Daniel Yergin

And I think there's also the suspicion that it was not only the economic monopoly, but the political muscle that came with that.

Why does anybody need to know about our private business was his notion.

We're a private business.

It's nobody's business.

Today, you know, you would have a PR advisor tell them that's not really the right stance to take.

But at that time, you know, it probably also came from the arrogance of having created this huge company with its, you know, running a global company from an office on a 26 Broadway.

You know, you did have a sense of power.

Oh, but let me mention, but I do know that, you know, one of his guys who was running the company went to see Theodore Roosevelt and brought him copies of Roosevelt's books, especially bound in leather, thinking he could win over Roosevelt.

Didn't do any good.

Because Roosevelt, it was, you know, he was the trust buster.

I think Churchill was the first Lord of the Admiralty.

And he saw that if you can convert all the naval ships at that time ran on coal, which means you had to have people on board shoveling coal.

And it took a long time to get the coal on board.

And if you switch to oil, you would have faster, the ships would be faster.

They wouldn't need to take the same time.

They wouldn't need to carry the same people.

And so he made the decision, obviously others like Admiral Jackie Fisher were pushing him to convert the Royal Navy to oil.

And people saying this is treacherous because we'll depend upon oil from far away from Persia rather than Welsh coal.

And he said, this is the prize of the venture.

That's where I got my title from.