He went from penniless hairy boy to oil tycoon, becoming America's first billionaire.
Bill Gates once said: "There is only one money-making hero in my mind, and that is Rockefeller." He was referring to David Rockefeller's grandfather, John Rockefeller.
Where there is a Father, there must be a Son
As the saying goes, "If there is a father, there must be a son." Rockefeller showed shrewd business acumen early on. At the age of 12, Rockefeller began to issue "usurious loans", lending the $50 he had accumulated to his neighbors, collecting interest and making money with money, which was praised by his father. Because his father William believes: "Life is only on oneself, business should be done early, and only money is the most reliable." His father's idea that "making money is king" inspired Rockefeller's yearning for business ambitions.
In 1855, at the age of 16, Rockefeller decided to retire to business to earn a living. He first went to the business school in Cleveland, Ohio, and studied nearly 4 "bullies" - constantly interviewing but was repeatedly turned away. Rockefeller, who had been defeated and fought repeatedly, insisted on it for six weeks in a row, and some companies even went two or three times. The effort paid off, and Rockefeller finally became an accountant at a grain-based firm for $12 a month.
In addition to keeping good accounts, Rockefeller sometimes came up with ideas for the company's operations. Once, a trading house bought a batch of marble at a high price, and when it opened the package, it found that there was a defect in the marble material. Just when the owner of the business house was at a loss, Rockefeller suggested that the responsibility be placed on the three transportation companies responsible for shipping the goods and let them compensate for the losses. The move saved the company more than $1,000 in losses and impressed the boss, raising Rockefeller's annual salary to $500 in the second year of his job.
The 20-year-old partnership opened the company for a net of $4,000
In the third year of work, after proposing to raise the annual salary to $800, which was rejected by the boss, Rockefeller simply fired the boss's squid and went it alone. In March 1859, Rockefeller borrowed $1,000 from his father at 10% interest, plus $800 of his savings, and co-founded the "Clark-Rockefeller Company" with his British friend Morris Clark. The company mainly deals in agricultural products such as cereals, pastures and meat. At the age of 20, Rockefeller became a partner in a trading agency.
At the beginning of the opening, their luck was not good. Crops in the Midwest of the United States were severely frosted and snowy, with few harvests. Farmers had to use the annual grain harvest as collateral, but required the company to pay a deposit. Affected by this, many similar companies have closed down. Partner Clark suggested closing the door, but Rockefeller believed that when everyone exited the market, it was just a matter of letting go.
By borrowing $2,000 from a bank, Rockefeller soon sold his collected grain and meat to Europe to earn the spread. As a result of the smooth operation, the company made a net profit of $4,000 in its first year.
Zhao Pu deserted military service and made a new fortune
In April 1861, the four-year-long American Civil War broke out, and President Lincoln issued a conscription order. Rockefeller was supposed to enlist in the army by age, but he only thought about how to make a war fortune.
In order to avoid military service, Rockefeller first pretended to have a foot disease, which was too much to fit, and he simply paid for a substitute to act as cannon fodder. Before the outbreak of war, Rockefeller did everything in his power to borrow money, invest all the money, and hoard large quantities of daily necessities and strategic supplies. As the war expanded, the price of daily necessities soared, and orders flew towards him like snowflakes. In just 4 years, it is estimated that Rockefeller made no less than $100,000.
Later, some biographers said that Rockefeller was actually very concerned about the Civil War. His office is like the Army Staff. Rockefeller paid a fortune of $25 to buy a map of the United States and paste it on the wall. Some argue that the location Rockefeller marked on the map was actually his business outlet: the yellow label represented grain, and the red label represented ham. The so-called battle situation map is actually a commercial offensive map.
The 26-year-old decided that the ownership of the company went it alone
On the eve of the Outbreak of the Civil War, the discovery of oil in Pennsylvania attracted thousands of adventurers, and for a time, the derricks in the Pennsylvania oil area were lined up. Between 1861 and 1862, the number of wells in Pennsylvania nearly doubled. Faced with a busy mining site, Rockefeller chose to wait. His judgment is that the application of oil has not yet been popularized, the demand for crude oil is limited, and blind opening will inevitably lead to a decline in oil prices. Unsurprisingly, due to the frenzied drilling of oil, the barrel of crude oil plummeted from the original $20 to only 10 cents, and many oil owners lost their money.
When crude oil repeatedly plummeted, Rockefeller made a decisive move. Unlike many people who only cared about crude oil, Rockefeller decided to start with refining oil first. He found that crude oil, refined into kerosene, could sell for about 30 cents per gallon, far more profitable than crude oil extraction. In 1863, with the addition of the British chemist Andrews, Rockefeller and Clark established a refinery. Andrews successfully extracted kerosene from crude oil, and the United States has since vigorously developed the coal refining industry to replace whale oil as a lighting agent. In less than a year, refining became the company's most profitable industry.
Manipulating banks and suppressing small companies has led to the brothers' opposition
With the rise of the oil industry, the company has expanded rapidly. On January 100, 1870, Rockefeller partnered to create the Standard Oil Company. Soon, Standard Oil set a benchmark for the industry due to the excellent quality of kerosene and controlled 1/10 of the market in the U.S. refining industry. In July 1870, the Franco-Prussian War broke out on the European continent, and the spread of the war caused the U.S. oil export market to shrink, and the price of crude oil fell from $4 to $3.25 per barrel. Oil refiners in Pennsylvania and other places spontaneously organized themselves and stopped firing for 3 months, and many refineries complained bitterly.
Rockefeller used the company's shares to buy the presidents of cleveland's major banks and prevent them from lending to small and medium-sized local refineries. Small refineries, short of both crude oil and cash, either went out of business or were eaten by Standard Oil. Two years later, Standard Oil took control of 21 of Cleveland's 26 refineries. Rockefeller's brother Franklin's refinery also went bankrupt, and his brother turned against him.
Create a trust-independent IR market
Rockefeller had to look out for shu and expand with all his might. In 1884, Rockefeller moved the company's headquarters to 26 Broadway, the financial center of New York. With the rise of the oil empire, the danger of being too large to control is also increasing. Rockefeller was soberly aware of this ill.
It was then that Rockefeller discovered an article in a publicly distributed publication that read, "The era of small businessmen is over, and the era of big business is coming." He felt that this coincided with his monopolistic ideas, so he hired Dodd, the author of the article, as legal counsel. It was Dodd who came up with the concept of a monopoly organization called "trusts."
The so-called "trust" is a number of enterprises that produce similar products, no longer independently, but form a comprehensive enterprise group in a highly joint form. Rockefeller created an unprecedented joint venture, the Trust. Under this trust structure, Rockefeller merged 41 businesses, and he successfully ushered in the "monopoly era" of the U.S. economy. At its peak, Standard Oil monopolized 95 percent of U.S. refining capacity, 90 percent of its oil delivery capacity, and 25 percent of its crude oil production. Never in the history of the United States has a company been able to dominate the market so completely.
Founded a university to carry out philanthropy
After achieving fame, Rockefeller chose to retire. After retiring, his focus shifted to philanthropy. He invested $600,000 to found the University of Chicago and donated $34 million to the University of Chicago over the next 10 years. It was his first large charitable donation.
For charity, Rockefeller also used "trust tactics." The institute, the board of education, and the foundation under the name "Rockefeller" were established, and his donations totaled more than $500 million. Some people expressed respect and gratitude for this, while others accused Rockefeller of making "dirty money" and rejected a $100,000 donation.
On May 23, 1937, Rockefeller died at the age of 98. With an estimated personal fortune of no less than $1.4 billion, Rockefeller became the first billionaire in U.S. history. The U.S. GDP that year was $92 billion, and no one in the United States has surpassed Rockefeller in terms of the share of personal wealth in GDP.