Rockefeller

“With other refiners paying three dollars a barrel, Rockefeller was soon building his own for a dollar 50.”

“39 drops became the standard across every plant the company owned. One drop of solder multiplied across what was eventually millions of cans easily saved hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

“Rockefeller hired chemists instead and would, in time, put a working laboratory inside every refinery he built and owned.”

“Rockefeller owned roughly a quarter of every new company, worth about three hundred million the day the court ruled. His fortune skyrocketed to nearly nine hundred million just two years later.”

“When he turned 96, his insurance company, honoring an old policy, had to pay him five million dollars.”

“The separate companies, unshackled from each other, are actually worth more on the open market than Standard Oil had been as a unified entity. So like between 19 11 and 19 13, by doing literally nothing, Rockefeller's net worth nearly doubles.”

“The bulk of Rockefeller's borrowing in the early days went to buy crude. When the price dropped, he would make massive purchases.”

“In four weeks, Rockefeller bought 23 companies.”

“Of these 23 people, he would offer stock or cash. You choose. Only five took the stock.”

“What's crazy is Rockefeller's wealth wealth grows more in retirement than it did when he was active. And it did this because he never sold his stock.”

“At the time, Rockefeller accounted for 65% of all traffic on the Pennsylvania railroad.”

“So Rockefeller would buy politicians and he would make sure that they stayed bought. When the media wrote critical articles about standard oil, Rockefeller would buy off the reporters in the media too.”

“He would settle disputes between himself and his partners in a very clever way. He would put all the risk and the blame on himself.”

“Out of everybody, you know, out of every single person I've read about who do you, who I think is the best strategist and the two names that came to mind without hesitation was Rockefeller and Bezos.”

“Rockefeller, Carnegie, Mellon, Gould, Morgan, all were just beginning their careers when Vanderbilt stood at his zenith. They studied him, and they followed his example, though few would match his impact.”

“When I went to Charlie Munger's house and had dinner with him, like he said that the greatest, he feels the greatest founder of all time is Rockefeller.”

“I think now you're starting to see why Munger said, Hey, this James J Hill guy was one of the best business operators. He's up there with a Carnegie. He's up there with a Rockefeller.”

“The two name paper idea plus the fact that he's going to be shipping oil for Rockefeller equals Ludwig's wealth. Which then in turn causes him to go out and buy and start, you know, the hundreds of these businesses.”

“Vanderbilt told a newspaper that Gold was the smartest man in America. Rockefeller, when asked who he thought had the best head for business, answered Jay Gold.”

“Rockefeller was a robber baron and he built an empire and all that. You learn that in school, but what you don't learn in school is he dropped the cost of a gallon of kerosene from a dollar to 10 cents.”

“Rockefeller had a very unfortunate circumstance with one of their scientists, and there were a lot of lawsuits that came through. That we had to basically take an extra year's worth of spend out of the endowment at Rockefeller to help pay for a lot of these la…”