flâneur

Founders Notes: John D Rockefeller

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Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. Ron Chernow Rockefeller entered retirement just at the birth of the American automobile industry. The automobile would make John D. Rockefeller far richer in retirement than at work. John D. Rockefeller wasn't one to dawdle in an unprofitable concern. His career had few wasted steps, and he never vacillated when the moment ripened for advancement. This passion for excellence originated with Rockefeller and radiated throughout the organization. The ethos of Standard Oil's operations around the world was John D. Rockefeller's personality writ large. The point is worth underderscoring: Twenty-nine-year-old John D. Rockefeller demanded that seventyfour-year-old Commodore Vanderbilt, the emperor of the railroad world, come to him. This refusal to truckle, bend, or bow to others, this insistence on dealing with other people on his own terms, time, and turf, distinguished Rockefeller throughout his career. The year revealed both his finest and most problematic qualities as a businessman: his visionary leadership, his courageous persistence, his capacity to think in strategic terms, but also his lust for domination, his messianic self-righteousne

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. Ron Chernow Rockefeller entered retirement just at the birth of the American automobile industry. The automobile would make John D. Rockefeller far richer in retirement than at work. John D. Rockefeller wasn't one to dawdle in an unprofitable concern. His career had few wasted steps, and he never vacillated when the moment ripened for advancement. This passion for excellence originated with Rockefeller and radiated throughout the organization. The ethos of Standard Oil's operations around the world was John D. Rockefeller's personality writ…

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