Richest man

Chapter 39 The Americas: Bill Gates (3)
The so-called "trust" means that many enterprises producing similar products no longer operate independently, but form a comprehensive enterprise group in a highly integrated form.This form is much more monopolistic than the original "cartel", that is, the way in which independent enterprises form a united front in production and sales in order to control the market.

Under the guidance of Dodd's "trust" theory, Rockefeller convened the "Standard Oil Company" shareholders meeting on January 1882, 1, and formed a 20-member "trustee committee" to take charge of all the shares of Standard Oil Company and subsidiary companies. stock.Rockefeller became the chairman of the committee as a matter of course.Subsequently, the Board of Trustees issued 9 letters of trust, of which Rockefeller and four persons alone owned more than 70, accounting for 4/46 of the total.In this way, Rockefeller got his wish and created an unprecedented joint enterprise-trust.Under this trust structure, Rockefeller merged more than 2 manufacturers, monopolizing 3% of the country's oil refining industry and 40% of the oil pipeline business.

Trusts quickly spread throughout the United States and in various industries. In a short period of time, this form of monopoly organization accounted for 90% of the US economy.Obviously, Rockefeller successfully created a unique era in American history - the era of monopoly.

In 1884, Rockefeller moved the headquarters of Standard Corporation from Cleveland to No. 26 Broadway Street, New York City, becoming one of the world's largest oil conglomerates.John D. Rockefeller became the famous "Oil King" at home and abroad.Standard Oil changed its name several times, and finally became Mobil Oil Company.

And John Pierpont Morgan dominated the entire financial world like a giant a century ago.As the mastermind behind the creation of General Electric, U.S. Steel and a vast railroad empire, he was for decades the core banker of the American private sector.

Morgan, a financial tycoon who is considered to have made his fortune from wars, is indeed impressive in his business acumen and generosity.The American Civil War became a good time for him to stir up gold and make a fortune from the war.

And when the war was over, he extended his mergers and acquisitions to the railroads.In this way, Morgan's property is like a snowball, getting bigger and bigger.In terms of railways alone, there are 3.05 kilometers directly belonging to him. In addition, there are nearly 7 kilometers under his control.At that time, the U.S. railways were in a three-legged confrontation, and Morgan was strong and strong, and his power was far ahead of the other two.

But what Morgan is best at seems to be making money from wars and national disasters, and he hardly misses any such opportunity. In 1898, the United States and Spain fought for the colonies in the Pacific Ocean and South America.The war has brought great disasters to the people of all countries, but for the Morgan consortium, which has made a lot of war fortune, it is eager to fight as many wars as possible.At that time, there were many protests and demonstrations at the gate of the New York Stock Exchange. They shouted: "Wall Street is the initiator of the war!" "Bury Morgan, Rockefeller, and Carnegie!"...

The sound of demonstrations and shouts came in from the open window.But Morgan didn't care about it, without changing his face and heartbeat, leisurely smoking a cigar, thinking hard about how to invest in the Philippines, Cuba, Japan and China.A thought flashed through his mind: "The future will be an era of international investment." That is to say, he is going to enter the world monopoly capital.

Looking back on his life, Morgan proudly found that due to his shrewdness and unique vision, he had achieved extraordinary results in several major decisions, which made a lot of money. Now Morgan's empire is no longer comparable to his ancestors and fathers.The flag of the Morgan empire will be planted in every corner of the world.

Morgan learned that the Mexican government was on the verge of collapse due to its inability to repay Spain's old debts, and it was extremely dangerous.The Mexican authorities had to issue public bonds, planning to issue 1.1 million US dollars.How could Morgan not be tempted by such a big deal, he gritted his teeth and let it be seen!He teamed up with a German bank to subscribe for all Mexican government bonds, on the condition that Mexico take oil mines and railways as guarantees.

Not long after, Morgan spent another $7500 million to buy Argentine bonds.

Shortly thereafter, the Boers in South Africa revolted against the British colonial army.Due to the huge cost of the war, the British government has been unable to support.Morgan successively subscribed for $1.8 million in war bonds.

Morgan also reached out to American steel companies.In the list of US steel companies, Carnegie takes the top spot, Morgan's steel company can only be ranked second, and Rockefeller is ranked third.Morgan has always regarded Carnegie as a thorn in his side and a thorn in his flesh.opportunity finally arises!Due to the successive deaths of his mother, younger brother and most capable assistant, Carnegie decided to retire and sell all his belongings for 3.2 million US dollars.Fearing that Rockefeller would buy it, Morgan sent someone to negotiate with Carnegie.Unexpectedly, Carnegie raised it to 4 million US dollars."We bought it for over $4 million!" Morgan said.

On April 1901, 4, the US Steel Corporation belonging to Morgan was formally established.It announced to the press that US Steel had $1 billion in capital and issued $10.18 million in new corporate bonds.

The world's financial center has gradually moved from London to New York, and Wall Street has become synonymous with the world's financial center.The Morgan family's total assets have reached $34 billion, including Bankers Trust Company, Guaranty Trust Company, and First National Bank.The capital of the Morgan Alliance is about 48 billion US dollars, and the total value of the entire "Morgan System" is 200 billion US dollars, and there is another 125 billion US dollars of insurance capital.In terms of production business, there are US Steel, General Motors, Copper Company, Continental Oil Company, General Electric Company, Sulfur Company, etc.The development of Morgan's railways has been mentioned earlier, and in the service industry, it also owns many large companies such as the International Telephone and Telecommunication Company.The two big banks in the Morgan alliance have combined assets of $510 billion.Added up, the total assets are equivalent to 1/34 of the assets of American businesses.Morgan is truly "rich as an enemy"!

Back to nature, passionate about charity

Gates has long said that he intends to donate his wealth. "I'm just the custodian of this wealth and I need to find the best way to use it because ultimately I'm going to put all my wealth into the foundation."

But in fact Gates was not so enthusiastic about charity at the beginning.

As Microsoft's fame and fortune grew, letters asking for donations flooded in, but Gates ignored them, much to the embarrassment of his parents.Gates Sr. later recalled: "His mother and I have been advising him that as a good citizen, he must do more for the society." But Gates would not listen.Sometimes his mother's nagging made him impatient, and he would retort: ​​"Mom, I have a company to manage. The best thing I can do for society is to make this business a success."

What promoted Gates' fundamental transformation was the autumn of 1993 when he traveled to Africa with Melinda, who later became his wife, and the extreme poverty of the local people aroused Gates' heart tremor.Gates sighed and asked himself: "What can I do?" Gates said to his son that he should establish a foundation and carry out charitable work.This time, Gates readily agreed, establishing a $9400 million foundation.The "stingy man" who was ridiculed in the past has started donating large sums of money.Gates' philanthropy is getting bigger and bigger.

In January 2000, the Gates family merged the two original foundations to form the "Bill & Melinda Foundation."The foundation, led by Gates Sr., has become the world's largest charitable foundation with a total of 1 billion US dollars.Gates Sr. said his retirement was a lot of fun.He spends much of his time squandering his son's fortune, donating it to health and education programs across the globe.

The Gates couple once stated that after their death, only a few million dollars of inheritance will belong to their children, and the rest will be donated to charity.A reporter asked Melinda curiously, isn't she worried that children will hate them for this in the future? Melinda replied: "The three of them are still young, and now I can only talk to them about food and clothing. In the future, they will definitely get some property, but we will wait until they are older to talk to them about this. We believe that if the parents are educated properly, children will not think about wealth differently from us.”

Gates believes that having a lot of unearned wealth is not a good thing for a child who is at the starting point of life. He believes that the life and potential of a child should have nothing to do with the wealth or poverty of their birth.Bill Gates said that he and his wife had heard and seen many inequalities in health, education, research and other fields, so they decided to use their property to eliminate such inequalities.He also hopes that other rich people can also return their property to society to solve the inequality in society.

As of today, the foundation established by Gates and his wife Melinda Gates has allocated more than 25 billion US dollars to global health and more than 14 billion US dollars to improve people's learning conditions, including the purchase of computers for the Gates library. equipment, Internet training, and Internet access services to public libraries in low-income communities in the United States and Canada.In addition, more than $2.6 million will be spent on community projects in the Pacific Northwest, and more than $3.8 million will be spent on special projects and annual gift distribution activities.

In addition, in 1999, Gates also donated all the proceeds of his two best-selling books to non-profit organizations to support the use of technology for education and skills training.

In addition to his love of computers and software, Gates also has an interest in biotechnology.He is a member of the Board of Directors of ICOS, Inc., a company focused on protein-based and small molecule therapeutics.He is also an investor in many other biotech companies.Gates also founded Corbis, which is developing one of the world's largest sources of visual information—a comprehensive digital archive of art and photography from public and private collections around the world.

Bill Gates, the "billionaire boy" who has been the "richest man in the world" for 11 consecutive years, has finally won the respect of the world for his unique understanding of wealth and charitable behavior.

In 1896, Rockefeller quietly left the New York headquarters and secretly moved to the Pocantec estate, where he retired.

57 years old, in the prime of life.Why did he retreat bravely? Some people say that he felt guilty.Behind Rockefeller's success, there are indeed many companies in the same industry that went bankrupt and went bankrupt, and suffered from his monopoly of the jungle.It was also said that he suffered from severe digestive disorders.In the past 40 years, he was so desperate for money that he became sick from overwork and had to retire.For what reason, I am afraid no one can tell.

洛克菲勒在退休后又活了41年。他退休后几乎将全部的精力放到了发展慈善事业上。从19世纪90年代开始，他每年的捐献都超过100万美元。1913年，设立了“洛克菲勒基金会”，专门负责捐款工作。他捐款总额达5亿美元之多。

Under the influence of the rumors, the Standard Oil Trust operated by Rockefeller was also forced to disintegrate and was broken down into 38 new companies. To this day, these companies are still the giants of American industry.

Carnegie worked desperately to build his steel empire, but he didn't expect his relatives to leave him one after another. In [-], after his assistant was also killed in an accident, Carnegie shut himself in at home.For several days, he was thinking about the path he had traveled: From a small messenger, a descendant of poor immigrants, to today's millionaire and multi-millionaire, what is the use of having so much wealth in my hands? , I got all my dreams when I was a child, but why can’t I feel happy in my heart? Now that my relatives have left one by one, and the friends who have left will not come back again, what is my purpose of making money? In the end, he came to such a conclusion : "If a rich man can't use his ability to accumulate wealth and donate his wealth for the welfare of society during his lifetime, then his death is also disgraceful."

In 4, he announced in the book "The Gospel of Wealth": "I will no longer work hard to earn more wealth." So he resolutely retired from his thriving steel business and sold the card for $[-] million. Neki Steel sold to finance magnate Morgan.Then he began to implement his great plan of giving his wealth to the society.

During the nearly [-] years until Carnegie's death on August [-], [-], Carnegie's life has undergone tremendous changes. In [-], the first year after his retirement, he first set up a relief and pension fund for steel workers with $[-] million to express his gratitude to the employees who helped him succeed in his career.Then, in order to help aspiring young people from poor families, donated money to build [-] libraries in New York City.The library construction business lasted for [-] years, and he donated a total of [-] million US dollars to build [-] libraries.

The following year, Carnegie founded "Carnegie University" in his adopted hometown of Pittsburgh.Later, he donated money to establish various schools and educational institutions in the United States and Britain.Such donations for the construction of educational facilities amounted to a whopping $9000 million.

In the years that followed, Carnegie established several more foundations.He donated [-] million US dollars to set up the "Fund for Those Who Sacrifice Himself to Save Others", and he donated [-] million US dollars to set up the "University Professor Retirement Fund" to protect the life of educators in their later years.He also established the "Presidential Retirement Fund" and the "Writer's Fund" to provide financial assistance to American presidents or writers in their later years.In addition, he provided the "Carnegie Celebrity Fund" to [-] countries, and set up the "Carnegie International Peace Consortium" with US$[-] million to support people who have contributed to world peace.

In 1.5, the aged Carnegie couple had been directly involved in the donation work for [-] years, and they were both physically and mentally exhausted. Therefore, Carnegie decided to set up "Carnegie Corporation" with the remaining [-] million U.S. dollars, so that the company's personnel Act on their behalf for their donation efforts.

Carnegie, more than 100 years earlier than Bill Gates, explained the true meaning of wealth with his own actions.What is gratifying is that history always gives people similar surprises - the world's richest men in the United States not only created wealth myths in their life journeys, but also performed wonderful lives and depicted the bright colors of wealth!I buy companies based on strategic needs and run them.

(End of this chapter)