Rockefeller eliminated countless competitors in his decades of entrepreneurship, and eventually achieved the reputation of "oil king". When it comes to competition, I'm afraid that no one in the world has more experience than him. In a letter to his son, he talked about a business experience and showed his attitude towards competition. In today's increasingly fierce competition, this letter from the elder Rockefeller is of great reference and guidance to us, and we may wish to read it.
Dear John,
Sitting back and watching an opponent, even if the potential opponent's strength increases, is weakening my own strength and even subverting my own position, I am not so stupid. My belief is to achieve the goal before others. I quickly formed the American Transportation Company with the shrewd and capable Mr. Oday, and launched a self-defense counterattack with the Imperial Company. Thank God, our efforts paid off, and within a year, we had control over 40 percent of the oil transportation business in the oil region, suppressing Mr. Potts' attack. But this was only the beginning of my battle with Mr. Potts.
The people who can get ahead in this world are those who know how to find their ideal environment, and if they can't do it, they will create it themselves.
Two years later, a new oil field was discovered in Bradford, Pennsylvania, and Mr. O'Day quickly led his men to the place that sparked the dreams of tens of millions of people to make a fortune, and laid the pipeline day and night to the new oil well. But the guys in the oil field were crazy, unrestrained, eager to exhaust all the oil overnight, and then walked away with the money on their faces. So, no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't meet the needs of transporting and storing oil.
I don't want to see the hard-working oil diggers digging their own graves and destroying themselves, and I ask Odai to warn the oil producers that their mining capacity has far exceeded our transportation capacity, and they must reduce production, otherwise the black gold they extract will become worthless black soil. But no one accepted our kindness and advice, still less appreciated our efforts, and instead denounced us, saying that they dared not take away their oil.
Just as Bradford's oil producers were at their peak of emotion, Mr. Potts moved. He first demonstrated to me at our refineries in New York, Philadelphia, pittsburgh to acquire our competitors' refineries, and then began to grab land in Bradford and lay pipelines to transport Bradford's crude oil to his own refinery.
I appreciated Mr. Potts' audacity and preferred to accept his challenge of shaking my dominance in the refining industry, but I had to kick him out of the refining industry.
I first met with Mr. Scott, the old version of the Penn Railroad, and I told him bluntly that Mr. Potts was a poacher who was breaking into our territory and that we had to get him to stop. But Scott was very stubborn and determined to let Potts's banditry continue. I had no choice but to fight against this formidable enemy.
First we terminated all business dealings with Bintex, and I instructed my subordinates to transfer the transport operations to the two major railroad companies that had always firmly supported us, and asked them to reduce freight rates and compete with Bintetsu and weaken its power; at the same time, to order the closure of all refineries in Pittsburgh that depended on Imperial transportation; and then to instruct all their own refineries, which were in competition with Imperial, to sell refined oil products at prices far below each other. Penteco is the largest transportation company in the United States, and Mr. Scott is a giant with transportation power who prides himself on never being conquered. But under my three-dimensional, oppressive style of play, they only have to surrender.
In order to confront me, they endured huge discounts to our competitors, in other words, they also paid others for their services. Then they resorted to an unpopular move — laying off employees and cutting wages. Unbeknownst to Scott and Potts, this would soon entail punishment, and angry workers, to vent their displeasure, set fire to hundreds of tanker trucks and more than a hundred locomotives, forcing them to take out emergency loans from Wall Street bankers. As a result, the shareholders of Bintie not only did not share the dividend that year, but also the stock price plummeted. The result of their duel with me was that their pockets were getting cleaner and cleaner.
Mr. Potts is a soldier, spelling out the rank of colonel in the smoke of your life and death, and has an admirable and unyielding willpower, so that he still wants to continue to fight with me when the victory and defeat have been divided. But Mr. Scott, who also had a military career, although he had been the most dominant and powerful person before, he knew better what it meant to be aware of current affairs, and he decisively lowered his indispensable head and sent someone to tell me that he very much wanted to talk about peace and stop the refining business.
I know that Colonel Potts wanted to prove himself to be the great Moses, but he failed, he failed completely. A few years later, Potts gave up his desire to confront me and became an active and diligent director of my next company. This shrewd and slippery oil merchant!
Arrogance usually brings people down. Scott and potts and the like thought they were from noble births and had always been blind to everything, so my heart was dancing when they successfully tamed these arrogant donkeys.
John, I like to win, but I don't like to do whatever it takes to win. Victory at any cost is not a victory, ugly means of competition are disgusting, that is equivalent to drawing a prison, may never be able to surpass, even if you win a victory, you may lose the opportunity to win later.
Following the rules does not mean that the determination to pursue victory must be reduced, but it means that a clear victory should be won in a moral way, and it also means that under such restrictions, the pursuit of victory is fair and ruthless. I hope you can do that.
Love your father