#16 Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller

**David Senra** (0:00)
I want to tell you about a one time only limited event that I don't think you're going to want to miss. I am doing a live show with Patrick O'Shaughnessy from the Invest Like the Best podcast in New York City on October 19th. Patrick has interviewed over 300 of the world's best investors and founders for his podcast. I've read over 300 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs for my podcast. We'll be talking about what we learned from seven years of podcasting, sharing our favorite ideas and stories, and doing a live Q&A. There will also be special event-only swag. If you live in New York City, I think it's a no-brainer. But if not, I think it's a great excuse to fly in. I've already heard from a bunch of people that bought tickets. They're flying in from other cities. Some people are flying in from other countries. That's setting the bar really high. So I will have at least four shots of espresso or four energy drinks before or during the show. So we can make it a night that you'll never forget. If you're interested in attending this unique live event, I will leave a link down below. I highly recommend you get your tickets today. And I hope I get to see you in New York on October 19th. Rockefeller was a unique hybrid in American business, both the instinctive first-generation entrepreneur who founds the company and the analytical second-generation manager who extends and develops it. He wasn't the sort of rugged, self-made mogul who quickly becomes irrelevant to his own organization. For that reason, his career anticipates the managerial capitalism of the 20th century. Since he never owned more than a third of his company, he needed the cooperation of other people. Having created an empire of unfathomable complexity, he was smart enough to see that he had to submerge his identity in the organization. Many people noted that Rockefeller seldom said I. This is a direct quote from him. Don't say that I ought to do this or that, he preached to colleagues. We ought to do it. Never forget that we are partners. Whatever is done for this general good is done for the good of us all. He preferred outspoken colleagues to weak need sickle fans and welcomed differences of opinion so long as they weren't personalized.
By creating new industrial forms, Rockefeller left his stamp on an age that lauded inventors, not administrators. That he created one of the first multinational corporations selling kerosene around the world and setting a business pattern for the next century was arguably his greatest feat.
Okay, so that was from the book that I want to talk to you about today. It's called Titan, The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow.
And those three paragraphs just appeared about 220 pages into this 700 page biography.
And there's a few times where I couldn't figure out how I wanted to start this podcast or what I wanted to talk about because the book delves into his early life, goes into great detail, how he got his start in business and then how he created Standard Oil, which is what he's most well known for. But I think that those few paragraphs give you an idea of why that's so important because there's been plenty of businesses built throughout time that were wildly successful, similar to Standard Oil. But he was the first, really credited with the first person that created what is very common today, which is a multinational corporation, except he was doing this in the 1800s. What I want to focus on for the purpose of this podcast is the strategy that he used in business, which I found most fascinating. So I want to talk to you about something called the Cleveland Massacre, which before I read this book, I knew nothing about. But before we get there, I want to give you an intro to the Cleveland Massacre that gives you an idea of the mind he had with business. And this is just a short two paragraphs. So let me go ahead and read that to you. The spot chosen for the new refinery tells much in miniature about Rockefeller's approach to business. He exercised an option on a three acre parcel on the sloping red clay banks of a narrow waterway called Kingsbury Run, which flowed into the Chihuahua River and thus provided passage to Lake Erie. A mile and a half from downtown Cleveland, it seemed at first glance an inauspicious site for the new refinery. In these outskirts beyond the city limits, cows browsed peacefully and trees still shaded the waterway. But for Rockefeller, the inconvenience was outweighed by the fact they would soon adjoin new railroad tracks. On November 3rd, 1863, proudly flying the Union colors, remember this is around the time of the Civil War, a gleaming locomotive of the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad pulled into a Cleveland station decked with bunting and launched a new era, giving the town access to New York City via the Erie Railroad and to a valuable direct route to the Pennsylvania oil fields. Before I read you the last sentence, remember at this time, almost all of the world's oil besides some large Russian oil fields came from Pennsylvania.