Sublime

There is never a shortage of people with ideas in our world, but there are very few people who know how to successfully implement a good idea, which is more valuable than thinking about a thousand of good ideas at home.

Rockefeller also may have been unique among oil executives for his understanding of distribution. Kerosene—illuminating oil—was arguably the first global consumer product. (Grain markets were global, of course, but grain was usually processed locally into flour or bread before being sold to consumers.) Rockefeller pursued tightly integrated marketi

Many people who lack action are naive and like to sit and wait for things to happen naturally. They naively think that others will care about their affairs. In actual fact, other than yourself, others will not be very interested in them. People are only interested in their own things.

The Standard’s commitment to long-distance pipelines was the beginning of the end of the railroads’ dominant role in petroleum transport. Rockefeller began to negotiate what were effectively reverse-rebate arrangements, guaranteeing the roads minimum returns for maintaining their oil-shipping facilities whether or not he used them. The last step in

With Rockefeller’s grudging agreement, the Standard Oil Company went public in January of 1870, its capitalization of $1 million divided into ten thousand shares.

As usual, Rockefeller did not haggle over the price of $3.4 million. He even let Scott demand that $2.5 million of it be paid in cash within twenty-four hours, necessitating flying visits by him and William to their New York and Cleveland bankers to gather up funds. When his other partners balked at including a fleet of antiquated lake barges in th

The rollup was also managed with great stealth. An express condition of the first round of acquisitions is that they were to be kept secret. All of the acquired companies retained their management teams and their names, and, at least nominally, their own stock. Each of them then pursued a regional acquisition strategy in its own name and with its o

A word on Rockefeller as a manager, for he has a claim to be not only the first great corporate executive but one of the greatest ever.

The Empire had begun life as a fast-freight forwarder, just one of the many companies that Scott and Thomson had created to pick the meatier bones left on the Pennsylvania’s table. Its superb chief executive, Col. Joseph Potts, had built it into a major transportation business in its own right, with a particularly strong position in petroleum. Besi