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The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

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Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#51

Post by travmatt »

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, another awesome biographer.

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#52

Post by travmatt »

markdog12 wrote: post #33
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.

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

The part that struck me about the descriptions of him was his metronome-like consistency.

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#53

Post by guelo »

WalterBright wrote: post #14
guelo wrote: post #10

I 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 destroye…

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

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#54

Post by arzt »

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…

Bezos - hands down, similar degree of ruthlessness in controlling all markets he touches. An anecdote from the "The Everything Store" which sheds more light below:

“Bezos kept pushing for more. He asked Blake to exact better terms from the smallest publishers, who would go out of business if it weren't for the steady sales of their back catalogs on Amazon. Within the books group, the resulting program was dubbed the Gazelle Project because Bezos suggested to Blake in a meeting that Amazon should approach these small publishers the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle.

As part of the Gazelle Project, Blake's group categorized publishers in terms of their dependency n Amazon and then opened negotiations with the most vulnerable companies. Three book buyers at the time recall this effort. Blake herself said that Bezos meant the cheetah-and-gazelle analogy as a joke and it was carried too far. Yet the program clearly represented something real--an emerging realpolitik approach toward book publishers, an attitude whose ruthlessness startled even some Amazon employees. Soon after the Gazelle Project began, Amazon's lawyers heard about the name and insisted it be changed to the less incendiary Small Publisher Negotiation Program.” ― Brad Stone, The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#55

Post by aab0 »

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.

In that one photo he looks, literally, like Lord Voldemort. That can't have helped his PR at all since I'm fairly sure newspapers were able to print photos by this point.

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#56

Post by travmatt »

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…

Hands down it would be Peter Thiel. After I read that book I heard so much of Rockefeller in his worldview, I really thought it was uncanny. Specifically, Thiel's view on monopolies had some hints of Rockefeller.

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#57

Post by yareally »

nbb wrote: post #7

What 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?

I don't think it's far fetched for someone in the late 19th century to imagine an automated, in-home telegraph system that printed out content for someone to read. Someone might have even had their university assignments sent over telegraph in an emergency. I believe Western Union used to deliver telegrams (via telegraph) on demand for customers.

Stock updates were also sent automatically over telegraph starting in the 1870s for anyone that owned a ticker tape machine[1]. There were also teleprinters that sent news stories and other information to those that owned them.

Fax machines were also invented in the mid 19th Century and allowed for the transmission of signatures and drawings over telegraph[2].

The basics for an asynchronous, global communication system have been around since the 1800s, just not as cheap and user friendly as what we enjoy today.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticker_tape

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantelegraph

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#58

Post by coderholic »

aerovistae wrote: post #28
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.

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 applied, a small percentage of the cans leaked. None leaked with 39, though. "'That one drop of solder', said Rockefeller,...'saved $2,500 the first year; but the export business kept on increasing after that and doubled, quadrupled--became immensely greater than it was then; and the saving has gone steadily along, one drop on each can, and has amounted since to many hundreds of thousands of dollars"' (Chernow 1998, pp. 180-81). Over the course of his career at the helm of Standard Oil, "Rockefeller cut the unit costs of refined oil almost in half" (Ibid., p. 150).

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#59

Post by akkartik »

abtinf wrote: post #31
curious_fella wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

The entire history of economics backs this up. The only instances of long-lasting monopolies are the result of government coercion. The instability of large, profitable businesses has both a solid theoretical foundation and an unending abundance of empirical data. If you ever think you have found a single instance of monopoly lasting any significant length of time, look deeper - with absolute certainty there is a gov…

"If you ever think you have found a single instance of monopoly lasting any significant length of time, look deeper - with absolute certainty there is a government gun backing it up."

But that caveat lets the horse out of the barn, since the gains made by monopolies can purchase lobbyists and thence the government gun. Disney Studios has been around 93 years at this point.

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#60

Post by ccostes »

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.

As I scrolled through I thought the same thing. I can't put my finger on it, but something about the photos is very off-putting.
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