Times make heroes-the legend of American business tycoons

Recently, I watched the documentary The Legend of American Business Tycoons, telling that after the American Civil War, the United States embarked on the fast lane of rapid development, during which a group of business tycoons established their own wealth empires. They are:

Vanderbilt first engaged in sail barge transportation. In order to buy the first sailing yacht, Vanderbilt borrowed $65,438+000 from his mother to buy a sailing yacht, which is not a small sum of $65,438+0,865,438+00. His mother is very hard on him. She told him that she would give him money if the 3.2 hectares of uncultivated land could be cleared and plowed to grow crops before his birthday. His birthday is only four weeks away, but Vanderbilt organized some neighborhood children to finish the task in time. At this time, Vanderbilt began to show the nature of an ambitious man-he can make real efforts and leadership for his goals. After all, a person's strength is limited, and the strong often use the strength of others to serve themselves.

Vanderbilt recalled in his later years: "When I first set foot on my sail barge on that bright morning in May 60 years ago, I raised my sail and put my hand on the tiller, I felt a real satisfaction, which was even stronger than the $2 million I earned in the port of Harlem later." Vanderbilt began his career transporting passengers between Staten Island and Manhattan, and he soon became recognized as the most reliable captain in this port. At the end of the first rush hour, he not only paid his mother 100, but also gave her an extra 1000. A strong desire for a sense of accomplishment is a powerful driving force for struggle.

Vanderbilt worked longer hours and was more competitive than his peers. 18 12, the second war of independence broke out in the United States, and Vanderbilt reached a cooperation with the American army to deliver materials to the fortress defending new york Port. By 18 17, Vanderbilt, who was only 23 years old, had owned sailing boats totaling more than 7,000 dollars and accumulated 9,000 dollars in cash, becoming a rich man among his peers.

Although Vanderbilt's sail barge shipping is very successful, he always pays attention to any changes and opportunities that arise. He soon saw his future on the boat. So he sold the fleet and went to work for others. The reason is that he wants to learn steamboat business in another company. 18 18, Vanderbilt joined Gibbons Shipping Company, worked for Thomas Gibbons, served as the captain of a steamboat named Stotinger, and devoted himself to learning steamboat technology.

Vanderbilt worked for Gibbons until 1828, and then set up his own steamboat transportation company. At this time, American law is very lax in controlling the market. Vanderbilt launched several price wars. On the same channel, the other company charged four yuan for a ticket, but he only charged one yuan, and finally robbed the other company of its business. In this way, Vanderbilt constantly suppressed his opponents and occupied the market. Ten years later, his company developed into a fleet with 100 ships. 1840, Vanderbilt became the largest ship king in the United States, and the American Business Daily called him the captain, which also became the origin of his nickname "Captain".

1849, a world-famous event happened. This year, the discovery of gold mines in California set off a gold rush in the west of the United States. His company immediately opened a flight from the East Coast to California. This new route brought Vanderbilt a million dollars a year, which was an astronomical figure at that time.

The gold rush in California not only promoted the development of shipping industry, but also promoted the development of railway industry. Vanderbilt saw that railways would replace shipping as the core of American transportation. 1864, 70-year-old Vanderbilt made another important decision in his life: to give up sailing and transform the railway industry. His focus in the railway industry is not to repair railways, but to buy repaired railways and improve management. He first bought several railways near new york and gradually established a railway kingdom on the east coast.

Vanderbilt still expanded his railway kingdom from east to west step by step, and finally took control of the railway near Chicago. About 50 years later, he became the biggest giant in the American railway industry.

Because of the "bubble" and speculation in the railway industry, the United States has built too many railways, and various railway companies have launched fierce price reduction competition in order to compete for customers and goods. At this moment, a young man came to look for it.

Vanderbilt hopes that the freight rate for transporting kerosene for himself will be lower. Vanderbilt asked the young man why he should be given a lower freight rate. The young man replied that his kerosene could fill all the carriages of Vanderbilt train. After negotiation, Vanderbilt agreed to this cooperation.

But in fact, the young man's kerosene production at that time could not fill all Vanderbilt's carriages, but he knew that he must not miss such a good opportunity, so he immediately used all his strength to expand kerosene production in various ways after returning, realizing his original promise with Vanderbilt. The young man later became the famous Rockefeller.

1859, the world's first oil well was dug in Pennsylvania, and countless people poured into the northwest. Thousands of oil wells were dug at will, including neighboring Cleveland. Rockefeller, who saw this situation, judged that "the price of crude oil is bound to plummet, and it is refining, not drilling, that really makes money." History has proved his idea. Within a few years, crude oil plummeted, and the refining speed was far less than that of drilling. Many oil drillers have to sell crude oil at low prices to avoid bankruptcy.

Rockefeller, who chose refining instead of drilling, seized this opportunity. He keenly found that most of the kerosene on the market (at that time, the product of oil was mainly kerosene, which mainly provided fuel for kerosene lamps for lighting) was of poor quality and unsafe, because most kerosene manufacturers desperately wanted to produce more kerosene, and no one cared about quality, but Rockefeller knew that consumers were more concerned about the quality of kerosene and preferred to use safe kerosene lamps. Therefore, he set strict quality standards for the kerosene he produced, and named his company Standard Oil Company. It can be seen that Rockefeller hoped that his company could set a standard for the whole oil industry, and later it turned out that he completely did it.

Rockefeller's kerosene has been widely loved by the people because of its excellent quality. Rockefeller has also obtained low freight rates by constantly merging other oil companies and taking advantage of the fierce competition of major railway companies, making his kerosene circulate freely throughout the United States, and almost the whole United States is illuminated by Rockefeller's kerosene lamps at night.

Rockefeller used Dodd's "trust" theory to hold the shareholders' meeting of Standard Oil Company on 1882, 654381October 20th, and formed a "trustee committee" of nine people to take charge of all the shares of Standard Oil Company and its subsidiaries. Rockefeller was elected chairman of the committee. Subsequently, the board of directors issued 700,000 trust certificates, and Rockefeller and other four people alone owned more than 460,000, accounting for 2/3 of the total.

In this way, Rockefeller got his wish and created an unprecedented joint venture-trust. Under this trust structure, Rockefeller merged more than 40 manufacturers, monopolizing 80% of the national oil refining industry and 90% of the oil pipeline business.

The rapid development of the railway industry connects most parts of the United States, and ergodic traffic promotes the rapid development of all walks of life; The extensive exploitation of oil has enabled the United States to obtain a large amount of kerosene, and the widespread use of kerosene lamps has become possible. Since then, a lamp has lit up the whole United States, and people's lifestyles have also undergone tremendous changes.

As the saying goes, a gentleman is the same all his life, and good and evil are also things. Whether Vanderbilt brought a bunch of children to help him clean up the land and grow crops when he was a child, or Rockefeller took advantage of the fierce competition between railway companies to get low freight rates. These people who do great things are very good at using various resources to serve themselves, because they know that a person's strength is limited. If they want to make big money and do great things, they must mobilize others to work for themselves and create wealth for themselves.

Because more and more companies are dissatisfied with Rockefeller's low freight rate, major railway companies unite to threaten Rockefeller to accept higher freight rates or refuse to transport kerosene for Rockefeller's company.

This gave Rockefeller a big problem. If he doesn't compromise, kerosene can't be transported to all parts of the United States by convenient and fast trains, and the company will go bankrupt. If he accepts this threat, he will be slaughtered in the future. Rockefeller never gives in easily. He thought hard and finally came up with a counter-attack strategy, building an oil pipeline to transport kerosene, so that the freight rate is firmly in his own hands, and once the pipeline network is rolled out, the freight rate will be much cheaper in the long run. Therefore, Rockefeller quickly raised funds. Although many people on the board were unwilling to take such a big risk to build the pipeline, Rockefeller pushed his way through the crowd and firmly implemented this strategy.

When the pipeline network was completed, most of the oil and kerosene in the United States were transported by pipeline, which caused the freight volume of railway companies to drop sharply and a large number of railway companies closed down. Rockefeller took this opportunity to firmly consolidate his position and further monopolize the oil industry.

/kloc-When he was 0/3 years old, Carnegie and his family came to new york Port on the east coast of the United States with longing for the United States, and then moved to Pittsburgh. The life of immigrants is very hard. Little Carnegie worked as a child laborer during the day and went to night school at night. It was very hard. /kloc-at the age of 0/4, he came to the David telegraph company in Pittsburgh as a messenger. Although he was not familiar with the road at that time, he promised the company that he could remember the route of the whole city within a week. The manager of the company was moved by Carnegie's perseverance and left him. Carnegie also fulfilled his promise and became a skilled worker of the company.

Pittsburgh is not only the transportation hub of the United States, but also the material distribution center and industrial center. As an advanced communication tool, telegraph plays an extremely important role in this city where businessmen gather. Carnegie, who walks the streets and sends telegrams every day, is like entering a "business school". He is familiar with the name and characteristics of each company and understands the economic relations and business dealings between companies. Over time, he became familiar with this intangible "business encyclopedia" and benefited a lot in his later career. Therefore, when Carnegie reviewed this period, he called it "the first step to climb the ladder of life."

1853, Scott, the director of the western district of Pennsylvania Railway Company, took a fancy to Carnegie, who had excellent telegraph skills, and hired him as a private telegraph operator and secretary at a salary of $35 per month. At that time, Carnegie was already a boy of 18 years old, and he entered this wider world with strong ambitions.

Carnegie was promoted to the director of the company's western district at the age of 24 during his tenure at the Pennsylvania Railroad Company 10, with an annual salary of $ 1500, and gradually mastered the management skills of modern large enterprises. This skill was essential when he later organized a large steel enterprise. At the same time, Carnegie also seized the opportunity, tried his best, participated in the investment, and succeeded repeatedly, gradually accumulating small wealth, which laid a certain economic foundation for him to establish steel enterprises in the future.

1the end of the civil war in April 865 created many opportunities. Carnegie, 29, has achieved something at this time, but he is not satisfied. He should firmly grasp this critical stage of his life journey, start his own business and open another door. So he submitted his resignation to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company.

Before his resignation, Carnegie took people to repair bridges and roads. He often thought about whether iron bridges could be used instead of wooden bridges. Although there were many steel mills in Pittsburgh at that time, they were still in their infancy. 1862, he and several friends started a company to build iron bridges. 1On July 4th, 863, both sides of the civil war began to use warships against Carnegie, warning him that the sailing age was over and the steel age was coming. So, after resigning, he went to Europe, visited the Iron and Steel Research Institute in London, decisively bought the steel patent invented by the Dodds brothers, and also bought the patent for coke washing and reduction. He believes that these two patents will bring endless wealth.

Carnegie returned to America and began to work hard. He pooled his scattered funds and merged the two companies he had invested in before to form a joint ironmaking company. At that time, the iron and steel production and operation in the United States was extremely scattered, and from mining and ironmaking to the final production of finished products such as rails and iron plates, it had to go through many manufacturers. In addition, middlemen increase prices in all production and sales links, resulting in high final product costs. Carnegie is well aware of these disadvantages of traditional iron and steel enterprises, and he is determined to establish a modern iron and steel company with a new look, which includes the integration of supply, production and sales in the whole production process.

These two patents enabled Carnegie to quickly produce a large number of steel.

A brand-new modern steel company, which covers the whole production process and integrates supply, production and sales, can greatly reduce the production cost by using the scale effect, so that Carnegie can produce a large number of cheap and fine steel products.

When he took the first step into the steel industry, he began to boldly introduce the most advanced production technology and talents, drastically improve production management, constantly improve steel production technology, reduce costs, and make himself successful again and again.

By the end of 19 and the beginning of the 20th century, Carnegie Steel Company had become the largest steel enterprise in the world. It has more than 20,000 employees and the most advanced equipment in the world. Its annual output exceeds the national steel production in Britain, with an annual income of 40 million US dollars. Carnegie is the largest shareholder of the company, but he does not serve as chairman or general manager. His success depends largely on his appointment of a group of talents who know technology and management. Today, people often quote his famous saying: "If all the equipment and materials in my factory are burned out, but as long as I keep the whole class, I will still be the king of steel in a few years." After he became famous, a reporter interviewed him and asked him how he worked hard to get to where he is today. Carnegie replied, "There are two basic factors that make me successful. First, I was born in a poor family. When I was a child, I often had a full meal. Don't know where the next meal is. " At night, I often hear my parents sigh that they have to cope with the poverty they face. Therefore, I have worked hard since I was a child and made great efforts to overcome poverty from me when I grow up. Second, everything, big or small, should be done seriously. 12 years old as a weaver, trying to spin the yarn well. Later, I became a postman. I tried to remember the name and appearance of every family in my postal area. Later, I became familiar with almost every family. Try to do every little thing well, and someone will dare to trust you with the big things. "

When Carnegie's company grew bigger and bigger, his desire for wealth became stronger. In order to get higher profits, Carnegie focuses on cutting costs. Human resources are a large part of the cost. Because steel production needs a large number of workers, Carnegie hopes to exploit workers as much as possible, cut wages, extend working hours and create a worse working environment. However, Carnegie cherishes his reputation and doesn't want others to put all these sins on himself.

Therefore, Carnegie began to find someone to do it for himself. He finally chose a man named Frick, because Frick hates trade unions and is cruel. He only cares about interests and doesn't care about workers' lives at all. In order to make Frick do this well, Carnegie promoted Frick to the president of the company step by step, and even deliberately went abroad for vacation to avoid accusations from others.

Frick didn't disappoint Carnegie. He successfully extended the working hours of workers to 12 hours per day, and the salary was extremely low. Workers work hard and long hours in very bad environment every day, and their complaints are getting more and more serious. Finally, a fierce conflict broke out between the trade union and Frick. When the steel workers went on strike in Homestead in 65,438+0892, Carnegie was in Scotland and Frick was employed. This labor-capital conflict eventually developed into a bloody armed conflict, leaving an extremely disgraceful page in Carnegie's history.

At this point, Carnegie knew that Frick could not be allowed to mess around again. In order to save the situation and give the public an account, Carnegie had to fire Frick and clean up the mess himself.

This is also the reason why the emperor used treacherous court officials, because the emperor wants to leave a good reputation for himself, and no one wants to be remembered forever. But they often need to do things that are bound to be scolded, such as raising taxes and cracking down on some so-called "loyal ministers" who threaten themselves. At this time, it is best for someone to help them carry these charges, which is what the people call treacherous court officials. Treacherous court officials also know what their value is. For the sake of wealth, they will scold and scold.

On Carnegie's tombstone, there is a meaningful sentence, "People buried here know how to use people who are better than themselves." Many people think this sentence is the crowning touch of Carnegie's successful experience.

This is a necessary advantage of an excellent leader, who can make his talents work for himself. Just like in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, we all feel that Liu Bei seems to be nothing, and the value of force is far less than that of Guan Yu, Zhang Fei and Zhao Zilong, and is far from Zhuge Liang. But why did Liu Bei become their master? This is Liu Bei's ability to recruit these awesome people into his own account and serve himself. In this respect, others are far behind Liu Bei.

While Rockefeller and Carnegie are frantically accumulating wealth, a financial tycoon has been looking for opportunities to start a new industry and become a pioneer in a field to replace Rockefeller. This man is JP Morgan.

1April, 83717th, John Pierpont Morgan was born in Hartford, Connecticut, USA. Morgan has shown extraordinary business ability since he was a child, especially his extraordinary judgment in speculation. It can be said that he made his fortune by speculation. Middle-aged Morgan bought the railway and implemented his Morgan system. Through the Morgan system, he controlled a large number of industrial and mining enterprises in the United States and concentrated the corporate capital of the United States14 under his command. Morgan not only used financial capital to control many important departments in the United States, but also used its huge capital to lend to foreign countries. Not only Mexico, Argentina and other countries depend on him economically, but even established capitalist countries such as Britain and France have to turn to Morgan for help at a critical moment. Morgan's strength is always beyond people's imagination.

This is the evaluation of Morgan by the current President of the United States.

1862, the American civil war broke out. President Lincoln issued "Order No.1" to mobilize the whole army and ordered Lu Haijun to launch an all-out attack. One day, Kercham, the son of Wall Street investment broker and Morgan's new friend, came to chat with Morgan. "My father found out in Washington that the Union army suffered heavy casualties recently." The news immediately touched Morgan's sensitive nerves. "If someone buys a lot of gold and remits it to London, it will make the price of gold soar!" Morgan said quietly. Kercham heard it.

I admire Morgan. Why didn't I think of that myself? Then two people carefully planned. Finally, we made such a plan: first, we secretly bought 4-5 million dollars of gold, and after we got it, we remitted half of it to London, leaving the other half. Then deliberately leaked the gold remittance to London. At this time, it is estimated that many people should know the news of the recent defeat of the northern army, and the price of gold will undoubtedly rise. At this time, half of their gold will be sold out. The two started to do it, and as expected, the price of gold soared. Not only the price of gold in new york rose, but also the main price in London was pushed up. Mo Xiang Circea won a great victory and made a fortune. The New York Times made an investigation on this gold price rise and came to the conclusion: "There is no justifiable reason to explain this gold price surge. This price increase has nothing to do with the import and export of munitions, grain and cotton. The actual manipulator of this incident is a young speculator in new york-J P Morgan. " Morgan has a flexible mind and is adept at speculative business. He can always think of tricks that others have never thought of.

After winning the first speculative gold transaction, Morgan deeply realized the importance of information. Getting the information first means winning.

Information is really important. Take volunteering for the college entrance examination as an example. At first, because I didn't understand anything, I couldn't even find the relevant information on the internet, so I filled in my volunteers at random. As a result, I chose a major that I didn't like and had no future. You know, a good major is far from a bad major. Therefore, information acquisition is a very worthy ability to exercise, at any time.

Morgan has been looking for a whole new field. By chance, Morgan learned that Edison was inventing the electric light, which successfully attracted Morgan's attention. Looking at the toy electric train running on the rails in Edison's laboratory, Morgan realized the wide application prospect of electricity, which was an excellent opportunity.

Therefore, Morgan began to invest in Edison's invention. Morgan hopes that Edison's electric light can illuminate the whole United States, thus replacing Rockefeller and becoming the person who "illuminates America".

In this regard, Morgan's father is very pessimistic, bluntly saying that Morgan was cheated by this toy, which is inconsistent with the investment strategy he has been teaching Morgan. His father taught Morgan from an early age that investment should be steady and never invest in those emerging industries, which is too risky. However, Morgan doesn't think so. Morgan believes that only by taking greater risks can we get great returns.

As Morgan expected, Edison's electric light was sought after by the upper class. However, what Morgan wants is that every household can use electric lights, which requires the establishment of large power stations and power grids. However, the long-distance transmission of direct current will cause huge power loss.

At this time, a young man also proposed another kind of current-alternating current. This young man is a legend in science, Tesla. Tesla was originally an assistant in Edison's lab. Tesla also introduced his invention of alternating current to Edison many times, but Edison completely looked down on this young assistant. Edison thought that alternating current was too dangerous to be used on a large scale.

Tesla firmly believes that his alternating current will enrich mankind, so Tesla resigned from Edison Lab, hoping to look for investment outside. In the end, Tesla was funded by Westinghouse, and the alternating current proposed by Tesla also successfully caused waves in society. Especially when Tesla invented the asynchronous motor, the advantages of long-distance high-voltage transmission of alternating current were reflected, and the problem that the machine could not use alternating current was solved.

Morgan was very angry about this and ordered Edison to solve the problem of DC and AC for many times, because the power industry can only have one standard.

In order to suppress alternating current, 1888, Edison bribed some American state government officials and changed the local death penalty from hanging to alternating current electrocution. And hire primary school students, catch cats and dogs to do experiments with Tesla's alternating current, electrocute cats and dogs to show the harm of Tesla's alternating current, and hit the position of Tesla's alternating current in people's minds.

Tesla and Westinghouse almost went bankrupt because of the "current war", so in 1897, Tesla used its own patent royalties to ease the crisis for Westinghouse.

Sadly, Tesla gave up the patent of alternating current in order to greatly promote the interests of mankind, which largely made Tesla poor in his later years. If you have this patent, it will undoubtedly bring huge wealth to Tesla, and almost all the world is using alternating current. Morgan, on the other hand, used the patent of alternating current to deliberately threaten to file a lawsuit with Westinghouse Electric in the hope of bringing down Westinghouse Electric. Because Westinghouse Electric simply didn't have enough funds to bear the high lawyer fees, Morgan was forced to use the patent of alternating current.

Morgan occupied Edison's company with capital, established the later famous General Electric Company, and became the overlord of the power industry. Although Morgan lost in the "current dispute", Morgan still won the final victory in his best capital field.

In order to expand their own interests, the business giants represented by Rockefeller, Carnegie and Morgan have merged other enterprises and gradually formed monopoly trusts in the industry, thus gaining huge wealth. However, a large number of citizens in American society are at the level of food and clothing, and the widening gap between the rich and the poor has intensified social contradictions. Although these business giants have combined to use their power and temporarily consolidated their monopoly position, when theodore roosevelt became president, he was determined to change this situation and challenge the business giants at that time, forcing Rockefeller's standard oil company to split into several companies and passed the anti-monopoly law, which greatly changed the business face of the United States.

At this time, a young entrepreneur just took advantage of this anti-monopoly situation and rose rapidly. Ford spent many years developing cheap cars, but the automobile patents at that time were monopolized by the American Automobile Dealers Association. Ford must get permission from the association if he wants to sell his car. But if every car has to pay royalties to the association, Ford can't sell cars at a price that ordinary people can afford. Moreover, Ford feels that the entire automobile patent is monopolized by the American Automobile Franchisees Association, which is ridiculous. So Ford ignored the so-called patent of the association and still opened a company to sell his own car. The American Automobile Franchise Manufacturers Association naturally won't let Ford get his wish, so he took Ford to court.

But Ford followed the trend and stood on the anti-monopoly side, and finally won the lawsuit.

19 13 Ford introduced the assembly line into his factory, which greatly improved the production capacity. 19 18 Half of the cars running in America are model T cars. Ford attaches great importance to the promotion and protection of T-shaped design. Ford said, "Any customer can paint this car in any color he wants, as long as it stays black." This design has been maintained until 1927. By 1927, Ford * * * had produced150,000 Model T vehicles. This will be a world record for the next 45 years.

Ford's creative assembly line production method greatly improved the production efficiency of automobiles, which not only made workers get higher wages, but also put forward an 8-hour working system, working five days a week.

With the new situation of anti-monopoly, American workers get safer working environment, shorter working hours and higher wages. The living standards of American citizens have been greatly improved, and the United States has entered a new period of development.

In the fifty years after the end of the American Civil War, the American economy has developed rapidly, which is inseparable from the great contributions made by business tycoons headed by Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie and Morgan in the fields of railways, oil, steel, electricity and finance. They formulated orderly norms for the chaotic market and adopted the strategy of integration and integration, which greatly improved the production efficiency, not only enabled them to accumulate amazing wealth, but also ushered in an unprecedented era in the United States. These people who stand at the top of the human pyramid will never be forgotten by history.

postscript

Although I knew they were rich, I didn't know they would be so rich. Poverty has limited my imagination. ...