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Cool anecdote from Titan, one of countless: Rockefeller was relentless in ferreting out ways to cut costs. During an inspection tour of a Standard Oil plant
by aerovistae 11y ago
Cool anecdote from Titan, one of countless:
Rockefeller was relentless in ferreting out ways to cut costs. During an inspection tour of a Standard Oil plant in New York City, for instance, he observed a machine that soldered the lids on five-gallon cans of kerosene destined for export. Upon learning that each lid was sealed with 40 drops of solder, he asked, "Have you ever tried 38?" It turned out that when 38 drops were applied, a small percentage of the cans leaked. None leaked with 39, though. "'That one drop of solder', said Rockefeller,...'saved $2,500 the first year; but the export business kept on increasing after that and doubled, quadrupled--became immensely greater than it was then; and the saving has gone steadily along, one drop on each can, and has amounted since to many hundreds of thousands of dollars"' (Chernow 1998, pp. 180-81). Over the course of his career at the helm of Standard Oil, "Rockefeller cut the unit costs of refined oil almost in half" (Ibid., p. 150).
- samstave 11y agoPlease explain
- coderholic 11y agoVersion that's possible to read: "Rockefeller was relentless in ferreting out ways to cut costs. During an inspection tour of a Standard Oil plant in New York City, for instance, he observed a machine that soldered the lids on five-gallon cans of kerosene destined for export. Upon learning that each lid was sealed with 40 drops of solder, he asked, "Have you ever tried 38?" It turned out that when 38 drops were applied, a small percentage of the cans leaked. None leaked with 39, though. "'That one drop of solder', said Rockefeller,...'saved $2,500 the first year; but the export business kept on increasing after that and doubled, quadrupled--became immensely greater than it was then; and the saving has gone steadily along, one drop on each can, and has amounted since to many hundreds of thousands of dollars"' (Chernow 1998, pp. 180-81). Over the course of his career at the helm of Standard Oil, "Rockefeller cut the unit costs of refined oil almost in half" (Ibid., p. 150).
- aerovistae 11y agoWhat, don't you like monospace fonts??
- rhizome 11y agoI just get a long scroll bar.
- dredmorbius 11y agoOn mobile, your version simply scrolls off the page with no option for reading it. Worse than useless, actually.
- Others 11y agoIt's actually like that on my laptop to, although slightly better, since I can actually scroll it.
- jwdunne 11y agoAnother similar thing that stuck out to me was how he held up his books. They were meticulous and he prided himself of them. I remember reading the joy he had of learning double entry book keeping. The man loved money. He loved keeping track of it down to the last detail. He even used to chant "one day I will be rich, rich, rich"! Very interesting man. Given his character and the conditions he was in, it wasn't at all surprising he amassed so much wealth.