How Did Jay Gould Start With 50 Cents?

David Senra says Jay Gould started with 50 cents. At 13, his father registered him at a high school in a neighboring town and left him there with a pile of clothes and 50 cents. J. P. Morgan, by contrast, was born into a rich family and inherited a merchant bank. Senra says no other robber baron came from a start like Gould's, and the weapon Gould used to build his wealth was an understanding of financial markets. Railroads became the center of his work early, and Senra says Gould, more than anyone else, created the national railroad map that is still in place.

Gould was barely five feet tall, smaller than Andrew Carnegie, and ambition made up for the lack of size. He was a financial engineer who watched operating details and usually out-strategized competitors. He also wrecked his own wins. After a string of victories he would start another stock fight that laid waste to what he had just built, as if stock wars were simply the work he did. Senra says Gould could take reverses that would crush another man, get up, learn more, and look for the next chance.