How Rockefeller Made His Billions

I’ll bet you don’t think you have much in common with John D. Rockefeller.

After all, he was America’s first self-made billionaire.¹ At the time of his death in 1937, he was worth over $340 billion in today’s money. How rich is that? If you combined the wealth of Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos, Rockefeller would still be richer. We’re talking hard-to-imagine rich. Think Scrooge McDuck doing the backstroke in his money vault—but even richer.

But Rockefeller wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Before he became a mega-wealthy oil tycoon, Rockefeller grew up in a humble country home in upstate New York. The only thing that set him apart from his friends and neighbors (and you) is that he learned a pivotal lesson about how money works when he was just a kid.

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