and Jeff Bezos.

The Playbook: Lessons from 200+ Company Stories · Acquired Jun 20, 2022 · 2 mentions

  • ▶ 32:37 David Rosenthal That we have to mention on this one from, uh, the acquired canon is literally the OG, OG, OG American capitalist business, which is Standard Oil, did this, ran this playbook to a T.
  • ▶ 32:59 David Rosenthal No matter how big Standard Oil got, it was never big enough.

Taylor Swift (Acquired’s Version) · Acquired Jan 24, 2022 · 4 mentions

  • ▶ 2:08:14 David Rosenthal Now, I tweeted the other day that the first episode of season 10 has a direct connection to Standard Oil, and I bet nobody can get it.
  • ▶ 2:08:53 Ben Gilbert Christina Cassioppo, that was a dead-on guess, and it is scary how much you knew that the last great American dynasty was indeed the linkage between the Standard Oil Trust and Taylor Swift.
  • ▶ 2:09:07 David Rosenthal In 2013, of course, Taylor bought the property known as the Holiday House in Rhode Island, uh, that was previously owned by Rebecca Harkness and Bill Harkness, one of the direct descendants of the Rockefellers, inheritor of Standard Oil
  • ▶ 2:09:24 Ben Gilbert Heir to the Standard Oil name.

Not Boring (with Packy McCormick) - Extended Cut · Acquired Dec 3, 2021 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 3:03:20 Ben Gilbert I mean, we want to be very intentional that, like, this is profiling the history and strategy of a company the way that we would the New York Times or Standard Oil or, you know, Amazon.

Standard Oil Part II (Extended Cut) · Acquired Oct 19, 2021 · 61 mentions

  • ▶ 1:16 Ben Gilbert Today, we will cover Standard Oil and
  • ▶ 1:18 Ben Gilbert From 1890 through their spoiler alert breakup in 1911.
  • ▶ 1:35 Ben Gilbert We will also debate the finer points of where Standard Oil crossed the line between using legitimate business practices like operational efficiency and economies of scale
  • ▶ 1:45 Ben Gilbert Into straight up abuses of power to grow their massive, massive profits.
  • ▶ 4:37 David Rosenthal Well, last thing before we dive into part two here of the Standard Oil story is, as always, Pilot, our presenting sponsor for all of season nine.
  • ▶ 5:03 David Rosenthal Rockefeller were starting Standard Oil,
  • ▶ 9:22 David Rosenthal so, okay, speaking of going, Standard Oil is, uh, going.
  • ▶ 10:33 David Rosenthal Right around, literally, like, right as the Sherman Act was passing, um, state legislature members in Ohio, remember, they're, like, they're pretty pissed at, at Rockefeller and, and at, uh, Standard Oil, and, like, this goes all the way…
  • ▶ 11:01 David Rosenthal A case, uh, against SO.
  • ▶ 11:10 David Rosenthal The case is that Standard Oil is in violation of the state corporation laws in that they are a Ohio corporation, but they are conducting illegal, uh, interstate commerce is, is what they allege.
  • ▶ 11:41 David Rosenthal So it takes a couple years, but by 1892, the case reaches the Ohio Supreme Court, the state Supreme Court, which rules against standard oil, which means that the trust has to be dissolved.
  • ▶ 12:11 David Rosenthal Well, it turns out that our, uh, our Standard Oil friends have an escape plan that they've already hatched, that they have in their back pocket, just for this very occasion.
  • ▶ 12:25 David Rosenthal So they had figured out, Standard Oil lawyers had figured out that in the state of New Jersey, now they have operations, Standard Oil has operations in New Jersey, but there's no, you know, Rockefeller and crew, they're at 26 Broadway in…
  • ▶ 13:11 Ben Gilbert That was the reason why they needed the trust structure in the first place, is because Standard Oil of Ohio couldn't own any other Standard Oil companies that are operating in any other states, and they couldn't have operations in other…
  • ▶ 15:16 Ben Gilbert And so the way that that sort of structurally looked is all the people who were the trustees of the Standard Oil Trust are now the presidents of all those companies that
  • ▶ 16:10 Ben Gilbert Oh, these are, like, standard oil board meetings.
  • ▶ 17:46 David Rosenthal He had perfected the gleaming machinery of Standard Oil, and his appointed task done, remember he felt like this was his divine, you know, uh, duty from God, he felt he should pass the reins on to younger men.
  • ▶ 19:41 David Rosenthal Um, so he, he wants, we've alluded to this, he wants and he tries to fully actually resign from the company.
  • ▶ 20:19 David Rosenthal If it just, just in title only, you stay involved, you remain, you know, the president titularly of Standard Oil.
  • ▶ 20:32 Ben Gilbert An officer of the company and all the liability that comes with that, and just keep the title, man.
  • ▶ 20:59 David Rosenthal Rockefeller, and a freaking great move for all of the other execs, especially Archbold at, uh, at Standard Oil.
  • ▶ 24:59 Ben Gilbert And frankly, the incredible amount of work that he had done, you know, the, the, the Standard Oil had some trying times for him that, that, uh, he's not new to stress.
  • ▶ 25:09 David Rosenthal Yeah, but I, I think, uh, this is really my interpretation here, you know, some, I think, comes from turnout, but, um, you know, like, he loved Standard, he loved every minute of Standard Oil, uh,
  • ▶ 25:21 David Rosenthal I think if it were just standard oil, I don't think any of this would have happened.
  • ▶ 25:47 Ben Gilbert He was generating ten million dollars in annual income just from Standard Oil dividends, from a variety of sources, and there was no, like, almost no, you know, the percentage of the population that is in that level today is, like,…
  • ▶ 26:25 Ben Gilbert He really just has this, like, self-perpetuating wealth because he owns 257,000 of the 973,000 shares of Standard Oil.
  • ▶ 26:38 Ben Gilbert So he owns a quarter of Standard Oil
  • ▶ 26:53 Ben Gilbert He had twenty four million dollars invested outside of Standard Oil and things like railroads and real estate and steamships and like a dozen of each of these types of companies.
  • ▶ 28:10 Ben Gilbert So he's got, at this point, of course, owning a quarter of Standard Oil, generating ten million a year in annual income, got all these investments across all these industries, and then, boom, U.S.
  • ▶ 28:46 Ben Gilbert So even at that point, this is like, you know, there's still a lot of, there's still a decade before a standard oil gets broken up.
  • ▶ 30:45 David Rosenthal As to the worthiness of the cause, these investigations are now taking more of my time and energy than Standard Oil itself.
  • ▶ 32:28 David Rosenthal Like, he's, he's like, I want to run Standard Oil, and I want to, like, do this myself, but I need help.
  • ▶ 32:42 David Rosenthal Like, that is, like, like, I think if they, you know, we're gonna have so much fun on this episode still to come, but, um, I think if there's one thing to take away from this part, too, it's, like, part one was Rockefeller and Standard Oil
  • ▶ 39:14 Ben Gilbert Like anytime anybody would insinuate like, well, this is a good way for you to make up for all the standard oil stuff.
  • ▶ 41:30 David Rosenthal This is at the time sort of a nebulous concept, but he wanted what he was doing to really be like standard oil in that, you know, what did, what did standard oil do?
  • ▶ 42:08 Ben Gilbert They would just have to pass a quality bar for making sure that they're, they had good, reliable product, and then they would slap the standard brand on it.
  • ▶ 42:16 David Rosenthal And the standard brain, what was, what was standard itself?
  • ▶ 48:08 David Rosenthal Remember like this is, you know, we're talking about how modern Rockefeller is and how modern standard oil is and how modern this philanthropy is.
  • ▶ 50:31 Ben Gilbert So like, this is so Rockefeller and so standard oil, like, you know, and is this being sort of managed by Frederick Gates?
  • ▶ 50:58 Ben Gilbert So listeners, as you can tell by now, Standard Oil Part Two is really like Rockefeller Part Two.
  • ▶ 51:03 Ben Gilbert I mean, we're dancing in and out of Standard Oil here, but there's the scope of what the early, you know, Standard Oil money allowed the Rockefeller family to do is just unbelievable.
  • ▶ 52:55 David Rosenthal Um, you know, Rockefeller, Standard Oil, he won business.
  • ▶ 53:49 David Rosenthal The breakup of Standard Oil.
  • ▶ 53:58 Ben Gilbert Rockefeller had sort of handed over to, to Archibald, you know, the, the day-to-day of, of running the company.
  • ▶ 55:31 Ben Gilbert From 1893 to 19 oh one, they paid out
  • ▶ 56:14 Ben Gilbert Standard Oil is realizing, wait a minute, we finally can use this useless gasoline product.
  • ▶ 59:05 David Rosenthal It starts to move public opinion, which is what really counts the court of public opinion against Standard Oil.
  • ▶ 59:13 David Rosenthal uh but they win and everybody's like
  • ▶ 59:23 David Rosenthal oh this is just so good at the same time as this case is going on there's a presidential election happening uh it was actually when it started in in 1896 was the election and uh there's a really terrifying figure from standards a standard…
  • ▶ 1:00:19 David Rosenthal The best person that, like, Standard and all these other trusts and, like, J.P.
  • ▶ 1:00:25 David Rosenthal William McKinley, the celebrated conservative whose Standard Oil contributed.
  • ▶ 1:00:35 David Rosenthal Standard contributed a cool quarter million dollars to his campaign.
  • ▶ 1:01:15 David Rosenthal McKinley is just like literally sent from God here from standards perspective.
  • ▶ 1:01:34 David Rosenthal The actual home in New York is in New York when the feisty new governor of New York starts making some noises about coming after the trust in particular, the oil trust with Standard Oil.
  • ▶ 1:01:56 Ben Gilbert Which I didn't realize, like, what he did before becoming president, and I didn't realize he was involved in bringing this suit against Standard Oil.
  • ▶ 1:02:27 David Rosenthal Theodore Roosevelt, a little, like all the glee that we had in part one for Rockefeller and Standard Oil and Flagler and like all these, uh, mafia dons and everything that they're doing.
  • ▶ 1:04:27 David Rosenthal So, Standard and the business community and Mark Hanna, they come up with a brilliant, genius solution to their new problems from Roosevelt in the state of New York.
  • ▶ 1:06:08 Ben Gilbert Suddenly, public enemy number one, or private enemy number one for Standard Oil is now in the White House.
  • ▶ 1:09:26 David Rosenthal Uh, who, like, got totally flattened by Standard Oil and was one of the leaders of the, like, riots, uh, like, the rebellion against the South Improvement Company stuff and everything that was going on at that point in time.
  • ▶ 1:09:52 Ben Gilbert Which is like the most legitimate competitor to Standard, right?
  • ▶ 1:10:18 David Rosenthal Uh, so the Bing of Standard Oil was pure oil that they allowed to survive, and guess who's the senior executive there?
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