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Product Overview

This note, a radical condensation of Ron Chernow's 700-page tome Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., is focused primarily on the formation of Rockefeller's various business ventures. It presents brief abstracts of the stages in his rise to unquestioned dominance of early-twentieth-century American business. Topics covered include his childhood efforts and a synopsis of how he positioned himself to see and seize opportunity in the emergent crude-oil and refining markets of the mid-to-late 1800s. The note can be used in an entrepreneurship course to examine how a new-venture opportunity emerged, was perceived, and doggedly pursued. It may be used in general-business courses as a discussion device to compare and contrast current issues surrounding Microsoft and its founder, Bill Gates, or to present basic issues in anticompetitive behavior, monopoly, antitrust, and related matters. Courses on business history or ethics can employ it as a quick introduction to basic issues of power and wealth aggregation and use.