In 1855, at the age of 15, Rockefeller paid $40 to attend the Cleveland branch of the Folsom Business College for three months, the only formal business training he received in his life.At 18, he took out a $1,000 loan from his father at pennies on the dollar and partnered with Clark to form the Clark- -Rockefeller Company, which dealt primarily in agricultural products. The war required a lot of produce, so it was the American Civil War that turned the 20-something sniffy Rockefeller into a rich man. Like other rich people, he spent $300 a year to hire people to enlist in the war for him, but he seized the major opportunities that the war brought him, and accumulated a strong capital, laying a solid foundation for future development.
The war created a new world of development for Rockefeller, and the post-war economic boom brought countless opportunities to the dynamic, alert and sharp, insatiable. Only 4,000 U.S. dollars of investment with others to set up an oil company, the capitalist from then on headlong into the river of black gold, wealth from the oil wells gushing out, a steady stream. His unparalleled business acumen and greedy nature enabled him to create in a short period of time the most powerful and intimidating monopoly in the United States - the Standard Oil Company and thus made his fortune and became the richest man in the world. This by many specializing in revealing people's privacy of the literati called "octopus" trust enterprise refining and sales of oil, almost 90% of the total production of the same kind of product in the United States at that time, created a myth about wealth in American history.
In 1859, an out-of-work conductor named Edwin Drake drilled for oil in Tyngsville, Pennsylvania, while Rockefeller and a partner named Maurice Clark opened a broker's mercantile in Cleveland, Ohio. The mercantile business flourished during the Civil War, and Rockefeller went back into the railroad and real estate business, all the while keeping a close eye on the rapid growth of the booming oil industry.
In 1863, Rockefeller, Clark, and his two brothers, along with chemist Samuel Andrews, formed the Refinery, one of many refineries in the Cleveland area. Rockefeller operated the plant vigorously, making it the largest refinery in the area, refining 500 barrels of oil per day, but his partners were hesitant, and he bought out the entire property two years later. To improve his position, Rockefeller took on a lot of debt. in 1865 and 1866 he bought 50 refineries in Cleveland and another 80 in Pittsburgh. Later, his refineries were renamed Mobil Oil.
Mobil Oil grew rapidly in the 1870s as it continued to explore and consolidate its control over the oil industry. During this period, Rockefeller practiced economy. It became a fetish to liquidate accounts, counting prices to the third decimal place. Rockefeller insisted on having a financial statement on net worth on his desk every morning when he came to work. To save on transportation costs, Rockefeller began building oil pipelines. By 1876, Mobil Oil had 400 miles of pipelines. There were also gathering points capable of storing 1.5 million barrels of oil. When the Pennsylvania Railroad mounted another challenge to the refining industry in the late 1870s, Rockefeller brought down the then-largest U.S. company, then bought its refining equipment.
By the 1880s, it was clear that Rockefeller could no longer ignore drilling and sales. Pennsylvania's oil fields were beginning to run dry. And Mobil Oil was controlling companies with more than $70 million in assets. "Mobil had to ensure a constant supply of crude oil. Rockefeller bought several regional marketing companies. His company has become known as the "octopus", in the oil industry everywhere its power. Its products have accounted for about 90% of the products of refineries, and monopolize the price of such as kerosene, lubricating oils, paraffin, naphtha, solvents, and a number of other products extracted from oil by the scientists and technicians of "Mobil".
But Rockefeller did not want his empire to control the entire market. He understood that smaller, less effective competitors should be allowed to take on a minuscule portion of the pie, forcing them to fight for survival in hard times, while Mobil Oil could continue to produce with nearly all of its energy while being immune from accusations of exclusive control.
Rockefeller was in the vanguard of the development of a modern corporate organization with the help of a group of right-hand men, most of whom served on the executive committee of Mobil, and who, in addition to direct management, formulated strategic plans and gathered and analyzed intelligence. The committee approved all grants of more than $5,000 and new buildings costing more than $2,500, and even salary increases of more than $600 a year were approved by the committee. Obviously. This could not continue because Rockefeller's empire was so large that the committee eventually had to delegate some of its powers to middle-level administrations. Later, some suggested that the structure of Mobil was partly modeled on the Roman Catholic Church, but more importantly, that Rockefeller and other industrial giants had learned a lot from the railroads, especially the Pennsylvania Railroad, in the way they did business.
Rockefeller was thrifty and insatiable, but turned out to be the biggest philanthropist in American history. By the 1920s, the Rockefeller Foundation was the world's largest charity, and his sponsorship of medical education and public ****sanitation was global. He gave $540 million ($6 billion in today's dollars) directly in his lifetime, and his entire family sponsored more than $1 billion in charities. China benefited particularly, receiving funds second only to the U.S. In 1915, the Rockefeller Foundation set up the China Medical Committee, which was responsible for establishing the Peking Union Medical College in 1921, a university that has trained generations of medical professionals with modern knowledge in China. His patronage not only dealt a death blow to primitive medicine, it revolutionized philanthropy. Before him, wealthy donors tended to fund their favorite groups or give a few houses with their names engraved on them to show that they were of noble character. Rockefeller's philanthropy, on the other hand, is more dedicated to promoting knowledge creation and improving the public **** environment, which completely transcends the personality, more mythic, and its impact is much wider and more far-reaching.
Rockefeller leaves a paradoxical reputation in his wake. He combined piety and greed, compassion and ferocious cunning; he personified the rueful traditions of America's Puritan forefathers, encouraging thrift and hard work while inspiring a greedy nature. Fearing that someone might vandalize the cemetery, his coffin was placed in a crypt that dynamite couldn't open, and was covered with a thick slab of stone. And newspapers have run obituaries describing him as a great philanthropist who was charitable, without mentioning a word about that cruel big trustee, John Davidson Rockefeller. Politicians of all stripes, including those who had a brush with him, praised him, and one prosecutor praised the prevaricating and perfunctory witness he had questioned thus, "Next to our beloved President, he was the greatest citizen of our country. It was he who created knowledge out of wealth. The world is a better place because of him. This chief citizen of the world will live on in history."