It's 1901 in New York City. Outside the streets are loud and dirty and full of smoke.

But it's quiet and clean in the private office off Wall Street, where a small, wiry Scotsman in his mid-60s sits at a polished table.

Andrew Carnegie's beard is white now. His suit is immaculate, and he still has the barest

trace of an accent. Across from him sits the great banker of his age, J.P. Morgan. On the

table between them is a single slip of paper. Earlier that day, Morgan had said something simple.

Write down your price. Carnegie had taken out a pen. For years he had been talking about this moment,

selling his steelworks,

cashing out, turning from industrialists to full-time philanthropist. He had written essays about the

duty of the rich. He had told his friends that a man who dies disgraceed. And so what he did now,

he did not for himself, but for the good of the world. He wrote down his price. A four and then the zeros seem to just keep on going.

$400 million. He slid the paper across the table. There's a long silence as Morgan looks at the number.

Finally he nods. Mr. Carnegie he says, I accept.

They shake hands and Morgan says to him, congratulations, you are now the richest man in the world.

But for Carnegie, it was a bittersweet moment because it was never about the money.

Of course, that's easy to say when you're worth $400 million.

But with Carnegie, I actually believe it.

He was, after all, a poor Weaver's son.

He was someone who had scratched and clawed and worked his way from the bottom to become the richest man in the world. And through it all,

Carnegie had always been a happy man. There had been a palpable sense of enjoyment. He had

loved being an industrialist. And now he had to find a new purpose. He would need a new mission

now, a harder one. He had promised to give his fortune away. He wants to build universities and libraries.

He wants to reward heroism. And if possible, establish world peace. He walks out of Morgan's office,

...