Quotes About Strategy

In mapping out his strategy, Rose adopted the GEB model of using Rockefeller money as a catalyst for government cooperation.

when Archbold took control in the mid-1890s, he kept domestic prices high while depressing foreign prices to diminish overseas competition.

He was a much less clever monopolist than his mentor.

Has anyone given you the law of these offices? No? It is this: nobody does anything if he can get anybody else to do it.… As soon as you can, get some one whom you can rely on, train him in the work, sit down, cock up your heels, and think out some way for the Standard Oil to make some money.

Far sooner than Rockefeller, the railroads had foreseen the political reaction and inevitable defeat.

but Rockefeller started at the top, believing that if he could crack his strongest competitor first, it would have a tremendous psychological impact.

It is almost inconceivable that he did not suspect at moments that Archbold had learned some of his tricks from Senior.

You see, this scheme is bound to work. It means an absolute control by us of the oil business.

As at Standard Oil, Rockefeller insisted upon keeping a cash balance that never dipped below $10 million.

A born contrarian, Rockefeller insisted upon buying in declining markets and selling in rising ones.

The idea was not to compete, at least not too openly.

So why did Rockefeller stick to his self-defeating silence?

born contrarian, Rockefeller insisted upon buying in declining markets and selling in rising ones. When accumulating a position, he bought stocks each time they declined an eighth of a point; when unwinding a position, he sold each time the stock rose an eighth of a point—a technique that gave him an average over an extended period.

But the moves reflected a new wish to shape opinion

in war anything is better than indecision. We must decide. If I am wrong we shall soon find it out, and can do the other thing. But not to decide wastes both time and money and may ruin everything.

Rockefeller succeeded because he believed in the long-term prospects of the business and never treated it as a mirage that would soon fade.

For many years, the Rothschilds, the Nobels, and Standard Oil circled around each other, each trying to forge links with a second party to isolate the third.

Before too long, he realized that refining was the critical point where he could exert maximum leverage over the industry.

John D. Rockefeller had an unfailing knack for knowing who would help or hinder him in his career, an instinct only sharpened by time.

a general marches at the head of his troops," so should wise politicians "march at the head of affairs, insomuch that they ought not to wait the event to know what measures to take, but the measures which they have taken ought to produce the event.

The Clarks were the first of many business partners to underrate the audacity of the quietly calculating Rockefeller, who bided his time as he figured out how to get rid of them.

If there had been as prompt and energetic action on the part of the Russian oil industry as was taken by the Standard Oil Company, the Russians would have dominated many of the world's markets

beneath the competitive veneer, the Rothschilds were eager to come to terms with Standard Oil:

With virtuosic brilliance, Rockefeller and Flagler played these three railroads against each other in seemingly endless permutations.