Ben Gilbert: evaluation

Transcript context

…I find it like a really good way—fantasy and sci-fi. The last couple years, I found the best way to unwind at night and on the weekends. Just get away. My first carve out is going to be the opposite of a way to unwind. It is the book Titan by Ron Chernow. It actually felt a lot like researching this episode. It is the history, sort of the most recent (I think) biography of John D. Rockefeller and the entire story behind Standard Oil. The book was nothing like I expected it to be. I heard it recommended by Dax Shepard on an episode of the Tim Ferriss show. Rockefeller is such a fascinating human because he is both the most egregious penny-pinching capitalist of all time and also probably the biggest philanthropist in global history maybe except for Bill Gates. He was able to square not in two chapters of his life, simultaneously during his entire life being just ruthless in the business practices and being puritanical in his religious beliefs and an absolute devotion to God. He somehow thought it was his God-given right and something that he needed to do to make the most money possible and then give it away in the way that he saw fit. And he did. Modern medicine, no chance that it would be where it is today, absent the absolute monopoly and absolute anticompetitive practices of Standard Oil on the railroads. It’s just so interesting. He started Rockefeller University which is a research institution in Manhattan and has developed many (I think) all PhD’s and post-docs, right?…

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