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4.08 AVERAGE
4.08 AVERAGE
It was pretty interesting but no really transferable stuff considering the time period lol maybe as a historical book, want to revisit at some point when not busy
informative
slow-paced
informative
informative
slow-paced
challenging
informative
slow-paced
Always been fascinated by Rockefeller, heard good things about this book so decided to give it a try. Fantastic insight into how exactly Rockefeller consolidated and ultimately monopolized the oil industry in the late 1800s and early 1900s. I personally found the beginning of his career the most interesting. Did a pretty deep dive into the system of rebates, buyouts, shutdowns, price cutting, intimidation, and distribution which Rockefeller used to ultimately monopolize the oil industry.
The book also spent a fair amount of time addressing the lawsuits, muckrakers, and other companies against him. I enjoyed the last portion of the book which focused on Rockefeller Jr, his descendants, and the family legacy. I didn’t realize how much the Rockefeller family had done philanthropically, including massive founding donations to Spelman College and the University of Chicago. His contributions to medicine were also quite impressive.
Overall, great boon to read even if not interested strictly in Rockefeller because the word “monopoly” is tossed around a lot, especially today with Amazon and Facebook, but I never really realized what exactly companies were doing to achieve their goals. A good read! (ha..ha...)
The book also spent a fair amount of time addressing the lawsuits, muckrakers, and other companies against him. I enjoyed the last portion of the book which focused on Rockefeller Jr, his descendants, and the family legacy. I didn’t realize how much the Rockefeller family had done philanthropically, including massive founding donations to Spelman College and the University of Chicago. His contributions to medicine were also quite impressive.
Overall, great boon to read even if not interested strictly in Rockefeller because the word “monopoly” is tossed around a lot, especially today with Amazon and Facebook, but I never really realized what exactly companies were doing to achieve their goals. A good read! (ha..ha...)
challenging
informative
slow-paced
So, so good. Though the audiobook was 35 hours, it went by pretty fast. It's crazy how influential one person was on the course of American history. The author states early on that much writing on JD Rockefeller was either glorifying his business acumen or damning his ruthless tactics; this book was much more nuanced and he came across as a real and flawed human being.
Son of a religions mother and a conman father, Rockefeller grew rich building the Standard Oil company, which had a monopoly on oil production through operating (along with other consumed companies) under a Trust. Initially it grew out of the boom and bust cycles of oil refining by getting people to cooperate on prices through ruthless tactics to swallow other oil companies (encouraging competition between those companies to avoid becoming a slothful monopoly). With the industrial revolution and Ford motors, Rockefeller made more money in retirement than during his career (becoming the first billionaire). He spent $540M on philanthropy, unadjusted for inflation, in such acts as founding the University of Chicago, donating to black colleges, and funding medical research on infectious diseases worldwide. He also mostly left those he donated money to do as they desired, even if he was against it (ex he wanted to have more research on homeopathy). "He tried to influence the pace and scope of his philanthropies, not their contents, and ensure measured, fiscally responsible growth."
Rockefeller was very reserved, but strategic and shrewd with numbers/accounting (even when obscenely wealthy), working as an administrator when the world valued inventors. He was the embodiment of Puritan fortitude, who used religion to help avoid indulgences as his wealth grew, he died at age 98. He also was one of the richest men in the world at a time when businesses didn't really have public relations people, so he was usually reserved and silent but eventually needed to focus on his public image to avoid seeming like a scheming mastermind (after retirement when more stories of Standard oil became more politically relevant). Due to all the changes in American policy, such as antitrust laws and progressive tax rates, it'll be hard to ever have someone with comparatively so much wealth.
Quotes:
- "What makes him so problematic-and why he continues to inspire such ambivalent reactions-is that his good side was every bit as good as his bad side was bad. Seldom has history produced such a contradictory figure.... Complicating this puzzle is the fact that Rockefeller experienced no sense of discontinuity as he passed from being the brains of Standard Oil to being the monarch of a charitable empire."
- "In time, the government redefined the rules of the capitalist game to tame trusts and preserve competition, but as John D. Rockefeller set about building his fortune, the absence of clear-cut rules probably aided, at first, the creative vigor of the new industrial economy."
- "Daring in design, cautious in execution—it was a formula he made his own throughout his career."
- "'Let us hold the Institute to the strictest administration and observe for a further time how they get along and delay committal, as long as we can, to be confirmed as to the wisdom of such additional endowment.' This slow development of the RIMR was a classic Rockefeller move."
- "Standard Oil had taught the American public an important but paradoxical lesson: Free markets, if left completely to their own devices, can wind up terribly unfree. Competitive capitalism did not exist in a state of nature but had to be defined or restrained by law. Unfettered markets tended frequently towards monopoly, or, at least, towards unhealthy levels of concentration, and government sometimes needed to intervene to ensure the full benefits of competition. This was particularly true in the early stages of industrial development. This notion is now so deeply embedded in our laws that it has become all bu invisible to us, replaced by secondary debates over the precise nature or extend of antitrust enforcement."
Son of a religions mother and a conman father, Rockefeller grew rich building the Standard Oil company, which had a monopoly on oil production through operating (along with other consumed companies) under a Trust. Initially it grew out of the boom and bust cycles of oil refining by getting people to cooperate on prices through ruthless tactics to swallow other oil companies (encouraging competition between those companies to avoid becoming a slothful monopoly). With the industrial revolution and Ford motors, Rockefeller made more money in retirement than during his career (becoming the first billionaire). He spent $540M on philanthropy, unadjusted for inflation, in such acts as founding the University of Chicago, donating to black colleges, and funding medical research on infectious diseases worldwide. He also mostly left those he donated money to do as they desired, even if he was against it (ex he wanted to have more research on homeopathy). "He tried to influence the pace and scope of his philanthropies, not their contents, and ensure measured, fiscally responsible growth."
Rockefeller was very reserved, but strategic and shrewd with numbers/accounting (even when obscenely wealthy), working as an administrator when the world valued inventors. He was the embodiment of Puritan fortitude, who used religion to help avoid indulgences as his wealth grew, he died at age 98. He also was one of the richest men in the world at a time when businesses didn't really have public relations people, so he was usually reserved and silent but eventually needed to focus on his public image to avoid seeming like a scheming mastermind (after retirement when more stories of Standard oil became more politically relevant). Due to all the changes in American policy, such as antitrust laws and progressive tax rates, it'll be hard to ever have someone with comparatively so much wealth.
Quotes:
- "What makes him so problematic-and why he continues to inspire such ambivalent reactions-is that his good side was every bit as good as his bad side was bad. Seldom has history produced such a contradictory figure.... Complicating this puzzle is the fact that Rockefeller experienced no sense of discontinuity as he passed from being the brains of Standard Oil to being the monarch of a charitable empire."
- "In time, the government redefined the rules of the capitalist game to tame trusts and preserve competition, but as John D. Rockefeller set about building his fortune, the absence of clear-cut rules probably aided, at first, the creative vigor of the new industrial economy."
- "Daring in design, cautious in execution—it was a formula he made his own throughout his career."
- "'Let us hold the Institute to the strictest administration and observe for a further time how they get along and delay committal, as long as we can, to be confirmed as to the wisdom of such additional endowment.' This slow development of the RIMR was a classic Rockefeller move."
- "Standard Oil had taught the American public an important but paradoxical lesson: Free markets, if left completely to their own devices, can wind up terribly unfree. Competitive capitalism did not exist in a state of nature but had to be defined or restrained by law. Unfettered markets tended frequently towards monopoly, or, at least, towards unhealthy levels of concentration, and government sometimes needed to intervene to ensure the full benefits of competition. This was particularly true in the early stages of industrial development. This notion is now so deeply embedded in our laws that it has become all bu invisible to us, replaced by secondary debates over the precise nature or extend of antitrust enforcement."
