BIOGRAPHY:

John Davison Rockefeller is the richest person in the world in recent history. America’s first billionaire made his own fortune thanks to his entrepreneurial talent, his hard work, his total savings and his optimization. His name became synonymous with wealth.

Childhood and youth:

The future tycoon was born on July 8, 1839 in Richford, New York. Both parents, William Avery Rockefeller and Louise Davison, were members of the Baptist Church. The family raised six children, of whom John was the second oldest.

And if the mother was pious, then the father led a dissolute life, brought a mistress and illegitimate children into the family. William had adventurous veins and, having abandoned his profession as a woodcutter, he sold dubious botanical elixirs; he was suspected of embezzlement and fraud; The man rarely appeared at home, but from a young age he instilled in his children the ability to trade. To do this, he paid John to do household chores. From his mother, who had to take care of the house and children alone, the boy received religiosity and the ability to save money.

Little John showed business knowledge from an early age: he sold candy to his sisters, who bought in bulk. And at the age of seven, the neighbors hired the boy on a farm, where he earned his first money by harvesting potatoes and raising turkeys for sale. From the early days of his working life, Rockefeller kept an accounting book in which he carefully recorded income and expenses. At the age of 13, he had saved $50, which he lent to a farmer he knew at 7.5% per annum.

Young John seemed to others calm and thoughtful. The thin and impassive boy thought for a long time and was in no hurry to make a decision. But in reality, Rockefeller was very sensitive and suffered the loss of his sister. After the girl’s death, he remained face down on the grass far from home for 12 hours.

Rockefeller did not like to study, although school teachers noted the boy’s tenacious memory and his ability to think logically. He never finished school. When he was 16, his father stopped coming home and remarried without divorcing his first wife. As the oldest child in the family, John took a three-month accounting course at Cleveland College and began looking for work.

Business:

In 1855, John accepted his first and only salaried job at Hewitt & Tuttle in the accounting department. The young man started as an accounting assistant with a salary of $16, but within a few months he received a promotion to accountant and a salary of $31. A year later, Rockefeller was appointed manager of the company, he received a salary 20 times higher. than the accounting salary. But the ambitious young man was not satisfied with this amount, since the previous manager was paid much more and, without working for a year, he resigned to start his own business.

To become a partner of a British businessman, Rockefeller had to borrow $1,200 from his own father at 10% per year. Having raised the necessary $2,000, Rockefeller became a junior partner in Clark & ​​Rockefeller. The company dealt in agricultural products and made a lot of money supplying the Union army during the Civil War.

In the second half of the 19th century, the development of a new market area in America began – the oil refining business, when kerosene lamps began to gain popularity in everyday life. Rockefeller invited practicing chemist Samuel Andrews, who knew of a new oil field, to collaborate. John, along with Andrews and his Clark & ​​Rockefeller partners, built a sophisticated oil refinery in Cleveland.

At that time, refineries separated only kerosene from oil and the remaining 40% was dumped into rivers and settling basins. The know-how of the associated plant was the complete separation and utilization of all fractions, and gasoline was used locally as fuel.

Rockefeller bought the plant from the Clark brothers for $72,500 ($1 million in today’s dollars) and founded the new firm Rockefeller & Andrews. Rockefeller correctly identified a promising industry: expansion to the west and the construction of railroads were ahead.

Together with his younger brother William, Henry Morrison Flagler and old partner Andrews, John founded the firm of Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler. The company already had several refineries and became the predecessor of the Standard Oil Company, formed in 1870. The company was engaged in the full cycle of kerosene production, from oil production to the sale of finished products.

A peculiarity of doing business was that at first John did not pay employees in cash. The businessman gave out incentives with shares of the enterprise. This approach allowed employees to work with greater responsibility, since now their well-being was directly dependent on the success of the company.

Rockefeller’s business development proceeded at a rapid pace. Thanks to his entrepreneurial spirit and ability to negotiate with influential people, he achieved reduced prices for freight transportation by rail for his own company. Compared to its competitors, Standard Oil’s petroleum products were transported two to three times cheaper. By dumping, John forced other oil companies to sell production to Standard Oil. Thus, the enterprising tycoon turned into a monopolist.

In 1890, the antitrust law of Senator John Sherman was passed in the United States, which was directed against the activities of the Standard Oil company. Over the course of 20 years, Rockefeller was forced to split production into 34 controlled enterprises. In each of them he secured the right to own a controlling stake. This division of business had a positive effect on capital – the tycoon increased his own income many times over.

State:

John Rockefeller’s annual income from Standard Oil was $3 million. At the time of his death, according to experts, the oil tycoon’s fortune was $1.4 billion, or 1.5% of the United States’ GDP. The company owned 70% of all the world’s oil fields. In terms of the current dollar exchange rate, this is $318 billion.

Rockefeller owned 16 railroad companies, 6 steel mills, and 6 shipping companies. He owned 9 banks and 9 real estate companies.

At the end of his life, the businessman surrounded himself with luxury, but did not advertise this to society, as was customary in his circle.

The tycoon’s family owned orange groves, villas and mansions, and a land plot of 273 hectares. John explained his own well-being by discipline and the implementation of 12 golden rules of life, which he developed in his youth.

Charity and books:

John Rockefeller was a supporter of the Protestant Church from childhood and, as an exemplary Christian, from the very first earnings he began to donate a portion to the needs of the parish he visited. If in his youth he donated 6% of his income monthly, then the share increased to 10%. The oilman did not change his own habit until the end of his life.

In addition to donations to the church, the entrepreneur did a lot of charity work for the purposes of education, healthcare, and the development of fundamental science and art. John transferred sums of money to Baptist educational institutions, for example, the University of Chicago, the New York Institute for Medical Research, of which he was the founder. The Central Philippine University was built with the money of a philanthropist. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the funding of grants in the educational field has been handled by the Council for General Education.

The Rockefeller Sanitary Commission made it possible to defeat hookworm, which plagued rural residents of the American South. The commission’s work was continued by the Rockefeller Foundation.

The oil tycoon wrote a number of biographical books, the first of which was the 1909 publication “Memoirs of People and Events.” In 1910, Rockefeller’s book “How I Made $500,000,000” about the history of enrichment was published. In 1913, the entrepreneur wrote a memoir in which he outlined all the interesting facts of his own biography. The life story of the tycoon has more than once become the subject of documentaries.

Personal life:

At the age of 25, John Rockefeller married teacher Laura Celestia Spelman from a wealthy family. The girl, who studied accounting courses with the future billionaire, attracted his attention with her piety and practical mindset. The young people were united by a mutual feeling of love for each other and views on life and family well-being.

Laura was considered a suffragist, advocated for the rights of women, including African-Americans, she was educated at a women’s college in Worcester and during four years of work at Hudson Street School she became a head teacher from an ordinary teacher.

Having arranged her personal life, the woman, like her husband, became a Baptist and devoted herself to her family. The Rockefeller couple had four daughters and the only heir, son John D. Rockefeller Jr., who continued his father’s work. Even when the entrepreneur purchased an oil refinery in Cleveland, the family continued to live in rented housing and did not have servants. As the oil magnate himself wrote, he owes his commercial success to his wife.

After the death of his wife, Rockefeller lived for more than 20 years. He fell in love with female society and gradually got used to wearing expensive suits. The elderly entrepreneur’s favorite headdress was a straw hat, in which he often posed for photographs. John raised his heirs in an original way. Each child had an account book in which monetary rewards and expenses were recorded. In the Rockefeller house there was a certain system of rewarding children for their work. The billionaire rewarded his daughters and son for their refusal of any benefits. For example, for a day without candy, a child was entitled to a sum of money. Laura supported her husband’s Spartan approach to education – the children had their own garden beds and one bicycle for all.

John D. Rockefeller Jr. increased the fortune of the family corporation many times over. And five grandchildren, the most famous of whom were Nelson, Winthrop and David Rockefeller, participated in the political and economic life of the United States until the beginning of the 21st century.

Death:

Rockefeller had two dreams in life: to live to be 100 years old and to earn $100 thousand (more than $3 million in modern prices).

The businessman was a long-liver, but already at the age of 50 he complained of depression and digestive problems. The billionaire suffered from alopecia, due to which he lost almost all his hair, including his mustache. From 1901 he was forced to wear a wig.

The entrepreneur died at 97 years old. He died in Florida on May 23, 1937, the cause of death being atherosclerosis.

MemoryThe name of John Rockefeller, in addition to the funds he organized, was given to the plateau in Antarctica discovered in 1934 – this is how the researchers thanked the philanthropist who financed this expedition.

The asteroid Rockefellia, discovered in 1918, was also named in honor of the entrepreneur.

Quotes:

• “Whoever works all day has no time to earn money”
• “Your well-being depends on your own decisions.”
• “If your only goal is to become rich, you will never achieve it.”
• “The common denominator for success is work
• “Never lose interest in life and the world around you. Never allow yourself to get irritated”
• “I would rather hire someone with enthusiasm than someone who knows everything.”

Rockefeller’s 12 rules:

1. Work less for people. The more you work for yourself, the faster you become poor. The word “work” has the root “slave”.
2. The right way to save money is to take a step towards success. Buy products where it is cheaper or in bulk, prepare a list of what you need in advance, purchase products according to the list.
3. If you are poor, start doing business. If you don’t have a penny at all, then you should open a business right now, without delaying for a minute.
4. The path to success, the road to great wealth, passes through passive income.
5. Dream of earning at least $50,000 a month, and possibly more.
6. Money comes to you through other people. Communication and kindness make people rich. An unsociable person rarely becomes rich.
7. Poor surroundings and unsuccessful people drag you along with you into poverty and failure. You need to surround yourself with winners and optimists.
8. Don’t come up with an excuse for the possibility of postponing the first step towards achieving your goal – there is none.
9. Study the biographies and thoughts of the world’s richest people who have achieved success. The life story of a successful person will help fulfill everyone’s desires – that’s the meaning of this quote.
10. Dreams are the most important thing in your life. The main thing is to dream and believe that dreams will come true. A person begins to die when he stops dreaming.
11. Help people not for money, but from the bottom of your heart. Donate 10% of profits to charity. That is, every person should help those in need. This is evidenced by the success story of John Rockefeller.
12. Create a business system and enjoy your earned money. The meaning of this quote is that a person should work in order to live happily, and not stupidly accumulate wealth.

Bibliography:

1909 – “Memories of People and Events”
1910 — “How I made 500,000,000 dollars”
1913 — “Memoirs”

Interesting Facts:

John Rockefeller’s favorite game was golf, so the billionaire had a playing field at his disposal for his personal use.
The entrepreneur, like his parents, did not drink alcohol, and therefore supported the adoption of an anti-alcohol law in the United States. In addition to his religious beliefs, John, like other major industrialists and politicians such as Henry Ford and Herbert Hoover, was driven by the understanding that without drinking alcohol, worker productivity increases.