Daniel Yergin: evaluation

Transcript context

…Was the antitrust case against Standard Oil unwarranted? Reading The Prize, I'm thinking these guys were doing a ton of great stuff. As their name implies, they were standardizing oil, logistics, transportation, refining. And their market share was going down. The price of crude was going down. In retrospect, was the antitrust a mistake? A mistake, I don’t know. It is the most famous antitrust case in history and reflected the times because you had these big trusts. Was it a mistake? I don’t know. It broke up these companies and created more independent companies. It provided more room for innovation and for people to develop. It probably led to a stronger industry. Of course the other thing that happened as a result of the breakup of Standard Oil was that these individual parts got valued in the marketplace. Lo and behold, as a result of that John D. Rockefeller as a shareholder actually became three times as rich. There were also scientists who came up with a new way of refining gas, right?…

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