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 the general good is done for the good of us all.
He preferred outspoken colleagues to weak-kneed sycophants
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.