Rockefeller

John D. Rockefeller built Standard Oil by consolidating the refining industry. In eighteen eighty, his company controlled ninety percent of US oil refining. Most businessmen would have celebrated and declared victory. Rockefeller saw a weakness. Refineries were worthless if producers and shippers controlled the supply chain. So Standard Oil bought the railroads that transported crude oil. They bought the pipelines. They bought the companies that made barrels. They bought the tank cars. Rockefeller didn't just dominate one piece of the value chain. He owned every link from the oil well to the customer's lamp. This vertical integration created a fortress.