What are the sources for the nonfiction in the article besides Titan?
The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller
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Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller
#12It's shocking that they present this story as a tale of virtue. If being an entrepreneur is a noble calling, then we should be ashamed of Rockerfeller for his ruthless tactics, not praising him for it. If we want to praise capitalists and capitalism, then we should be villifying Rockerfeller for his monopolistic tactics. He was too clever by half as a CEO, since his tactics eventually brought down the ire of the gove…
> horrific business practices
I recommend that you read "Titan" by Chernow. Rockefeller is mostly guilty simply of being very rich. During his career, he caused the price of kerosene to drop 70%, and stay down. This was good for the expanding country.
During the anti-trust trial, Rockefeller was steadily losing market share to nimbler, aggressive competitors. There was no need for the government to break it up, it was coming apart anyway.
All businesses rise and fall over time. The popular narrative that, unchecked by government, a business will eventually rise to absorb everything is not borne out by practice.
Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller
#13What are the sources for the nonfiction in the article besides Titan?
The history channel show (men who built america), the book, a few podcasts with the book's author, and a few clips from youtube from the history channel and biography channel.
Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller
#14I kept thinking of Bill Gates while reading this, and not just because both of them turned to philanthropy after building their empires. The only reason Bill Gates is not richer than Rockefeller is because of the anti-monopoly legislation that was invented to stop Rockefeller. Without the antitrust lawsuit Microsoft would have been able to kill off Apple and Netscape in the 90s and kept the web bottled up within Inte…
> Without the antitrust lawsuit Microsoft would have been able to kill off Apple and Netscape in the 90s and kept the web bottled up within Internet Explorer in the 00s.
I used Netscape in the 90s. It was a crummy product that crashed if you looked at it. IE was much more stable. IE was better, much better. Opera was also available, but there wasn't much to recommend it.
As for Apple in the 90s, Apple nearly destroyed itself all by itself. Check any of the innumerable books on the history of Apple.
Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller
#15If this short bio is interesting, you may enjoy the much more in-depth biography, _Titan_, by Ron Chernow. In addition to an incredibly thorough (and even-handed, IMO) treatment of Rockefeller, I found it an interesting perspective on the post-war period in the US.
I'll second that book. It's an excellent read, covering his rise from almost nothing to oil monopolist, and everything in-between (eg there are fascinating parts in there about Standard Oil's collision with the first Russian oil gushers, which significantly threatened Standard's international expansion).
What's amusing about the book is Chernow would sum up each chapter with the popular narrative of how awful Rockefeller was, yet the facts presented in that chapter told another story.
Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller
#16What do you think people in 1885 would think of the internet, where you can read some random grade school student's term paper without even leaving your desk?
sounds like a hangable indiscretion to me
back to the good ole' dats
Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller
#17It's shocking that they present this story as a tale of virtue. If being an entrepreneur is a noble calling, then we should be ashamed of Rockerfeller for his ruthless tactics, not praising him for it. If we want to praise capitalists and capitalism, then we should be villifying Rockerfeller for his monopolistic tactics. He was too clever by half as a CEO, since his tactics eventually brought down the ire of the gove…
All of us raised in a capitalist society abide by this social contract, and as such it is more beneficial to have examples of people that played by more effective sets of rules than the next person.
People have learned from this by having a settlement (or rainy day fund) specifically for the government.
You can use it as educational, as a cautionary tale, but there isn't need to pass any retroactive judgment on it, in my opinion. No need to either rosy it up, or highlight something you would rather consider abominable.
Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller
#18The Hustle puts out some top notch content. Subscribe here: http://ambassadors.thehustle.co/?ref=a3368eba99
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Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller
#19It's shocking that they present this story as a tale of virtue. If being an entrepreneur is a noble calling, then we should be ashamed of Rockerfeller for his ruthless tactics, not praising him for it. If we want to praise capitalists and capitalism, then we should be villifying Rockerfeller for his monopolistic tactics. He was too clever by half as a CEO, since his tactics eventually brought down the ire of the gove…
> horrific business practices I recommend that you read "Titan" by Chernow. Rockefeller is mostly guilty simply of being very rich. During his career, he caused the price of kerosene to drop 70%, and stay down. This was good for the expanding country. During the anti-trust trial, Rockefeller was steadily losing market share to nimbler, aggressive competitors. There was no need for the government to break it up, it wa…
> The popular narrative that, unchecked by government, a business will eventually rise to absorb everything is not borne out by practice.
I get your point, but there are exceptions. In particular, utilities come to mind. All locations I've lived except 1 provided exactly one option for high-speed internet. I don't see that changing in most parts of the US any time soon. Ditto for water and electricity, depending on locality. Even temporary monopoly abuse in either of those two sectors can have devastating humanitarian impacts.
Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller
#20It's shocking that they present this story as a tale of virtue. If being an entrepreneur is a noble calling, then we should be ashamed of Rockerfeller for his ruthless tactics, not praising him for it. If we want to praise capitalists and capitalism, then we should be villifying Rockerfeller for his monopolistic tactics. He was too clever by half as a CEO, since his tactics eventually brought down the ire of the gove…
> horrific business practices I recommend that you read "Titan" by Chernow. Rockefeller is mostly guilty simply of being very rich. During his career, he caused the price of kerosene to drop 70%, and stay down. This was good for the expanding country. During the anti-trust trial, Rockefeller was steadily losing market share to nimbler, aggressive competitors. There was no need for the government to break it up, it wa…
> All businesses rise and fall over time. The popular narrative that, unchecked by government, a business will eventually rise to absorb everything is not borne out by practice.
Interesting assertion, do you have any books/data to back that up?