Daniel Yergin

And it reflected the times because you had these big trusts.

And it was a mistake, I don't know, it broke up these companies and created more independent companies, provided more room for innovation, for people to develop.

So probably actually 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 then got valued in the marketplace.

And lo and behold, as a result of that, that John D. Rockefeller, as a shareholder, actually became three times as rich.

Yeah, exactly.

Because they're not centralized, there was more room for entrepreneurship, for experimentation, for research, for people to solve problems that other people said, oh, you can't solve them.

You know, I think he respected his competitors, particularly the hardy ones.

And those were the ones who were players who said, okay, rather than fight you, I'm going to get on board this ship as well.

And so he brought them in and...

You know, they all prospered as a result of that.

You know, they gave up.

They said, we're not going to fight you.

We're going to join you.

He became the very epitome of the monopolist.

There's a famous woman journalist, one of the great women journalists named Ida Tarbell wrote this book about him, about the Standard Oil Trust.

She said it was a great company, but it always played with loaded dice.

So he was a very embodiment.

You had this trust busting president, Theodore Roosevelt, and this was the most obvious trust.