- (gunshot)
- (shouting and indistinct clamor)
- NARRATOR: Just five days after the end of the Civil War,
President Abraham Lincoln is the final
of the six hundred thousand deaths
in America's bloodiest conflict.
The country is divided, and the world looks
at American democracy as a failed experiment.
But what most don't realize is that a new era has dawned.
The nation is entering an age of advancement,
and from the void left by the death of perhaps
the greatest statesman we will ever know,
a new breed of leader will emerge.
- DONNY DEUTSCH: The Rockefellers, the Fords,
the Carnegies, were the first generation
of what we know as now the entrepreneurial rock stars,
or what are today are the Buffets,
and the Jobs, and the Gates.
They were the ones that set the standard for the American dream.
They owned a new frontier-- literally and figuratively--
of who we are as a culture.
- NARRATOR: Men of insight, innovation,
and ingenuity, the likes of which the world
has never seen, and over the next five decades,
this small group will change history,
propelling the United States ofAmerica to greatness.
- DONALD TRUMP: These were great men
with a vision that nobody else had.
And that's why in the last century--
that fifty year period-- we built the world.
- (Blues Saraceno playing "Save My Soul")
♪ When I got to Memphis ♪
♪ To put my ol' baby down ♪
♪ He said, "I can't take you to Heaven" ♪
♪ "I can't save your soul" ♪
♪ "I can't promise forever" ♪
♪ Whoa, yeah, got my heart in your hands ♪
♪ I can't feel ♪
♪ Feel my soul ♪
- (ship horn blows)
- NARRATOR: For the first time in the country's
short existence, the man most capable
of leading America is not a politician.
He's a self-made man, who, through sheer force of will,
turned a poor upbringing on the docks
of New York Harbor, into an empire.
At sixteen, Cornelius Vanderbilt buys
a small ferry boat with a one hundred dollar loan.
He quickly earns a reputation as a cutthroat businessman,
willing to use any means necessary to get ahead.
- MARK CUBAN: Back then, it was just pure competition.
My brain against your brain.
My effort against your effort.
You just competed.
That's the way they looked at business.
It was the Wild, Wild West,
and by hook or crook, it was just win or lose,
and the best win.
- He was a tough guy.
Getting into scraps with other men,
beating the hell out of them and knocking them unconscious.
That competitive streak, and that toughness,
very much defined his character.
- NARRATOR: His single ferry soon becomes
a fleet of ships, transporting goods and passengers
to every corner of the growing country.
Vanderbilt will become so synonymous with shipping
that his nickname becomes "the Commodore".
- I think Vanderbilt recognized
that what was going to be important is transporting goods
from one place to another.
And he had this idea that required infrastructure,
and not infrastructure the government was going to provide,
but that he was going to provide.
- NARRATOR: Over the next forty years,
Vanderbilt builds the largest shipping empire in the world.
Then, at the peak of his power,
just before the Civil War, he does the unthinkable.
Work is under way on the first Transcontinental Railroad,
and the Commodore realizes
that its completion will transform America,
slashing cross-country travel time by months.
- H.W. BRANDS: Railroads were absolutely liberating,
because the railroads allowed cheap
and efficient transportation
from one corner ofAmerica to another.
- NARRATOR: Vanderbilt sees his future.
He sells all of his ships and invests
everything he has in railroads.
- JACK WELCH: You talk about seeing around corners
as an element of success.
That's what differentiates a good leader.
Not many people have it.
Not many people can predict that corner.
That is a characteristic of great leaders.
- (train whistle blows)
- NARRATOR: His decision to invest heavily in rail pays off.
By the end of the war, Vanderbilt
is the richest man in America,
with a net worth of over sixty-eight million dollars,
the equivalent of seventy-five billion today.
But all that money can't buy his escape
from the war's devastation.
- (ship horn blows)
In the wake of the Civil War,
a country mourns publicly, while Vanderbilt does so privately.
- FORTUNE TELLER: The first card is the past,
the second, the present, and the third is the future.
There has been an unexpected loss.
Someone close to you.
- VANDERBILT: My son. George.
He died in the war.
What about the future?
- FORTUNE TELLER: The chariot.
There will be a war.
- VANDERBILT: The war's over.
- No. Your war is about to begin.
- Hey.
Watch it, man!
- (shouting)
- (glass shattering)
- NARRATOR: Tormented by the loss of his favorite son,
Vanderbilt's empire is more vulnerable than ever before.
- J.S. STILES: For Vanderbilt, this is a great tragedy.
He had one son who had that same sense
of physical strength and ability,
and he had died when he was still quite young.
It was deeply troubling for the Commodore.
- NARRATOR: For years, Vanderbilt groomed George
to take over the family business.
Now, the Commodore is forced to rely
on his less accomplished son, William.
- I'm making you operations director
of the Hudson Railroad.
- NARRATOR: Vanderbilt places William in the midst
of negotiations with the owners of a rival railroad.
- So name your price.
- If you give us your freight, year round,
we will give you the privilege of allowing your passengers
access into Manhattan for two hundred thousand.
- That privilege is not worth two hundred thousand.
- Then let us settle on one hundred thousand?
I believe that to be a fair and generous offer.
- I'm not really interested in your generosity.
I'm only interested in getting the best deal
for my shareholders.
And that does not include handing
over one hundred thousand dollars, or even one dollar.
- My father wants only what he believes is right.
- The trouble is, your father doesn't know what is right.
The old man should be put out to pasture.
- NARRATOR: The message is clear.
The competition no longer sees Vanderbilt as a man to fear.
- DONNY DEUTSCH: People are always rooting
for very successful people to fail.
The day people are not taking shots at you means
you're not on top anymore.
- NARRATOR: But where they see weakness,
the Commodore sees an opportunity
to assert his dominance,
and teach William what it means to be a Vanderbilt.
- VANDERBILT: If they want a war,
I'll give them a war.
- NARRATOR: Vanderbilt owns the only rail bridge
into New York City.
It's the gateway to the country's largest port,
supplying the entire continent.
Vanderbilt knows this is the hammer he needs to beat
his rivals into submission.
- Sit down.
I want you to close the Albany Bridge.
- (brakes squealing)
- NARRATOR: Without the bridge,
every other railroad is shut out of New York City.
- J.S. STILES: Vanderbilt, in essence,
single-handedly erected a blockade
around the nation's largest city, cutting it off
from contact with the rest of the country.
He was now asserting his dominance.
- CONDUCTOR: Ladies and gentlemen,
this train will not be going any farther!
- We're gonna watch them bleed.
- NARRATOR: The Civil War has left America in ruins.
For the first time in its history,
the nation must rebuild.
Over fifty-thousand miles of railroad track
have transformed the country.
"Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt grew up poor,
but has created a railroad empire,
making him the richest man in the country.
At 72, he's thirty years past the average life expectancy,
and his competitors see him as weak.
It's a mistake they'll come to regret.
Locked in a battle for control of the rail lines
east of the Mississippi,
the Commodore is holding nothing back.
- I want you to close the Albany Bridge.
We're gonna watch them bleed.
- NARRATOR: Vanderbilt controls the only bridge
into New York City, America's busiest port.
Seizing an opportunity, he sets up a blockade.
- (train chugging and hissing)
- This train will not be going any farther!
- (indistinct clamor)
- NARRATOR: Shutting the bridge leaves millions of pounds
of cargo unable to reach the rest of the country,
and slowly bleeds his competitors dry.
Before their stock is worthless,
the presidents of the rival railroad
try to sell all their shares.
Word quickly reaches Wall Street,
triggering a massive sell-off.
- (trading floor clamor)
- Come on, put some money in that. Come on.
- New York Central shares are dropping fast.
- How low?
- $20 a share.
- Buy everything you can.
- (trading floor clamor)
- T.J. STILES: Vanderbilt was buying all of that stock
that suddenly flooded the market at rock-bottom prices.
- (trading floor clamor)
- Three aces.
- MAN: Ooh, that's good.
- NARRATOR: In just days, Vanderbilt takes control
of the rival railroad, creating the largest
single rail company in America.
- J.S. STILES: The New York Central railroad
became the centerpiece of his empire,
and it came to him as the sudden result
of a skillfully executed campaign to get revenge.
- NARRATOR: Railroads soon criss-cross America,
tying together the country in a way
that just fifteen years earlier was unimaginable,
and providing over 180,000 jobs.
Laying tracks becomes America's engine
for unprecedented growth.
- H.W. BRANDS: Railroads allowed the industrial economy
to boom in ways that it couldn't have before.
- ALAN GREENSPAN: One advance after the other,
which essentially was led by the railroads,
largely because there was a need to close the gap
between those east of the Mississippi
and those on the West Coast.
- NARRATOR: Vanderbilt has made himself
the undisputed king of railroads.
And now, he wants the world to know it.
He envisions a monument that will symbolize
his immense power.
- Work will begin on building a new station
that will bring together the three railroads:
the Harlem, the Hudson, and the Central.
It shall be in the heart of New York,
and be called the Grand Central Depot.
- NARRATOR: Thousands of workers labor
over the next two years, on the most ambitious
urban construction project America has ever seen.
Grand Central is the biggest building
in all of New York City, and the biggest train station
in the country, covering some twenty-two acres.
- T.J. STILES: This enormous building towered
over every other building in New York at the time.
And it was a physical symbol of the size and power
of Vanderbilt's railroad empire.
Its importance as a physical symbol,
as a physical capital of his empire,
cannot be underestimated.
And it still stamps New York's geography to this day.
- NARRATOR: Vanderbilt may be on top of the world,
but his blind ambition will soon make him
vulnerable to a challenge coming
from the most unlikely pair imaginable.
- (laughing)
- To Vanderbilt's money!
- (laughing)
- NARRATOR: The growth of the railroads thrusts
America into the biggest building expansion
the country has ever seen, led by a new breed of leader.
- STEVE CASE: The story ofAmerica
isn't just the story of the patriots
that helped build the democracy.
The reason the United States is a leading economy
in the world is because of the work
of entrepreneurs who created entire industries
that propelled the United States to be the leader
of the free world.
- NARRATOR: One man, Cornelius Vanderbilt,
through brute force and intimidation,
has made himself the undisputed king of the railroads.
He now owns forty percent ofAmerica's train lines.
But he wants them all.
- DONNY DEUTSCH: To me, it's always "What's next?"
and I think that's what drives most very successful people.
It's never about the money.
I mean, that's a way of keeping score.
It's about achievement, and it's about winning a game,
and it's about upping the ante.
- NARRATOR: Chicago is America's fastest growing city.
The line connecting it to New York
is the most traveled and valuable in all the world.
And it's not Vanderbilt's.
To make his empire complete,
he must gain control of the Erie Line.
- The Erie was one of the relatively early publicly
traded corporations.
Vanderbilt had the advantage
of millions and millions of dollars.
Deep pockets are always an advantage
when you're trying to gain control of a corporation.
- (trading floor clamor)
- NARRATOR: Vanderbilt instructs his agents
to buy up as much stock as possible...
- Buying Erie! Buying Erie!
- NARRATOR: ... demanding control of the company
by the end of the week.
- Erie at forty-five!
- NARRATOR: It's a vintage Vanderbilt move--
one he pioneered--known today as a "hostile takeover".
- Erie, fifty!
- NARRATOR: But his attempt will be thwarted
by an even more ingenious idea cooked up by two unknowns:
Jay Gould and Jim Fisk.
- JIM FISK: All right.
- The mistake that the Erie Board have made is
that they have telegraphed where they need to expand
without securing the land first.
- NARRATOR: Gould and Fisk are stuck
in middle-management at the Erie.
But they represent the new America that Vanderbilt
is helping to create.
One of self-made men with ruthless ambition.
And after years of watching the Commodore
dominate, they're eager to build their own empire.
They recognize Vanderbilt's plan
to buy the line, and see the opportunity
they've been waiting for.
- TED TURNER: Competition, I think,
it's good for the system, and it's really, I think,
what most businesses is about,
is doing a better job, and out-hustling your competitors.
- NARRATOR: Gould and Fisk begin printing
new shares of stock,
using a printing press
they set up in the basement of the Erie offices.
Each share they print dilutes Vanderbilt's stake
in the company, and they print over one hundred thousand.
- H.W. BRANDS: There was some fine print in one of the clauses
of the Erie's charter that allowed
the board of directors to issue new stock,
unbeknownst to the shareholders.
- Go.
- H.W. BRANDS: And so, the more shares that Vanderbilt
bought, the more he had to buy in order to approach
that magic majority.
- NARRATOR: Their plan is known as "watering down stock".
Highly illegal today, at the time,
it had never been imagined.
Its simplicity is brilliant.
And Wall Street is never the same.
- MARK CUBAN: The only rule was there were no rules.
Whatever it took to put your competition
out of business, they were gonna try to do it.
- NARRATOR: Unaware, Vanderbilt continues to buy.
- Think of the look on his face.
- (laughing)
- Oh, God, I wish I could be a fly on that wall.
- (laughing)
- NARRATOR: The freshly printed shares
are hand-delivered to Vanderbilt.
- Here are the Erie shares.
I assume we control the company now.
- A toast! - A toast.
- To money!
- (laughing)
- To Vanderbilt's money!
- (laughing)
- NARRATOR: Vanderbilt has bought seven million dollars
of watered-down stock from Gould and Fisk.
Today, worth over one billion dollars.
- (laughing)
- (shouts)
Vanderbilt has been underestimated before,
but if you come at the king,
you shouldn't expect to win.
The greatest growth explosion
in America's short life is underway.
Rail lines now connect huge expanses of the country.
Controlling them means having power
that just five years earlier was unimaginable.
Many are staking their claim.
- RON PERELMAN: I think there are people
in every generation that have a vision that, um,
transcends their moment and their time.
- NARRATOR: "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt owns
more miles of rail than anyone in the world.
But like all men of power, he faces constant challenges.
- (shouts)
- DONALD TRUMP: Competition gets very aggressive.
People have no idea how aggressive it is.
And sometimes, you don't even hear it,
because what goes on behind your back
is not a pretty picture. - (laughing)
- NARRATOR: At the height of his power,
Vanderbilt is outsmarted by a pair of unknowns.
- To Vanderbilt's money!
- (laughing)
- NARRATOR: Jay Gould and Jim Fisk have fleeced
the Commodore out of millions.
And they want the world to know it.
- Thank you, don't mind if I do.
Now, it is no secret what Vanderbilt
has been trying to do.
He owns more railroads than anybody else.
But Gould and me, we have struck a blow
for the little guy.
Now, sure, he may be rich, and sure,
he may be powerful, but somebody had to stand up
to the old bastard.
- (laughing)
- T.J. STILES: It was a humiliating defeat
for the Commodore, a man who was so fiercely competitive,
who wanted to win at absolutely everything,
to whom money was so important,
and here he was, defeated, and insulted publicly,
by Gould and Fisk.
- NARRATOR: Gould and Fisk may be on top of the world,
but they've awakened a sleeping lion.
Vanderbilt vows to never be beaten again.
- SUMNER REDSTONE: They don't think in terms of money.
They think in terms of winning.
Now, naturally, if you win big in business,
money follows, but that shouldn't be your objective.
Your objective should be to win.
Win, win, win. All the time. Not sometimes. Every time.
- NARRATOR: Vanderbilt immediately begins
looking for a new edge.
He realizes that the railroads have been overbuilt,
and the future of the industry isn't in building
new lines, but in transporting new cargo.
- JACK WELCH: Innovation is not a big breakthrough
invention every time.
Innovation is a constant thing.
And if you don't have an innovate company
coming to work everyday to find a better way,
you don't have a company.
You're getting ready to die on the vine.
- NARRATOR: If Vanderbilt can corner the market
on a new source of freight, one that can keep his trains
constantly full, he'll be able to control
the railroad industry.
And the Commodore knows just where to look.
Oil is revolutionizing life in America.
Crude from the ground is being refined into kerosene,
a safe and inexpensive source of light,
and that access to light is completely
changing the way Americans live.
Before kerosene, the average American
didn't have access to a consistent light source.
When the sun came down, darkness ruled.
Kerosene is a phenomenon that will forever change the world.
And Vanderbilt knows it's his next opportunity to cash in.
- RUSSELL SIMMONS: The idea is to see what's missing.
That's what a creative entrepreneur does,
he serves people things that they need.
Some people can't find a new thing to do.
But sometimes you see something
that everybody has to have.
Oh men, I've got to give them this
And then you go to work on it.
Because they need it.
- NARRATOR: Vanderbilt sees the demand for
kerosene skyrocketing all across the country.
He knows that to meet the demand,
the makers of kerosene will need
a new way to ship their oil.
If Vanderbilt can corner the market on those oil shipments,
he'll propel himself back to the top
of the railroad industry.
All he needs to do now is find a supplier.
- We're gonna extend along the south shore to Cleveland.
- WILLIAM: Why Cleveland?
- NARRATOR: Cleveland is a small city
ofjust under fifty thousand,
but it's sitting on top of an ocean of oil.
Eastern Ohio is the Middle East of its day,
and the area around Cleveland
is one of the largest oil fields in the world.
Vanderbilt learns about a refinery
built near the railroads in Cleveland.
The perfect mark for his master plan.
He reaches out to the owner,
a struggling young oil man Vanderbilt
is hoping to pluck from obscurity.
That oil man is John D. Rockefeller.
- Why are we playing so much in plumbers?
- We run a refinery.
- So, we start making our own pipes.
At this rate, we'll be lucky if we break even this year.
- If you wanna call it a day, John, just say.
- (baby crying)
- I should go.
- ELIZA: Is everything all right?
- It's fine.
- NARRATOR: At the age of twenty-seven,
Rockefeller is in the early stages of building
his refining business, but his company is teetering
on the verge of bankruptcy.
Vanderbilt sees him as someone he can manipulate
to his advantage.
An exclusive deal to ship Rockefeller's oil
will guarantee that the Commodore's trains
stay filled with cargo.
Vanderbilt invites Rockefeller
to meet with him in New York.
For the young oil man, the meeting
is the opportunity of a lifetime.
A way out of his troubles,
and a way to save his company from complete collapse.
- T.J. STILES: Rockefeller, he respected Vanderbilt.
He could see what he had achieved.
Vanderbilt was setting the pattern and the archetype
of what Rockefeller himself wanted to be.
He wanted to be the Vanderbilt of petroleum.
That's the way he saw himself.
- NARRATOR: As Rockefeller prepares
for his trip to New York,
Vanderbilt's plan is set in motion.
- How long is this going to take?
- Five to ten minutes.
- NARRATOR: The train departs Cleveland at 6:25 AM.
- (train whistles)
America is rising.
The country is experiencing a period of growth
like none it's ever seen.
Railroads have united the states,
and commerce flows with a speed never before thought possible.
The man at the forefront of this explosive change
is Cornelius Vanderbilt, but at 76,
he realizes that the railroads have been overbuilt.
To stay ahead of the competition,
the Commodore turns to a new exploding industry,
and a struggling young oil man, John D. Rockefeller.
Vanderbilt invites him to New York City for a meeting.
Fate intervenes.
- ROCKFELLER: The Lord is my shepherd.
I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.
He restoreth my soul.
- NARRATOR: John Rockefeller narrowly missed the train,
one that would've carried him
to his certain death.
The close call has a profound impact
on the young oil man.
- He leadeth me into paths of righteousness
for His name's sake.
Amen.
- NARRATOR: A man of deep faith,
he becomes convinced that God has spared him for a reason.
- H.W. BRANDS: Without thinking that he himself
in particular was chosen by God to become
this great business success, Rockefeller believed
that everything was divinely ordained,
so nothing happened in the world without God's will,
without God's blessing.
- NARRATOR: Rockefeller once again heads
to meet with Vanderbilt as a changed man.
Where before he was intimidated,
and facing bankruptcy, now he's a man of destiny.
Cornelius Vanderbilt may be the richest
and most powerful man in the country,
accustomed to getting what he wants,
but he has no idea what he's about to encounter.
- Every business is about understanding people.
Which people you have to get through,
which people you have to embrace,
which people you have to jump over,
which people you have to push out of the way.
That's the game.
- NARRATOR: Cornelius Vanderbilt may be the richest
and most powerful man in the country,
accustomed to getting what he wants,
but he has no idea what he's about to encounter.
- (Blues Saraceno playing "Save My Soul")
♪ When I got to Memphis ♪
♪ To put my ol' baby down ♪
♪ He said, "I can't take you to Heaven" ♪
♪ "I can't save your soul" ♪
♪ "I can't promise forever" ♪
♪ Whoa, yeah, got my heart in your hands ♪
♪ I can't feel ♪
♪ Feel my soul ♪
- Do you play cards, Mr. Rockefeller?
- No.
- VANDERBILT: Shame.
You could learn a lot about competition.
- I know all I need to know.
- So. I'm looking to do a deal with an oil refinery.
And that could be you.
- I'm willing to do an exclusive deal.
A dollar sixty-five a barrel.
- That's a discount of more than a third.
There are several refineries in Cleveland.
Why should I give you such a deal?
- Because I'll fill all your trains with my oil.
And if you don't do the deal,
I'll fill someone else's trains.
- Mr. Rockefeller.
- Do you trust him?
- I don't know.
- NARRATOR: Rockefeller may have gotten the rate
he was looking for, but in return,
he's agreed to provide Vanderbilt
with over sixty train cars of oil every day.
The only problem is, Rockefeller has
no way to produce that much kerosene.
His capacity is less than half of that.
Rockefeller has over-promised,
but he knows the deal with Vanderbilt
will be the opportunity he's been waiting for.
He just needs to find a way to produce more kerosene.
It's a daunting task, but John D. Rockefeller
has been beating the odds his entire life.
Rockefeller is raised in a poor Cleveland household,
but even as a young man, he yearns for something more,
something bigger, and he knows
it isn't going to be handed to him.
As a young man, he shows a strong entrepreneurial streak,
starting his own small business
selling candy to local children.
- Thank you very much.
Here's three pieces.
- NARRATOR: From an early age, Rockefeller helps to support
his family, mostly because he was never able
to rely on his father.
- BILL: It cures cancer.
Folks, that is right, it cures cancer.
Now you're asking yourself - Sir,
I bet in your mind you're saying, "Bill, is this true?"
- NARRATOR: John Rockefeller's father is a conman.
- ...Rebecca, I met seven years ago.
She had pneumonia.
- NARRATOR: Better known around Cleveland as "Devil Bill".
- Who would like to buy some?
A dollar twenty-five a bottle. Yes, sir.
- NARRATOR: He disappears for months at a time,
leaving his family without money to support themselves.
- I'm only here for one day.
Once I'm gone, I am gone.
I may not be back.
Never trust anybody, son.
Not even me.
- NARRATOR: With his father gone, Rockefeller is forced
to quit school and get a job to support his mother and siblings.
His work ethic and intuition will become
the building blocks for the American dream.
- JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV: My great-grandfather,
John D. Rockefeller, was an absolutely
brilliant businessman when he started out.
He wasn't even in oil or anything.
You know, he worked at it very very hard,
and there's an ethic in the Rockefeller family of hard work.
- NARRATOR: Stuck in a dead-end job,
he becomes fixated on finding a big idea,
and taking a chance.
- PASTOR: Be therefore perfect,
even as your father, which is in Heaven, is perfect.
Would you please rise?
Let us sing Hymn 89.
- CONGREGATION: ♪ Joyful, joyful ♪
♪ We adore Thee ♪
♪ God of glory ♪
♪ Lord above ♪
- (rumbling)
(thud)
(rumbling grows)
- MAN: Get out! It's gonna blow, get out!
- (rumbling grows louder)
- CONGREGATION:
♪ Hearts unfold like flowers before Thee ♪
- (rumbling continues) - ♪ Opening to the sun above ♪
♪ Melt the clouds of sin and sadness... ♪
- (thud)
- ♪ Drive the dark of doubt away ♪
♪ Giver of immortal gladness ♪
- (rumbling)
- ♪ Fill us with the light of day ♪
- (rumbling continues)
(well explodes)
- (men cheering)
- I think entrepreneurs, and certain business people,
just look at life, and look at things
that are changing, and are able to see those things
and say, "I can create a business out of that."
- NARRATOR: Rockefeller realizes oil has the potential
to change the world.
And, make him rich in the process.
But Rockefeller knows that drilling for oil
is a gamble filled with uncertainty.
And since he doesn't believe in luck,
he starts looking for a way to make money from oil
without the risk.
- H.W. BRAND: He had a mind for efficiency.
And there was probably something in him
that looked at the production process and saw
how wasteful that was.
In the first place you drill wells,
and they turn up dry.
And then you drill wells and they hit a gusher,
and half the oil would be lost.
And that offended his sense of efficiency.
- NARRATOR: Rockefeller knows there's a better way.
- Today, everybody wants to be an entrepreneur.
They've heard these great stories, you know, about Apple.
But, you know what, when you start a company,
you can think what the revenues are gonna be,
how much it's gonna be worth to shareholders,
but you always need a technical element.
You need somebody who knows how to do it
and build the things. You need the scientists.
- NARRATOR: Refining oil turns crude from the ground
into kerosene, a clean-burning fuel that can be used in lamps.
- Once the oil gets to three-hundred and fifty degrees,
the kerosene starts to vaporize.
Then once it's cooled, you have a stable, pure product.
- How much to produce a gallon?
- Fifty, sixty cents. I don't know.
- NARRATOR: Rockefeller's insight puts him
one step ahead of his competitors.
He believes that while gamblers drill for oil,
businessmen refine it.
- Whoever could control the refining process
could very well have the whole industry.
- NARRATOR: At twenty-four years old,
Rockefeller invests everything he has--
about four thousand dollars--
into building his first refinery.
- No, higher!
Higher!
- NARRATOR: But he struggles early on
to find an edge in the industry.
That changes when the most powerful man
in the country comes calling.
- Mr. Rockefeller.
- NARRATOR: The deal with Vanderbilt gives him cheap
shipping rates and the chance
to corner the U.S oil market.
But he's over-promised, agreeing to supply sixty
barrels a day, when his capacity is less than half that.
And when you've made a deal with the most powerful man
in America, failure is not an option.
- DONALD TRUMP: You have to be smart,
you have to have vision, you have to have
all these different things, but the most successful people
are the people that had the right idea
but never ever quit or gave up.
The people that really succeed in life
are those that don't quit.
- NARRATOR: Rockefeller needs to quickly expand his company,
and to do that, he needs investors.
The problem is, kerosene is getting a bad name.
Stories of the fuel exploding and burning down
homes are on the front page of newspapers
across the country, making potential investors skeptical.
Due to high demand, many refiners are rushing
to market with dangerous kerosene
that's extremely volatile.
Rockefeller sees the problem as an opportunity.
He realizes that there's a need to calm
the public's fears and provide them with a product
they can rely on.
- ROCKEFELLER: Oil refining. Warehouses. Barrel making.
And shipping facilities.
- Why the name?
- Because Standard Oil will be the only company
in the industry to guarantee a uniform
quality of kerosene.
- JERRY WEINTRAUB: The Rockefellers,
and all these guys, they were all great salesman.
At the end of the day, it's the salesmen
who make the money.
- STEVE WYNN: Well, you can certainly understand
how Rockefeller could've named his oil company
Standard Oil.
Pretty ambitious, organic name.
He was creating a standard, and, uh, it worked.
- NARRATOR: Rockefeller's Standard Oil quiets fears
and immediately becomes the most sought-after product
in the country, bringing in investor after investor.
America is expanding rapidly.
Cornelius Vanderbilt's railroads have united the country,
and commerce now moves faster than ever.
But America's newest obsession is light--
clean, safe light.
The kind provided by John D. Rockefeller.
Oil is changing the world.
And the Ohio refiner is leading the charge.
- RICHARD PARSONS: The titans of that day
revolutionized business in America.
We became the sort of dominant economic force
in the world because we could make stuff,
we could create stuff, we could build stuff,
we could power stuff.
- NARRATOR: John Rockefeller's Standard Oil is now
the largest producer of refined kerosene in the country.
And his exclusive deal with Vanderbilt allows him
to ship his project to homes throughout
the country at incredibly cheap rates.
But for Rockefeller,
it isn't enough.
He's outgrown his deal with Vanderbilt.
Once unable to fill Vanderbilt's trains,
now he has more oil than the Commodore can possibly ship,
and Vanderbilt's biggest competitor knows it.
Tom Scott is the president
of one of the largest train lines in the country.
He wants to take Vanderbilt's place
as King of the Railroads, and he knows a deal with
Rockefeller is the key.
Scott heads to Cleveland with his protégé,
a young up-and-comer named Andrew Carnegie.
As Scott's most trusted lieutenant,
Carnegie has helped craft the pitch.
- What's I'm proposing is an alliance between--
- ROCKEFELLER: You want a cartel between oil and railroads.
- I prefer to call it by its--
- Give me the numbers.
- Standard Oil will receive a forty percent
rebate for every barrel it ships.
- SCOTT: We'll send papers over in the morning.
- No.
A verbal contract is fine.
- NARRATOR: Rockefeller gets a better deal from Scott
than he ever could've gotten from Vanderbilt.
- VANDERBILT: The shyster.
- NARRATOR: The Commodore has lost his competitive edge.
- J.S. STILES: To the great frustration of Vanderbilt,
Rockefeller very skillfully played
those railroads against each other.
Oil was something the railroads
couldn't afford to let go, and so they fought very hard
to get that traffic.
- NARRATOR: With the railroads in his pocket,
Rockefeller can supply every home in the nation
with Standard Oil kerosene,
and with all that profit,
Rockefeller begins to buy out his competitors.
- ROCKEFELLER: We need to stand together.
I'm offering all of you a way out,
so you can hold your heads high.
The opportunity to sell to Standard Oil
will be a godsend to you all.
If you take Standard Oil stock,
you and your loved ones will never know want.
- NARRATOR: His intent is simple:
he wants to own
every refinery in the country.
It's a concept that's been impossible to execute.
Today, we know it as a "monopoly".
But Rockefeller isn't just expanding his company,
he's also looking to maximize profit--
by any means necessary.
- We've got another refinery.
One more into the fold.
- Do you want me to take a look at it?
- No. I want you to shut it down.
- The business of creating monopolies,
crushing opposition-- part of me says he did that
because it was there to be done,
and he could do it better than anybody else
and he made a bloody fortune out of it.
- NARRATOR: By the time he's finished,
Rockefeller controls ninety percent
of the North American oil supply.
His company, Standard Oil, is the country's first monopoly.
At thirty-three, the Ohio oil man
is now the most powerful man in the country.
The Commodore has created a monster.
He realizes that the only way to combat Rockefeller
is for the railroads to start working together.
He forms an unlikely alliance with his biggest rival,
Tom Scott, and together,
they agree to pull all of Rockefeller's deals.
- ROCKEFELLER: Thank you.
- NARRATOR: To Rockefeller, the move
is nothing short of a declaration of war.
America is emerging as one of the mightiest nations on earth.
The country is now crowded with rail lines
and kerosene lights most homes.
The amazing evolution has been led by two men driven
by a desire to create a world that few imagined.
"Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt and John D. Rockefeller
have sparked the modernization of the country.
But the former partners' interests are no longer aligned.
Vanderbilt has formed an unlikely alliance
with Tom Scott, aimed at forcing their biggest client
to pay going rates.
John Rockefeller sees their actions
as a declaration of war,
and he's not going down
without a fight.
- H.W. BRAND: John Rockefeller had the ruthlessness
that sometimes come from utter conviction
that what he was doing was right, and not just correct,
but divinely inspired, and the people who opposed him
weren't really entitled to their point of view,
because their point of view was wrong.
It was almost as though they had turned aside God's grace.
Well, if you turn aside God's offer of grace,
then expect no mercy.
- NARRATOR: Rockefeller is determined to find
another way to transport his oil.
He knows if he can't, the railroads will win.
Rockefeller's solution again comes
from the most unlikely of places.
- So we can increase the yield of the kerosene,
but then we get more of the volatile waste.
We can burn some of it off as fuel in the refinery,
but its high flammability creates a storage problem.
When we get to higher temperatures
we can start creating the lubing oils.
I'll need to reconfigure the refinery.
- NARRATOR: Oil in the refinery is moved using large pipes,
and Rockefeller realizes if those pipes can transport
oil over short distances,
they could also be used over longer distances.
If Rockefeller can build a pipeline large enough,
he'll be able to cut the railroads
out of the oil business, for good.
The pipeline will require a massive investment,
and incredible risk.
But if he gets it right, Rockefeller will be able
to do what he loves to do most, win.
- It probably comes early in an entrepreneur's life
where you realize you're willing to do things
in the business world that other people aren't willing to do.
Everybody has got ideas, and everybody's got
ambitions, but most people aren't willing
to cross that line, and I think an entrepreneur
that's successful, that's your nature.
Wherever there's change, wherever there's uncertainty,
there's opportunity.
- NARRATOR: Rockefeller's workers labor around the clock--
- (explosion)
- NARRATOR: --blasting through the countryside,
and laying over a mile and a half of pipeline every day.
- JACK WELCH: Business, in the end,
is understanding the playing field.
Tell me who's on it, what their strengths are,
what their weaknesses are, and what is your checkmate play,
to top 'em, and nail 'em.
And so you're always in that competitive game.
You're looking at innovation.
You're looking at leap-frogging,
trying to get ahead of them.
You're never complacent.
You're semi-paranoid about what they're doing.
That's what the game is all about.
- NARRATOR: By the time the pipeline is complete,
it's over four thousand miles long,
stretching across Ohio and Pennsylvania,
and connecting thousands of the world's most
lucrative oil wells directly to Rockefeller's refineries.
John Rockefeller has finally found his way
to eliminate the railroads from the oil business,
and in the process, he's forever revolutionized
the way oil is transported.
- (train whistle blows)
- NARRATOR: For twenty-five years, the railroads have been
the biggest industry in the country,
the backbone of the American economy.
No one has ever had the nerve to take them on, until now.
Rockefeller knows that without his oil,
the railroads will struggle to stay alive.
It's a colossal blow to the industry,
and with all that leverage,
Rockefeller has Vanderbilt and the railroads
right where he wants them.
The United States of America is changing
like never before.
In just a decade, the country has become
one of the most advanced on earth,
and darkness no longer means the end of the day.
Two men have driven this remaking of the country.
John D. Rockefeller and Cornelius Vanderbilt
are locked in a battle of wills.
- Commodore.
- Mr. Rockefeller.
- NARRATOR: Vanderbilt and his competitors are in drastic
search of passengers and cargo to fill the trains
running on their lines.
- In the 1870s, the country needed to be connected
via railroads, and what happens
then is everybody who thinks they have an edge
in the railroad business goes out and raises money
and they start their own railroad.
And what happened then is we've seen happen
many of times since then, is it created a huge bubble.
- NARRATOR: John D. Rockefeller's oil
makes up nearly forty percent
of the cargo shipped on the rails.
But when Vanderbilt teams with his biggest rival
to push for a rate increase, Rockefeller takes it
as a declaration of war.
He builds a pipeline in response,
and begins to pull his shipments.
And since the railroads have been drastically overbuilt,
losing cargo means losing money.
Stocks plummet as investors run scared.
- When prices get out of control,
and smart people decide,
"Wow, this thing is a bubble, I want out",
then you can get a collapse very quickly.
- NARRATOR: By the time the Panic is through,
one-third of the country's 360 railroad companies
have gone bankrupt.
- ALAN GREENSPAN: Every crisis of this type,
whether it's 2008,
or 1873,
has got the same roots.
Namely, that it was unanticipated.
So a necessary condition for a crisis is nobody expects it.
- NARRATOR: The crash is the worst America has seen
in its short history.
Unsure how to prevent a complete collapse,
the stock exchange shuts down and stays closed
for ten straight days.
- H.W. BRAND: The Panic of 1873 triggered
the first full-blown national depression,
and nobody quite knew what to do about it.
For the first time, large--very large--
numbers ofAmerican workers were without jobs.
Workers got laid off, but the owners,
they still lived in the style
that they were accustomed to.
But no one was shedding any tears for John D. Rockefeller.
People were saving their tears for themselves,
when they found themselves out of work,
out of their homes, out of food, out of hope.
- NARRATOR: While many of the biggest companies
in the country struggle to survive,
Rockefeller sees opportunity,
his belief in the survival of the fittest kicking in.
As his competition collapses,
Rockefeller picks them off,
buying out bankrupt oil companies for next to nothing.
- DONALD TRUMP: I find that I do better in bad markets.
I buy things in bad markets.
And, you can't do that in a great economy.
You can't buy it.
Either you're gonna buy it very expensively
or not be able to buy it at all.
So there's a lot of opportunity, I find,
in the bad times.
- NARRATOR: By the time the depression is through,
Rockefeller has created
the largest corporate empire in America.
- H.W. BRAND: He was playing the game of industry,
and he was simply better at it than everybody else.
He saw the industrial marketplace
as a place for the survival of the fittest,
and he was fitter than anybody else,
therefore he survived.
Not only that, therefore he deserved to survive,
and they didn't.
- NARRATOR: While Rockefeller expands his company,
his adversaries at the railroads
are struggling to survive.
Then, at the height of the depression,
the king of the American railroads,
Cornelius Vanderbilt,
dies, at the age of 82.
Vanderbilt leaves his empire,
worth over one hundred million dollars,
to his son, William.
Rockefeller knows that without Vanderbilt,
he would've never been able to build his empire.
- (train hisses)
- NARRATOR: But Rockefeller's last remaining adversaries
refuse to go down without a fight.
Tom Scott, and his protégé, Andrew Carnegie,
have managed to survive.
And since Rockefeller's pipeline doesn't extend
to Pittsburgh, he's forced to continue to use their trains.
But Scott knows if he and Carnegie don't diversify,
they won't survive.
Scott devises an aggressive plan
to expand his empire.
One that's sure to catch Rockefeller's attention.
He's going to break into the oil business
by building a pipeline of his own.
But if there's one thing John Rockefeller
hates more than anything else, it's competition.
Tom Scott is in for war.
- ROCKEFELLER: I've tried to be friendly to the Pennsylvania.
I've given you plenty of business, have I not?
And now, I find that you're invading my field.
And that, my friend, is piracy.
- We'll take your feelings into account,
Mr. Rockefeller.
- Two thirds of the oil you carry comes from me.
If you don't retreat, I'll take it to the other railroads.
- As far as I'm aware, there isn't another railroad
that runs from Pittsburgh to New York.
- NARRATOR: America's growth after the Civil War is driven
by railroads uniting the country,
and oil lighting the way.
No one has capitalized on the growth
more than John D. Rockefeller,
who now controls ninety percent
of the U.S oil market.
With the death of Cornelius Vanderbilt,
only one man stands in the way of Rockefeller's
complete control of oil,
Tom Scott.
- H.W. BRAND: There was a sort of mutual admiration
among the big capitalists, but it was an admiration
that was accompanied by deep suspicion.
The big capitalists of the day eyed each other very warily.
Rockefeller looked on Tom Scott,
of the Penn Railroad, as a competitor.
- NARRATOR: Tom Scott's trains transport oil to
and from Rockefeller's refineries in Pittsburgh,
where the Standard Oil pipeline doesn't reach.
With all that leverage, Scott is confident
he has the ammunition to take on Rockefeller.
But Rockefeller isn't one to back down from a fight.
- I don't want one drop of our oil traveling
on the Pennsylvania.
- But what about the Pittsburgh refineries?
- Shut them down.
- NARRATOR: Shutting down his refineries will cost
Standard Oil a fortune in lost revenue,
but for Rockefeller, crushing his competition
matters more than anything else.
Without Rockefeller's oil, Scott loses nearly
half of his business,
forcing him to lay off
tens of thousands of workers, and drastically cut wages.
Those workers take to the streets in protest.
And as darkness falls on Pittsburgh,
they turn violent.
- (shouting)
- NARRATOR: A fire is set in Tom Scott's train yards.
- (shouting) - (explosion)
- NARRATOR: Before the night is over,
more than thirty-nine buildings
and over twelve hundred train cars are destroyed.
Tom Scott's company lays in ruin.
- H.W. BRAND: This is how capitalism works.
The railroads had been the big suppliers
of transportation in the oil industry,
and so the railroads quite naturally resisted.
They dug in their heels whenever they could.
Eventually they lost.
- Come on.
Let's go.
- NARRATOR: John D. Rockefeller
has replaced Cornelius Vanderbilt
as the richest man in America.
His net worth is now over $150 million,
or $225 billion today.
- JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV: It's dazzlingly amazing
that one individual was able to corner about ninety-eight
percent of all the kerosene and eventually
all production in the world.
He was a brilliant business person.
I can only give him credit for that.
I don't have to give him credit for
the way that he became that powerful.
- NARRATOR: But all titans are targets.
And now Rockefeller is about to come face to face
with his biggest challenge ever.