#405 How Rockefeller Worked

Founders

David Senra

Steve Jobs, Founders, James Dyson, Company Builders, Technology, Henry Ford, Elon Musk, Business Professional Biography, How I Built This, The History Of Entrepreneurship, Jim Clark, Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurs, History, Founder, Business Autobiography, Jeff Bezos, Entrepreneur, Biography, Biographies Of Entrepreneurs, Biographies, Business, Business Biography

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode covers the insanely valuable company-building principles of John D. Rockefeller—and nothing else. I spent over 40 hours reading (and rereading) this obscure biography of Rockefeller that costs $1,000 I then spent several days editing down 25 pages of notes from the book. I deleted everything that was not How Rockefeller Works Episode sponsors: ⁠ Ramp⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ gives you everything you need to control spend, watch your costs, and optimize your financial operations —all on a single platform. Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud ⁠⁠⁠by going to Ramp and learning how they can help your business control your costs and save time and money.⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ramp.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ Automate compliance, security, and trust with Vanta.⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Vanta helps you win trust, close deals, and stay secure—faster and with less effort⁠⁠⁠⁠. ⁠⁠⁠Find out how increased security leads to more customers by going to Vanta⁠⁠⁠. Tell them David from Founders sent you and you'll get $1000 off. ⁠⁠⁠https://www.vanta.com/founders⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠ Collateral⁠⁠ transforms your complex ideas into compelling narratives. Collateral crafts institutional grade marketing collateral for private equity, private credit, real estate, venture capital, family offices, hedge funds, oil & gas companies, and all kinds of corporations. Storytelling is one of the highest forms of leverage and you should invest heavily in it. You can do that by going to ⁠⁠https://collateral.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	So I have a collection of these obscure Rockefeller biographies.
0:03.2	Probably have like 10 of them.
0:04.4	Many of them were published decades ago.
0:06.6	But I just recently reread what I feel is the best, the single best biography of Rockefeller.
0:11.4	It's called John D. the founding fathers of the Rockefellers, written by David Freeman Hawk,
0:15.6	and was published all the way back in 1980.
0:18.2	The reason I think this is the best biography of Rockefeller is because it has
0:21.2	the most concise description of how he actually built standard oil, which is what you and I are
0:26.5	actually interested in. So I just recently reread it. I stripped away all the biographical details
0:31.0	and made a list of about 100 different ideas that Rockefeller used to build what Charlie Munger said
0:37.2	was the greatest company ever created.
0:40.1	And so this episode is going to be really simple. I'm just going to run through these ideas with
0:43.2	you. The first idea, to Rockefeller, business resembled a form of war. It was very natural for him
0:50.0	to start a letter with the words, I'm in the midst of a hard battle today. He would transmit all of his messages in code, and he would cover his entire operations with secrecy.
0:59.4	And when he was much older, he admitted this.
1:01.4	He said, it is all too true.
1:03.1	But I wonder what general ever sends out a brass band and advanced with orders to notify the enemy,
1:08.7	that on a certain day, he will begin an attack.
1:11.8	Rockefeller also had a very complicated relationship with his father, but there was a piece of
1:16.3	advice that his father gave him that he followed for the rest of his life.
1:19.8	His father told him, never mind the crowd.
1:22.5	Keep away from it.
	...

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