There is an old saying in China that "you can't get rich for three generations," but the Rockefeller family in the United States has prospered for six generations. Such as Standard Oil, Chase Bank, University of Chicago, Rockefeller University, Museum of Modern Art, World Trade Center...
Like South Korea's Samsung, it is nearly impossible for Americans today to completely escape the influence of this family.
It is no exaggeration to say that the Rockefeller family's history over the past 150 years is a microcosm of the entire history of the United States and has influenced people around the world.
At its peak, Rockefeller had a monopoly on 80 percent of the U.S. oil refining industry and 90 percent of the pipeline business. Even Bill Gates made Rockefeller his object of worship and said, "There is only one name for the money-making hero in my mind, and that is Rockefeller." ”
So, how did Rockefeller earn the first pot of gold, and then quickly accumulate wealth, even reaching the status of being rich and rival?
In the early 18th century, Rockefeller's ancestors immigrated to the United States from Germany. In 1839, John Davison Rockefeller was born.
His father, William Rockefeller, behaved debauchedly, made a living selling counterfeit drugs, and was often deceived to make trouble, and little John moved from time to time, and his life was turbulent.
As a child, John D. D. Rockefeller carefully fed the baby turkeys he caught and sold them in the market. At the age of 12, he saved $50 and lent it to a neighbor for interest.
In May 1855, 16-year-old John D. D. Rockefeller was unable to continue his education due to his father's reasons and was only two months away from graduating from high school.
Dropping out of school at home, John followed his father's advice and spent $40 on a three-month course at Folsom Business College Cleveland before joining Hewitt Tuttle as a bookkeeper.
With low wages for bookkeeping staff, John picked up his old business again and began to resell goods. In 1858, with $800 in savings, plus $1,000 borrowed from his father at a penny (10% principal and interest), John partnered with Clark to form the Clark Rockefeller Company, which dealt mainly in agricultural products.
In 1862, Clark Rockefeller's profits reached $17,000 due to the dividends of the outbreak of the American Civil War.
In 1863, American oil refining expert Andrews persuaded John Rockefeller to invest in oil refineries, and the two co-founded Andrews Clark Company.
In 1865, due to differences of opinion among the partners, the company was dismantled and auctioned, and John D. D. Feller successfully bid for $72,500 and changed its name to Rockefeller Andrews Company. In the same year, a second oil refinery was opened, becoming Cleveland's largest oil refinery.
In 1866, he formed the Rockefeller Company in New York to take charge of the export business. In 1867, Henry Maurice Ferragler joined the company, and the company was renamed Rockefeller Andrews Ferragler Company.
In 1870, the company merged and Standard Oil Company was founded, with John D. D. Rockefeller as president and assets of $1 million!
At the same time, John D. D. Rockefeller said, "One day, all refining and barrel production will go to Standard Oil." ”
In less than two years, he annexed more than 20 refineries in Cleveland, controlled 90 percent of the state's refining industry, major pipelines, and took over the terminus of a New Jersey railroad, forcing oil capitalists in New York, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia to cooperate with him.
In order to control the national oil industry, John D. D. Rockefeller manipulated the New York Central Railroad and Erie to compete with Pennsylvania for rail freight rates.
In 8 years, Mobil Oil Company's refining capacity has skyrocketed from 4% to 95% of the United States! At this point, the Rockefeller family's business map was basically formed, and oil became an important bargaining chip for the family to earn the first pot of gold.
Later, the Rockefeller consortium began to enter the economic field, forming a financial core institution consisting of four banks including Citibank and three insurance companies, controlling 12% of the assets of US banks and 26% of the assets of the insurance industry in the United States.
It is worth mentioning that in 1882, John D. Rockefeller started an unprecedented joint venture, the Trust (the institution that gathers wealth), making Standard Oil the world's largest oil conglomerate two years later.
But the following year, the U.S. Supreme Court dissolved the trust.
Some people calculate that if he were still alive (John D. Feller died in 1937), his total assets would not be less than $250 billion.
Influenced by his mother, John D. D. Feller lived strictly following the dogmas of Baptism, refraining from drinking, smoking, dancing, investing in any art or antiques, and only riding horses throughout his life.
The oil empire created by John D. Rockefeller and its successor companies: Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, Texaco, Gulf, BP, Shell, and known as the "Seven Sisters of Oil", are the seven largest multinational oil companies in the world.
Today, Mobil, Chevron and Shell are still well-deserved leaders in the oil field.
John Davison Rockefeller had four daughters and a son, and his only son, John Davidson Rockefeller Jr., would inherit much of his business.
John D. D. Feller Jr. had 6 children, Barbs (the eldest sister), and the others were boys. From oldest to smallest they were John, Nelson, Lawrence, Winthrop and David (the five Rockefeller brothers).
Unlike John Sr., John D. Rockefeller Jr. was not very keen on making money, but was tormented by his huge wealth, so he often donated to charity.
John Jr. donated more than $537 million during his lifetime. With six children, John D. attached great importance to the education of children.
For example, Lawrence Rockefeller, the fourth child of John D. D. F. and the third generation of the Rockefeller family, once raised rabbits with classmates and sold them to the lab for pocket money.
The father encouraged Lawrence to wait for the children to do housework to earn money, catching 100 flies and winning a dime; 5 points for catching a rat; There is a separate price for carrying firewood and chopping firewood.
Lawrence and his brother Nelson (later Vice President of the United States) were granted the franchise to polish the family's shoes, with 2 cents per pair of leather shoes and 1 corner per pair of boots.
Is it hard to imagine that such a wealthy family would have their children chop wood, chop wood, and shine their shoes in order to get extra pocket money?
Most ordinary families probably don't like the Rockefellers, deliberately motivating their children to work through bounties, at most letting children do some housework in their spare time.
According to the Rockefeller family, the reason for this is to let children grow up from an early age not to waste money, treat money well, and know that it is not easy to make money, so that they can achieve twice the result with half the effort in the future.
In the more fashionable saying now, you don't love money, money doesn't love you. It seems that these top rich people have a set of exclusive methods for raising children, and they can't accept it.
Lawrence spent his middle school years at Lincoln Middle School, where his interests in photography, travel, and adventure were encouraged by his father.
In 1937, Lawrence inherited his grandfather's stock exchange and embarked on the road of entrepreneurship from Wall Street, pioneering venture capital in the United States.
Surprisingly, Lawrence didn't buy more blue-chip stocks at first, but instead began helping start-ups start businesses.
From the current economic point of view, choose a potential company to inject capital into it, and see its towering tree growing step by step, the shareholder dividend will be more abundant.
Those established companies that have become famous have slow revenue growth and expensive stock prices, even if they buy a large number of stocks for capital injection, the return is not high, similar to "cannons hitting mosquitoes".
Lawrence is discerning and often able to look at whether the company has development potential from small things, so as to judge when and in what way he should inject capital, and what the cost of capital injection is.
In the 50s of the 20th century, an article in the Wall Street Journal reported that Lawrence used his assets as "venture capital" as a policy to invest in emerging companies.
"venture capital" was put in quotation marks, indicating that it was a new term at the time, establishing him as the "father of venture capital."
During World War II, Lawrence entered the Navy with the rank of at least colonel. After the war, he returned to the mall and continued to look for new businesses to invest in.
By the end of 1958, the total value of more than 20 companies in which Lawrence had invested had exceeded $28 million. By 1996, Lawrence had led the family group to invest in 221 start-up companies, all of which had achieved good results.
Under Lawrence's correct leadership, the Rockefeller Group successively invested in electronics, computers and biotechnology. Companies such as Intel and Apple received financial support from Rockefeller in the early stages of their development, and the returns were handsome.
Winthrop Rockefeller, the fourth of five brothers, also chose to pursue a career in politics, serving as governor of Arkansas.
David Rockefeller is the youngest of the five third-generation brothers of the Rockefeller family and the third-generation head of the family. Instead of choosing the family's traditional oil industry, he chose banking. By 1961, he was chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank.
In the early 2020s, John D. Rockefeller Sr. invested tens of millions of dollars to help the Chinese government establish Peking Union Medical College Hospital. In addition, the Rockefeller Foundation has donated to 13 comprehensive universities, including Yenching University.
The famous Beijing "Zhoukoudian Ape Man" excavation project was also completed with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation. Today, the Rockefeller Foundation has been in China for more than 100 years and has cultivated a large number of outstanding Western medical talents.
Counting from the generation of John Loxler Sr., the family has continued into the sixth generation. This family seems to be everywhere and is inextricably linked to American and even international politics and economics.
The reason why the Rockefeller family will endure is nothing more than a good family style and education.
Bibliography:
[1] World Oil King - John Davidson Rockefeller, author Si Yu, Modern Team, Issue 11, 2017
[2] Rockefeller's Fortune History, by William Manchester, translated by Xiao Pang Wang Jin, 21st Century Business Review Issue 01, 2017
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