Railroads
topic on 8 shows · 13 statements across 11 episodes
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13 statements about Railroads, every show
Parrish: 19th-century railroads secretly rebated high-volume shippers below posted rates
“The official bill on a railroad shipment always showed a fixed rate, the same rate the railroad printed on the public schedule for everyone to see and what Rockefeller assumed, at first, everyone would pay. But the right kind of shipper, after he had moved eno…”
Parrish: Playing Rail Against Water Logistics Dramatically Cuts Shipping Rates
“If you could only ship by water, you could only ship when the lake wasn't frozen. If you could only ship by rail, the railroad dictated your rates, but when you could play them off one another, you actually got much lower rates.”
Sorkin: Data centers differ from railroads because chips require continuous upgrades
“The one other thing about data centers, which is a little bit more nerve-wracking, is it's not like putting, you know, people compare it to putting fiber in the ground or building the railroads. You put the tracks down. Because once you build a data center, yo…”
Rajendran: $400B annual AI CapEx is largest buildout since 19th-century railroads
“When I think about the scale of the CapEx right now, which is Probably about four hundred billion a year, according to I think an estimate from Bain. We're at no, no question at like the biggest investment in, in fixed capital that we've seen since the buildin…”
Escobari: AI wave is healthier than dot-com because Big Tech funds capex
“The biggest difference relative to railroads and dot com, Is the funds are coming from really rich companies. The magnificent six who are printing money out of their dominant positions are reinvesting a lot of this money into the capex that's powering all this…”
Sam Lessin: Tech infrastructure doesn't make money; even railroads relied on real estate
“You don't make money in infrastructure. Even the railroads made money through real estate.”
Moving Goods 30 Miles Overland Once Cost as Much as Transatlantic Shipping
“In the era before railroads, moving goods 30 miles on land could cost as much as shipping them across the entire Atlantic Ocean.”
By 1885, American railroads generated twice the revenue of the federal government
“So by 1885 railroads brought in twice the revenue as the federal government. They, railroads were the nation's largest employer. The railroaders were the largest private land holders in the country. They own more than 10% of the land in the United States.”
Standardized time was created to synchronize railroad schedules across distant towns
“The reason that we have the concept of standardized time came because of the railroads. It was standardized time was unheard of until railroad schedules Made it necessary for two towns located hundreds of miles apart to keep the same clocks.”
Levie: Internet data moats differ from historical monopoly dynamics
“The data moats that, that exists now in the internet are just totally different than almost any other form of antitrust, you know, kind of monopolistic dynamics that I think we've ever seen in history. Like, you know, clearly, obviously if you're building what…”
American railroads generated twice the US federal government's revenue by 1885
“So by 1885, railroads brought in twice the revenue than the federal government did.”
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…”