The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 34 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Remaining silent in a corporate crisis eventually makes companies look guilty
“Like, up to a certain point, saying something makes you look guilty, but then past a certain point, not saying something makes you look guilty, and standard past this point.”
Gilbert: Apple extracts partner profits while preserving its developer ecosystem
“Where, like, Apple's keeping the take rate where it is, they're gonna take an insane amount of the profits of the work of these partners, but they want to keep the partners around. Like, Apple's not gonna, they're like, well, we don't want to go build every ap…”
Gilbert: Facebook buying Instagram and WhatsApp mirrors the Cleveland Massacre
“Facebook buying Instagram and WhatsApp is a lot like Standard Oil's Cleveland Massacre and you know, the subsequent roll-up of all these other refiners elsewhere.”
Rosenthal: Facebook leadership repeated Standard Oil's mistake responding to press scrutiny
“And I think about not all the big tech companies, but, again, to pick on Facebook, like, this really seems to, on the outside, to be the case with Facebook right now and, like, the Facebook files and everything going on with the Wall Street Journal, like, it r…”
The global oil industry would look identical today without Standard Oil
“I think the world would end up in no no different of a place. I think it would have been totally net even. And the only difference would be that the, you know, Rockefeller family foundation wouldn't be as large. I think give or take a few years, I think the wh…”
Rockefeller was right that Standard Oil's monopoly benefited consumers
“And he's right. He's totally right. Just like you know, Jeff Bezos would probably say the same thing today or with Amazon or the like.”
Rockefeller created modern America's love-hate archetype for billionaire titans
“Rockefeller and standard oil as a organization, but Rockefeller as a person is really like the prototype of so much of American culture today. Like he is, he was simultaneously viewed as this like, you know, sinister villain and as this great hero. And like pe…”
Standard Oil threatened in writing to bankrupt non-compliant Mississippi grocers
“They send out a letter to all the grocers in Mississippi. They say, if you do not buy our oil, we will start a grocery store chain to compete with you and sell goods at cost and put you all out of business. This is in writing sent to all of them.”
Rosenthal: Walmart connects the Rockefeller industrial era to Amazon's tech era
“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. Like, this is the connective bridge between those two realities.”
Standard Oil's breakup made Rockefeller history's first billionaire
“Precisely because he lost the antitrust suit, Rockefeller was converted from a mere millionaire with an estimated worth of net worth of three hundred million in 1911 into something just short of history's first billionaire.”
Gilbert: Standard Oil market share fell to 64% before 1911 breakup
“When things go down, which I'll just leave there for a second, their market share had eroded to 64%. There were at least 147 other refining companies competing with it in the United States.”
Standard Oil received secret kickbacks from competitors' freight fees
“Also, they will receive a little dividend, a little kickback. They call it technically a drawback. From any revenue that anybody, any other oil producers that are not part of this, that ship on the railroads, part of that revenue from the really high price tha…”
Standard Oil acquired 22 of 26 Cleveland refineries in six weeks
“So over a period of six weeks, from February, 18, 72, to April, 18, 72, Standard Oil buys 22 of the 26 other refineries that are operating in Cleveland.”
Competitors who took Standard Oil stock became fabulously wealthy
“And certainly any of the, you know, competitors or suppliers or partners or the like who ended up taking standard oil stock got fabulously wealthy by doing so.”
Standard Oil's 1900 profits equaled 0.25% of the entire US GDP
“So standard oil in 1900 produced sixty million dollars in earnings. And rather than inflation adjust that, let's look at it relative to the total GDP, which was twenty four billion dollars. Ok, so, sixty million dollars divided by twenty four billion dollars. …”
Standard Oil wrote the unwritten rules of modern business
“And this is just like, I think more than anything we've covered on this show, like Standard Oil wrote the rules, like all the rules that we are assume, that we just assume are the rules.”
Standard Oil pioneered the venture capital model of massive fixed investment
“There's so much tied up here, but one of them is this is kind of the first venture capital business. Like we talked a lot on the TSMC episode about these massive fixed costs... And then it's all a volume game. Like how much can you get the plants at full capac…”
Rockefeller became the wealthiest person in modern history before gasoline
“So yeah, John Dee becomes the wealthiest person in like, you know, modern human history before gasoline.”
Rosenthal: Archbold placed legislators directly on Standard Oil's payroll
“Archibald was, he was like, he was really somebody, ah, he, when he took over, he actually put legislators on the payroll. Like, not campaign donations, just like, you get 15,000 dollars a year. You get 20,000 dollars a year, like, to do what we want in perpet…”
Standard Oil controlled 91% of refinement and 85% of sales in 1904
“Standard Oil controlled 91% of oil refinement in 19 oh four and 85% of even the final sales.”
Rosenthal: Standard Oil gave $250,000 to McKinley's presidential campaign
“Standard contributed a cool quarter million dollars to his campaign.”
Gilbert: Exxon and Mobil made up over half of Standard Oil pre-1911
“Exxon and Mobil together accounted for more than half of the whole Standard Oil business prior to 1911.”
The 1890s Justice Department in Washington employed only 18 lawyers
“In the 18 nineties, the entire Justice Department staff in Washington was 18 lawyers.”
Judge levies record $29M fine against Standard Oil
“He levies a twenty nine million dollar fine on Standard Oil which is like, by like an order, like two orders of magnitude, the highest fine ever given to a company ever at this point.”
Gilbert: Rockefeller owned over 26% of Standard Oil's total shares
“He really just has this, like, self-perpetuating wealth because he owns 257,000 of the 973,000 shares of Standard Oil. So he owns a quarter of Standard Oil”
Gilbert: Standard Oil controlled 90% of the kerosene market
“90% market share. Like, the whole kerosene market, 90% belongs to them.”
Standard Oil controlled 90% of the US oil business
“Standard Oil controls 90% of the oil business in America.”
Rockefeller made more from auto oil in retirement than kerosene
“Rockefeller got so much richer in his retirement from his shares of Standard Oil, which became, you know, the things that powered us moving around the country in cars than he ever got from kerosene.”
ExxonMobil was the world's most valuable company before FAANG
“It wasn't until the rise of the Fang era in the last 10 to 15 years before that Exxon mobile was by far the largest market cap company in the world.”
Lakeshore railroad deal made Cleveland the top US oil refining center
“Cleveland was actually the number two largest center for oil refining behind Pittsburgh at this time. Once they do this deal, Cleveland is like fast tracked and becomes number one.”
Rockefeller's business exported two-thirds of its kerosene overseas by 1866
“Well, so by the very next year in 1866, the fledgling standard oil company is already selling two thirds of their kerosene overseas, primarily to Europe.”
Standard Oil employed 100,000 people by the mid-1880s
“Standard Oil in the mid-eighteen eighties employed a 100,000 people, which that's probably the first time a company ever employed a 100,000 people.”
Standard Oil paid a 105% dividend in its first year
“Remember there's one million dollars in total capital that gets put into this, into the structure. They pay a 105% dividend at the end of the year. Including also reinvesting tons of cash flow back into the business and, you know, expanding and buying other co…”