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The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

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Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#61

Post by aerovistae »

coderholic wrote: post #58
aerovistae wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool anecdote from Titan, one of countless: Rockefeller was relentless in ferreting out ways to cut costs. During an inspection tour of a Standard Oil plant in New York City, for instance, he observed a machine that soldered the lids on five-gallon cans of kerosene destined for export. Upon learning that each lid was sealed with 40 drops of solder, he asked, "Have you ever tried 38?" It turned out that when 38 drops…

Version that's possible to read: "Rockefeller was relentless in ferreting out ways to cut costs. During an inspection tour of a Standard Oil plant in New York City, for instance, he observed a machine that soldered the lids on five-gallon cans of kerosene destined for export. Upon learning that each lid was sealed with 40 drops of solder, he asked, "Have you ever tried 38?" It turned out that when 38 drops were appli…

  What, don't you like monospace fonts??

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#62

Post by WalterBright »

guelo wrote: post #53
WalterBright wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 destroye…

Imagine if iPods hadn't been allowed to connect to iTunes on Windows, Apple probably would not have survived.

I wrote and sold applications on Windows for decades. I never asked for nor received permission from Microsoft to do that, and neither did any other vender I've ever heard of. Windows was never a "walled garden".

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#64

Post by adventured »

samstave wrote: post #44
markdog12 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Highly recommend. One of the best bios I've ever read. The man had an iron will.

I wonder, who in our day is Rockefeller - as it would seem that it might be musk but without being an asshole. Zuck is just a manipulator and as he is so young, I don't expect his actually legacy to take hold for at least 40 years. But musk is much more a Titan than zuck. Zuck isn't really doing anything outside his comfort zone - but that doesn't mean that oculus won't be a thing in 20 years - but I wouldn't credit…

Bill Gates probably already took that title. He'll have generated a likely $150 billion in total wealth by the time he's done (stands at around $115 billion now; $87 billion per Bloomberg's rankings plus around $30b+ given to the foundation so far). He built a monopoly at the core of the most lucrative boom industry of his day (computing and software). Similar reputations, similar drive and ambition, similar behaviors under anti-trust questioning, similar response to give his wealth away after stepping away from the business, and so on. Interestingly however, Gates was far more prone at emotional outbursts and getting upset, Rockefeller was extremely contained by comparison.

As someone else noted, Bezos might follow along with Gates, but it appears Bezos is more like Sam Walton than a Rockefeller. Walmart sprawled into numerous other categories, attempting to perpetually find new ways to make money at the edges of its empire; Walmart is a hyper low margin business, built on low prices and high efficiency; both Sam Walton and Bezos retained very large stakes in their businesses despite the size; both kept fundamental control. Amazon has no serious monopoly category however, and they have a comparatively weak cash generation capability (AWS is spitting off some nice operating income, but it pales in comparison to the very high margin cash spigot that Windows was).

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#65

Post by rhizome »

aerovistae wrote: post #61
coderholic wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Version that's possible to read: "Rockefeller was relentless in ferreting out ways to cut costs. During an inspection tour of a Standard Oil plant in New York City, for instance, he observed a machine that soldered the lids on five-gallon cans of kerosene destined for export. Upon learning that each lid was sealed with 40 drops of solder, he asked, "Have you ever tried 38?" It turned out that when 38 drops were appli…

What, don't you like monospace fonts??

I just get a long scroll bar.

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#66

Post by saryant »

samstave wrote: post #43
saryant wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Follow that up with Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power by Steve Coll and you've got a fascinating and compelling look at the last ~120 years of oil and American history.

If I were to read all of these - where will I end up mentally? In awe or in prison?

I find myself in awe. Men like Rockefeller made our modern age possible.

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#67

Post by AndrewKemendo »

travmatt wrote: post #51
dharmon wrote: post #2

If 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.

That book was invalualable for exactly those two reasons: the evenhanded portrait of a very complex individual, and a detailed portrait of the world in which he lived and knew. That book started me on a long tear of other biographies of large individuals in American history, specifically from Reconstruction through the Vietnam War. I'm currently working through Robert Caro's multipart series on Lyndon Johnson, anothe…

In that case it might be worth reading Factory Man, which is a somewhat biography of John D. Bassett III, third generation owner of Bassett furniture.

Completely fascinating history of the home furnishings industry and how globalization completely upended it.

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#68

Post by AndrewKemendo »

barrkel wrote: post #49

Rockefeller had a peculiar face, and it wasn't helped by his alopecia episode. You can see where the lizard people conspiracies find fodder.

Just wanted to side-reference this comment to some of the comments about the Theranos' CEO's appearance that frequently come up.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11552144

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#69

Post by jghn »

narag wrote: post #25
WalterBright wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 destroye…

Netscape was best until about version 3. It had some niceties that IE lacked, actually IE was not even acceptable. Netscape 4.7 was "not so nice" and IE 4 was faster so, although terribly unsafe, it dominated market for years. Oh, and by the time Netscape 4.7 and IE 4.01 were released, Microsoft had already destroyed Netscape's business.

Right. The browsers went back and forth for a few years, and then finally Netscape started to slide into oblivion

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#70

Post by gnaritas »

WalterBright wrote: post #46
gnaritas wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point is, it didn't happen and never did. Wrong, it did happen, to Netscape. Microsoft's bundling of IE for free destroyed Netscape as a viable business.

Every device I buy comes bundled with a free browser, along with a long laundry list of other bundled utilities. The idea that a browser is somehow special doesn't stand up, and special if it comes with Windows even less so. Linux also comes with tons of free software that is hard to compete with. I know for a fact that Netscape was an inferior product to IE. I downloaded IE and uninstalled Netscape. I made an extra…

The quality of Netscape's product is not relevant. It is only relevant that Microsoft used anti-competitive practices to try and put them out of business. As you can't seem to tell the difference, there is little point in conversing.
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