John D. Rockefeller "king of oil" ate 1 drop of liquid to become the world's first billionaire

John D. Rockefeller founded Standard Oil in 1870 and later turned it into the largest oil refinery in the world. He is famous for the title of "the world's first dollar billionaire". At current exchange rates, this businessman is estimated to own a fortune of more than 300 billion USD

But his life was so full of mysteries that since the beginning of the 20th century, Rockefeller was the American citizen most included in prose, with a book written about him almost every year.

John D. Rockefeller was born in 1839 in New York, the second son in a family with a traveling salesman father and a housewife mother. While his father was famous for deceiving people, his mother, Eliza, taught John to be frugal, all deliberate waste brought bad wishes. So Rockefeller once shared that: From a young age, I learned how to work, save, and learn to give.

Throughout Rockefeller's life, money was an obsessive motivator. Ever since he was a little boy, he used the money to buy candy, then divided it into small pieces, and then sold it back to his brothers and sisters for a little profit. At that time, the two biggest ambitions of the 16-year-old young man was to earn $ 100,000 (equivalent to $ 2.74 million now) and live to 100 years old.

And indeed John D. Rockefeller achieved much more. After going through many professions to earn a living, after the American Civil War occurred, he quickly seized the opportunity and founded a company providing food for soldiers. By the end of the war, Rockefeller had enough money to set up an oil company called Standard Oil.

From a small company, Standard Oil gradually rose to become a powerful empire when it controlled 90% of America's refining capacity in 1877, when Rockefeller was only 38 years old. After the controversy over the monopoly issue in the oil industry, John Rockefeller began to foray into real estate and finance to regain his image and expand his huge fortune.

In 1916, the owner of Standard Oil became America's first billionaire. At the time, Rockefeller's fortune accounted for nearly 2% of the national economy, and if adjusted for inflation, his fortune would be worth about $418 billion today. This figure is much larger than the net worth of Jeff Bezos, the richest person today with a net worth of about $144 billion.

As the most famous person in America at that time, every word and every action of his was reported and meticulously analyzed by the media. However, even in the heyday of being the focus of the public, Rockefeller was still a curious mystery, not only because he was a man entangled in many scandals at that time and also the most famous person in the world. discreetly, spending most of his time behind the glass that surrounds his office.

The man hated by the whole America

John D. Rockefeller is the most capitalist of all capitalists, a pure capitalist who has shaped the American economy, with a cold head full of authoritarianism.

To have a market share of up to 90% of the refining capacity in the United States, mentioning Rockefeller and Standard Oil cannot help but mentioning the "Cleveland massacre" of 1872. Currently, there are very few documents that still record details about this. that incident. Just know that, at that time, Standard Oil captured 22 of its 26 competitors so quickly that it made the whole United States freeze. Standard Oil's octopus was constantly expanding, creating a monopoly in the US market.

Standing on the top of the glory makes the number of people who hate Rockefeller longer and longer. Journalists find all sources to expose the tricks of the king of oil. Politicians find loopholes to scrutinize, denounce and split the Standard Oil empire. Not to mention competitors, suppliers, and even close associates...

The process of Standard Oil crushing the surrounding satellites to rise to the top was so fierce that President Theodore Roosevelt also sought to contain and subdivide Rockefeller's mighty empire. It was the controversy surrounding Standard Oil that overshadowed Rockefeller, a typical model of thrift, self-reliance, hard work and tireless commitment, but at the same time the embodiment of countless evils. far from belittling the Government and trampling competitors. The proud secrets of Standard Oil and the Rockefellers themselves were taken with him to the grave. That is why Rockefeller's life has always intrigued biographers, causing those who want to discover the truth to wonder: what kind of person was Rockefeller after all?

Miserable businessman: Asking employees to eat 1 drop of liquid, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars

Rockefeller has been called a "business genius" because he hasn't gone a year without making a profit. Even the operations of the company he runs flourished during the recession.

In appearance, he is always well dressed, always neatly shaved, and wears polished shoes. When attending appointments, he is never late because he believes that "no one has the right to take up other people's time unnecessarily". In business, he always pays debts as well as completes contracts on time.

When writing important papers, he often writes 5-6 drafts, refines his words, checks spelling, and then gives them to his secretary. As president of Standard Oil, he was always on top of the numbers because they allowed him to objectively monitor the performance and know when the data didn't match what his subordinates reported. All company expenses are detailed to a few decimal places. Rockefeller's motto is "What can be measured can be managed".

However, the most famous story of Rockefeller's attention to detail is that of a single drop of liquid worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In the early 1870s, during a tour of a 5-gallon kerosene canning factory for export in New York, Rockefeller saw a machine welding the cap to the body of an oil can.

He asked the machine operator: "How many drops of solder do you use to completely solder a can?".

The man replied, "40 drops, sir."

Rockefeller continued: "So have you ever tried 38 drops?".

"Sir, not yet."

"Do you mind if you try soldering some cans with 38 drops and let me know the result?".

Then when using 38 drops of solder they found some cans leaking but with 39 drops everything was fine. Finally, 39 drops of solder became the new standard for all Standard Oil refineries.

When Rockefeller revealed the results, it was all a surprise: Just a few cents worth of "eaten off" saved Standard Oil $2,500 in its first year. The company's oil exports continued to double and even quadruple, resulting in the savings from the 39-drop solder standard growing to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

More than anyone else, he understood that even a penny saved would be multiplied by a thousand times for the corporation's huge business.

In addition to his attention to detail, Rockefeller is also a billionaire super-thrifty despite being able to live a regal life. He wears his clothes until they're torn, takes the train to work every day, and even keeps the wrapping paper and lanyards of packages received in the mail.

The Rockefellers have five children and they pay them to do housework. For example, 10 cents for sharpening a pencil, 2 cents for swatting flies or 15 cents an hour for chopping wood. Despite living frugally, Rockefeller was known as a generous philanthropist. His grants are primarily for the church, science, health, and education.

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