Before Standard Oil became a titan of American capitalism, there was a young man with a ledger and a quiet, relentless drive. In the first episode of our three-part series on Standard Oil, we meet John D. Rockefeller—not as the richest man in modern history, but as a meticulous clerk with an almost spiritual devotion to order, discipline, and numbers.

But Rockefeller’s world was anything but orderly. The oil fields of Pennsylvania were wild, speculative, and wasteful—a far cry from the structured empire he would one day build. As we enter the chaos of America’s first oil boom, we begin to see the forces that would push Rockefeller toward his radical vision: to tame the frontier, eliminate waste, and create a new kind of business.

This is the story of how strategy, faith, and frontier ambition collided—setting the stage for one of the most powerful companies in history.

Episode Chapters

(02:22) Part 1 - The Divine Ledger

(30:21) Part 2 - The Wild Frontier

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Episode 9