#405 How Rockefeller Worked

So I have a collection of these obscure Rockefeller biographies. probably have like ten of them. Many of them were published decades ago. But I just recently reread what I feel is the best, the single best biography of Rockefeller. It's called John D, The Founding Fathers of the Rockefellers, written by David Freeman Hawk. And it was published All the way back in nineteen eighty.

The reason I think this is the best biography of Rockefeller is because it has the most concise description of how he actually built standard oil, which is what you and I are actually interested in. So I just recently re read it. I stripped away all the biographical details. And made a list of about a hundred different ideas that Rockefeller used to build what Charlie Munger said was the greatest company. Ever created.

And so this episode's gonna be really simple. I'm just gonna run through these ideas with you. The first idea. To Rockefeller, business resembled a form of war. It was very natural for him. To start a letter with the words I'm in the midst of a hard battle today. He would transmit all of his messages in code, and he would cover his entire operations with secrecy.

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