John Rockefeller

John Rockefeller is remembered by most as the best businessman in history

, he was the founder Standard Oil (Exxon Mobil is the largest of its desc
endants).John was born in New York on 8th of July 1839, to William Avery
Rockefeller and Eliza Davison Rockefeller

His father William was a doctor who made money pronouncing cure for cance
r by traveling from town to town using dubious selling scheme. Whereas hi
s mother Eliza was a strict religious person who taught John to be discip
lined, work and save.

By the time John was 12 in 1851, he had saved $50 working for neighbours a
nd raising turkeys. At the urging of his mother, he loaned a local farmer
$50 at 7% interest payable in one year. When the farmer paid him back with
interest the next year Rockefeller was impressed and said of it in 1904:
"The impression was gaining ground with me that it was a good thing to let
the money be my servant and not make myself a slave to the money"

His family moved to the city of Owego, New York in 1851 and John attended
the Owego Academy there. In 1853, they moved to Cleveland, Ohio and John w
ent to the public high school, graduating in 1855. During his early school
years, the teachers noticed that he was excellent with numbers and able t
o easily computate things in his head.
In 1855, John studied for nearly three months at Folsom Commercial College
in a program that taught him about everything from accounting to exchange
rates. Later that year, he began looking for a job as a bookkeeper, but h
ad great difficulty finding one. It took him nearly two months to find a j
ob as an assistant bookkeeper at Hewitt & Tuttle, a company that shipped p
roduce. He impressed everyone with his honesty and diligence on the job, g
radually moving his way up the ladder.

In 1859, John quit his job to start a business with his friend Maurice Cla
rk. They formed the Clark & Rockefeller Co. with $4000 of their own money
and began selling grain and hay. The business was wildly successful, makin
g a a profit of $4400 the first year and $17,000 the second year. The busi
ness continued making huge profits during the Civil War, but John eventual
ly began looking for a new industry.
In 1862, he started a business called Andrews, Clark & Company. He made th
e business very efficient by making it so that the business could manufact
ure most of the supplies it needed. In 1865, he bought out the shares owne
d by the Clark brothers for a price of $72,500 and gained complete control
of the company. He brought his brother William into the business to form
a partnership and began work expanding the business by building more refin
eries.
In 1867, a man named Henry Flagler joined the business, making the name Ro
ckefeller, Andrews & Flagler. A year later, their company became the large
st refiner in the world and was highly efficient. In 1870, they formed the
Standard Oil Company with John owning the majority share (30%). They imme
diately began trying to buy out the other oil companies to make Standard O
il a massive corporation, controlling oil wells and refineries all over th
e country.
By 1879, Standard Oil controlled 90% of the refining in the United States a
nd about 70% of the refined oil being exported. In 1882, the company became
a trust with John controlling a significant portion of the Trust shares. H
owever, he did not have complete control and the board of trustees was able
to do things without his approval. The company continued to grow, graduall
y becoming a monopolistic force and nearly forcing businesses to use their
oil.
In 1890, the attorney general of Ohio brought a lawsuit against the company
, eventually winning in 1892. The Trust was dissolved and Standard Oil was
split into twenty companies. In spite of the split, the leaders in the comp
any remained the major shareholders in the individual companies and essenti
ally retained control of the company.

In 1891, John's hard work was beginning to wear him down. He became very i
ll quite frequently and lost all of his hair and eyebrows. He appointed a
man named Frederick Gates to manage his fortune with investments and chari
table contributions. In 1897 he retired at the age of 58, leaving the comp
any under John Archbold's control. However he did not retire officially, a
nd he received the blame when Archibold hiked prices to increase monopolis
tic revenue.
John's fortune peaked at about nine hundred million dollars in 1912 and his
son, John Jr., joined Frederick Gates in the effort to manage the money. H
e donated seventy-five million dollars to the University of Chicago, founde
d the Rockefeller Foundation for education, founded the Rockefeller Institu
te for medical research, and founded the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission.
John Rockefeller died on May 23, 1937, leaving most of his fortune to his he
irs.