Ben Gilbert: prediction

Transcript context

…A good chunk of change. That 50%, that $72,500 or however you want to think about it, is 50% of Standard Oil right there. Rockefeller would say later, "It was the day that determined my career." Probably bigger than job day. "I felt the bigness of it, but I was as calm as I am talking to you now." This is what we're going to see. This man has literally solid ice running through his veins. It's crazy. This was a big price. It was more than Rockefeller wanted to pay, but this happens in February of 1865. Back to what's going on in America, two months later, General Lee surrenders to Grant, and the Civil War is over. With the Civil War over, what's less important? Commodity, produce trading. What is all of a sudden a hell of a lot more important? Oil, industry, urbanization, everything. Because all these soldiers are coming back and getting jobs in factories, you have an industrial boom here. It's interesting how Rockefeller is obsessed with I'm not a speculator. I'm not one of these people rushing to prospect various plots of land in Western Pennsylvania. It's funny that it's, I would say, a picks-and-shovels play. I guess the point to make here is he's doing the predictable, reliable, stable, very strategic part of the value chain. He's not out prospecting land. To just doubly underscore strategic, did Rockefeller know the war was going to end in two months? Probably. Sherman's probably marching to the sea at this point. Chernow writes, "The war had stimulated growth in the use of kerosene by cutting off the supply of southern turpentine, which had yielded a rival illuminant called camphene. The war had also disrupted the whaling industry, and led to a doubling of whale oil prices. Moving into the vacuum, kerosene emerged as an economic staple and was primed for a furious postwar boom. This burning fluid extended the day in cities and removed much of the lonely darkness from rural life." Soon, John D. Rockefeller would reign as the undisputed king of that world. He's now got the oil operations, the refining business all to himself. December of 1865, the war's over, all this is going on, and he opens a second refinery in Cleveland next to the Excelsior Works with a new name that he chooses, he wants to let everybody know that his oil, his kerosene, his business, and his operations are going to be bigger than anyone else. It's going to be the best quality and it is going to reign from sea to sea. What does he call the new operation?…

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