How Did John D. Rockefeller Buy the Clark Oil Refinery?

David Senra, reading Charles R. Morris's The Tycoons, says John D. Rockefeller got the oil refinery by pushing the Clark partners into a breakup and then outbidding them. As the friction grew, the Clarks kept threatening to dissolve the partnership. Rockefeller asked whether they meant it. They said yes. The next day they read a dissolution notice in the local newspaper, and their partner Andrews had sided with Rockefeller. At the auction, the 25-year-old Rockefeller outbid them. The bidding hit $72,000. A partner said the price was too high and handed the refinery over. The next year the refinery had sales of $1.2 million, in the 1860s.

Senra says Rockefeller often paid a fair price, and often overpaid, when he took over someone else's business. A typical move was to open the books so the owner could see that competing was hopeless. If the owner still refused, Rockefeller switched to a fight over price, supplies, transportation, and permits. The targets gave in, and the original price was still there, often with an offer to join his team. Senra calls it conquest by being better at the business than anyone else. He also recalls asking Charlie Munger, at dinner, who the greatest entrepreneur was, and Munger named Rockefeller.