Shane Parrish
speaker
20,679 appearances
49 recordings
3 series
first heard May 2025
last heard 15 Sep
Shane Parrish’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 30 in all, peaking in Jan 2026 with 4.
Appearances
He used a piece of knowledge Rockefeller had learned from his teenage days at the commission house, that the posted railroad rates were a fiction.
The real rate for shippers with enough volume was negotiated behind closed doors.
Flegler went to the railroads and negotiated rebates their smaller competitors couldn't get.
And the more Standard Oil shipped, the bigger that rebate grew, which meant more reinvested into their business, which meant lower costs, more capacity to refine.
That made it easier to undercut competitors, which brought in more customers, which meant more volume.
which meant a bigger rebate than next time.
It was a flywheel.
And once Flagler set it spinning, it was almost impossible for anyone outside of it to compete.
It might sound unfair, but it's not.
If I wanted to ship one case of soda from the east to the west coast, I'm going to pay more per case than if I wanted to ship 10,000 cases.
The new balance of power showed in how Rockefeller carried himself.
In 1868, he was 29.
In that year, the richest man in America was Cornelius Vanderbilt, who was 74.
Vanderbilt owned many of the railroads, and one day, Vanderbilt sent word that he wanted a meeting with this up-and-coming Cleveland refiner.
Rockefeller didn't go.
He wrote to his wife about this.
"'We were sent for by Mr. Vanderbilt yesterday at 12 o'clock and did not go.
He's anxious to get our business.'
We sent our card by messenger that Vanderbilt might know where to find our office later.
The Emperor of the Railroads could come to him!
Showing 1281–1300 of 20,679 · page 65 of 1034
← Previous
Next →