WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.779 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are opening 00:00:03.779 --> 00:00:09.419 the file on a figure who is, well, he is monumental. 00:00:09.660 --> 00:00:11.460 And I mean that in every sense of the word. Oh, 00:00:11.480 --> 00:00:13.160 absolutely. You literally cannot walk through 00:00:13.160 --> 00:00:14.859 the streets of New York City without seeing his 00:00:14.859 --> 00:00:17.379 fingerprints on the architecture. And you definitely 00:00:17.379 --> 00:00:19.219 can't look at the history of the American economy 00:00:19.219 --> 00:00:21.500 without running headfirst into him. It is hard 00:00:21.500 --> 00:00:23.839 to overstate his impact. We are talking about 00:00:23.839 --> 00:00:26.379 Cornelius Vanderbilt. The Commodore. The Commodore 00:00:26.379 --> 00:00:29.440 himself. To most people, he is just a name on 00:00:29.440 --> 00:00:32.780 a university or a statue outside a train station. 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:35.899 But if we really dig into the records, the biographies, 00:00:35.939 --> 00:00:38.140 the business ledgers, the court transcripts, 00:00:38.140 --> 00:00:41.399 we find a man who fundamentally reshaped the 00:00:41.399 --> 00:00:43.780 geography of the United States. And the corporate 00:00:43.780 --> 00:00:46.799 economy. He basically invented a certain kind 00:00:46.799 --> 00:00:49.439 of American capitalism. He really did. For better 00:00:49.439 --> 00:00:51.479 or for worse. I want to start with the scale 00:00:51.479 --> 00:00:53.340 of the wealth because I think it really sets 00:00:53.340 --> 00:00:55.609 the stakes for everything else. When he died 00:00:55.609 --> 00:00:59.210 in 1877, his estate was valued at $105 million. 00:00:59.630 --> 00:01:02.250 Right. And that number can be deceptive. It can. 00:01:02.689 --> 00:01:05.930 Because in today's world of tech billionaires 00:01:05.930 --> 00:01:08.310 and trillion -dollar market caps, you might hear 00:01:08.310 --> 00:01:11.549 $105 million and think, OK, that's rich, but... 00:01:11.849 --> 00:01:13.909 Is it that rich? But you can't just run it through 00:01:13.909 --> 00:01:16.030 a standard inflation calculator. That doesn't 00:01:16.030 --> 00:01:18.090 capture the reality of it. So how do we wrap 00:01:18.090 --> 00:01:19.609 our heads around it? The best way is to look 00:01:19.609 --> 00:01:21.909 at it as a share of the nation's gross domestic 00:01:21.909 --> 00:01:25.010 product, the GDP. If you take the percentage 00:01:25.010 --> 00:01:27.150 of the entire U .S. economy that he controlled 00:01:27.150 --> 00:01:30.129 in 1877 and you apply that same proportion to 00:01:30.129 --> 00:01:32.959 today's economy. Well, the numbers get staggering. 00:01:33.140 --> 00:01:35.540 What are we talking about? Some economists estimate 00:01:35.540 --> 00:01:38.560 his fortune would be worth roughly $143 billion. 00:01:39.400 --> 00:01:41.819 Other calculations, depending on the metric you 00:01:41.819 --> 00:01:44.260 use, suggest it could be even higher. So on par 00:01:44.260 --> 00:01:47.099 with the biggest names today. easily. But even 00:01:47.099 --> 00:01:49.439 that doesn't quite get it. At one point, it's 00:01:49.439 --> 00:01:52.439 believed he controlled one out of every $20 in 00:01:52.439 --> 00:01:54.799 circulation in the entire United States. Wait, 00:01:54.859 --> 00:01:57.219 say that again. One out of every $20? One out 00:01:57.219 --> 00:01:59.680 of 20. Think about that. The sheer liquidity, 00:01:59.879 --> 00:02:02.840 the power that gives you, it's almost unimaginable. 00:02:02.980 --> 00:02:05.840 That is absolutely wild. And the mission for 00:02:05.840 --> 00:02:08.060 us today is to figure out how he pulled that 00:02:08.060 --> 00:02:10.780 off. Because he didn't start with a trust fund. 00:02:10.840 --> 00:02:13.199 He wasn't born into some East Coast aristocracy. 00:02:13.319 --> 00:02:15.360 Not even close. So we're going to look at how 00:02:15.360 --> 00:02:18.120 an uneducated boy from Staten Island became a 00:02:18.120 --> 00:02:21.460 steamship tycoon, then a railroad tycoon, and 00:02:21.460 --> 00:02:25.479 along the way earned this. This dual reputation. 00:02:25.680 --> 00:02:27.560 And that is the central tension of his life, 00:02:27.659 --> 00:02:29.939 isn't it? It's what we need to explore deeply. 00:02:30.379 --> 00:02:33.219 Was he a captain of industry who built the essential 00:02:33.219 --> 00:02:36.120 infrastructure of the country? A visionary? Or 00:02:36.120 --> 00:02:39.000 was he a robber baron who bled the economy dry, 00:02:39.280 --> 00:02:41.479 who crushed his competitors without a shred of 00:02:41.479 --> 00:02:44.400 mercy? And the answer seems to be. Yes, he was 00:02:44.400 --> 00:02:47.500 both, often on the same day. Precisely. And what 00:02:47.500 --> 00:02:49.900 makes it so fascinating, to me at least, is the 00:02:49.900 --> 00:02:52.759 contradiction in his career arc. Here is a man 00:02:52.759 --> 00:02:54.860 who spent the first half of his career fighting 00:02:54.860 --> 00:02:57.520 monopolies. Literally fighting them. In court, 00:02:57.620 --> 00:03:00.340 on the water. Right. Battling against government 00:03:00.340 --> 00:03:02.800 -sanctioned exclusivity to break open markets 00:03:02.800 --> 00:03:05.759 for everyone. And then he spends the second half 00:03:05.759 --> 00:03:08.020 of his career trying to build one of the largest, 00:03:08.080 --> 00:03:10.259 most powerful monopolies the world had ever seen. 00:03:10.439 --> 00:03:13.009 So he was the rebel until he won. And then he 00:03:13.009 --> 00:03:14.949 became the empire. In a nutshell, yes. He was 00:03:14.949 --> 00:03:16.909 the insurgent who became the incumbent. It's 00:03:16.909 --> 00:03:19.030 an incredible story. OK, let's unpack this. Let's 00:03:19.030 --> 00:03:21.370 go back to the very beginning. Section one, the 00:03:21.370 --> 00:03:24.389 ferryman's hustle. Where does the Vanderbilt 00:03:24.389 --> 00:03:28.210 story actually start? Because Vanderbilt sounds 00:03:28.210 --> 00:03:32.319 so grand and aristocratic now. But it didn't 00:03:32.319 --> 00:03:34.639 start that way. No, not at all. It's very humble. 00:03:34.719 --> 00:03:37.460 It starts on Staten Island, New York in 1794. 00:03:38.360 --> 00:03:41.080 Cornelius was born to a family with deep Dutch 00:03:41.080 --> 00:03:43.800 roots. Right. The name itself is Dutch. It is. 00:03:43.919 --> 00:03:46.900 His ancestor, Jan Artsen, came from a little 00:03:46.900 --> 00:03:49.560 village in the Netherlands called De Bilt. So 00:03:49.560 --> 00:03:52.120 Vanderbilt literally means from the built. And 00:03:52.120 --> 00:03:54.360 over time, that just smushes together into the 00:03:54.360 --> 00:03:57.219 Americanized Vanderbilt. Correct. Now, his father, 00:03:57.340 --> 00:04:00.479 also named Cornelius, was a ferryman and a farmer. 00:04:01.080 --> 00:04:03.340 The historical record suggests the father was 00:04:03.340 --> 00:04:05.300 a hard worker, but not particularly ambitious. 00:04:05.539 --> 00:04:07.960 He was content. Which is not a word you would 00:04:07.960 --> 00:04:10.539 ever use for a Cornelius. Never. The younger 00:04:10.539 --> 00:04:13.039 Cornelius was wired completely differently. He 00:04:13.039 --> 00:04:15.419 wasn't interested in farming. He certainly wasn't 00:04:15.419 --> 00:04:17.459 interested in schooling. He actually quit school 00:04:17.459 --> 00:04:21.240 at age 11. 11 years old. That is young. I mean, 00:04:21.240 --> 00:04:24.000 even for the late 18th century, that feels significant. 00:04:24.279 --> 00:04:27.139 It was. He had almost no formal education. He 00:04:27.139 --> 00:04:29.379 was barely literate for much of his young life. 00:04:29.600 --> 00:04:33.180 His spelling was atrocious, effectively phonetic. 00:04:33.319 --> 00:04:35.360 You look at his letters and you can almost hear 00:04:35.360 --> 00:04:37.759 him sounding out the words. So he couldn't read 00:04:37.759 --> 00:04:40.430 a classic novel. But he could read other things. 00:04:40.569 --> 00:04:42.230 Oh, he could read the things that mattered for 00:04:42.230 --> 00:04:44.750 his business. He could read the tides, the currents 00:04:44.750 --> 00:04:46.569 and the winds of New York Harbor better than 00:04:46.569 --> 00:04:49.110 anyone else. He went straight to work on his 00:04:49.110 --> 00:04:52.050 father's ferry. And this is where we see that 00:04:52.050 --> 00:04:55.089 drive, that relentless energy appearing almost 00:04:55.089 --> 00:04:57.610 immediately. And this is where we get the famous 00:04:57.610 --> 00:04:59.810 story, which feels almost like a myth at this 00:04:59.810 --> 00:05:02.250 point about how he got his start as an owner. 00:05:02.569 --> 00:05:05.569 Every tycoon seems to have a borrowed -a -dollar 00:05:05.569 --> 00:05:08.569 story. It's a classic piece of American folklore, 00:05:08.750 --> 00:05:11.910 this one. The story goes that at age 16, he wanted 00:05:11.910 --> 00:05:15.589 to buy his own boat, a perry auger. A perry auger. 00:05:15.949 --> 00:05:17.670 Okay, you have to tell me what that is. It sounds 00:05:17.670 --> 00:05:20.490 very exotic. It's not as fancy as it sounds. 00:05:20.629 --> 00:05:23.490 It's a flat -bottomed, two -masted sailing vessel. 00:05:23.730 --> 00:05:25.649 They were all over the harbor at the time because 00:05:25.649 --> 00:05:27.709 they were stable and could carry a lot of cargo 00:05:27.709 --> 00:05:30.610 or passengers. Not glamorous, but very practical. 00:05:30.810 --> 00:05:33.629 Got it. So he wants his own Periager. Though 00:05:33.629 --> 00:05:36.269 legend says he borrowed $100 from his mother, 00:05:36.389 --> 00:05:39.350 Phoebe Hand, to buy a boat he named the Swiftshire. 00:05:39.709 --> 00:05:42.750 And the deal was she'd give him a loan, but he 00:05:42.750 --> 00:05:46.649 had to clear, plow, and seed an eight -acre rocky 00:05:46.649 --> 00:05:50.120 field on his own. A supposedly impossible task. 00:05:50.439 --> 00:05:52.459 But the sources suggest it might not be quite 00:05:52.459 --> 00:05:54.319 that simple, right? Right. The first published 00:05:54.319 --> 00:05:55.959 account of his life, which came out way back 00:05:55.959 --> 00:05:59.199 in 1853, during his lifetime, suggests the boat 00:05:59.199 --> 00:06:01.240 actually belonged to his father. And they split 00:06:01.240 --> 00:06:03.459 the profits. It's a bit more of a family business 00:06:03.459 --> 00:06:05.860 arrangement. Which makes sense. But the other 00:06:05.860 --> 00:06:08.199 story is better. The other story is much better, 00:06:08.319 --> 00:06:11.199 but I think the key insight isn't the accounting, 00:06:11.439 --> 00:06:13.480 you know, whether it was a loan or a partnership, 00:06:13.660 --> 00:06:17.019 it's the attitude. He was working so hard, pushing 00:06:17.019 --> 00:06:20.160 so fast, undercutting his rivals' prices, that 00:06:20.160 --> 00:06:21.959 other captains in the harbor started calling 00:06:21.959 --> 00:06:24.920 him the Commodore. And it wasn't a compliment. 00:06:25.180 --> 00:06:27.819 It was a joke. They were mocking him. Yes, initially. 00:06:28.560 --> 00:06:32.360 Imagine a rough, barely literate 16 -year -old 00:06:32.360 --> 00:06:35.779 kid barking orders, taking his boat out in storms 00:06:35.779 --> 00:06:38.500 that grounded the older sailors, acting like 00:06:38.500 --> 00:06:40.980 he was commanding a naval fleet. They called 00:06:40.980 --> 00:06:43.000 him Commodore to tease him. Look at the little 00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:45.720 Commodore over there. Exactly. But the nickname 00:06:45.720 --> 00:06:47.980 stuck. And eventually, it wasn't a joke anymore. 00:06:48.160 --> 00:06:50.399 It became a title of respect and, frankly, a 00:06:50.399 --> 00:06:53.810 title of fear. I love that. He basically rebranded 00:06:53.810 --> 00:06:56.810 himself through sheer force of will. He owned 00:06:56.810 --> 00:06:59.350 the insult until it became a title. He did. And 00:06:59.350 --> 00:07:01.370 he moved just as fast in his personal life. He 00:07:01.370 --> 00:07:02.930 didn't wait around to start a family either. 00:07:03.050 --> 00:07:05.990 No. At age 19, he marries his first cousin, Sophia 00:07:05.990 --> 00:07:08.629 Johnson. Which, again, was much more common at 00:07:08.629 --> 00:07:11.649 the time. Different times for sure. But Sophia 00:07:11.649 --> 00:07:15.069 is a crucial and I think often overlooked part 00:07:15.069 --> 00:07:17.810 of this early success story. She's not just a 00:07:17.810 --> 00:07:21.290 footnote. She is absolutely essential. While 00:07:21.290 --> 00:07:24.170 Cornelius was out on the water obsessively reinvesting 00:07:24.170 --> 00:07:26.589 every penny of profit into more boats and business 00:07:26.589 --> 00:07:29.589 ventures, Sophia was running the domestic and 00:07:29.589 --> 00:07:31.850 economic engine at home. And they had a huge 00:07:31.850 --> 00:07:34.730 family. A massive family. Thirteen children in 00:07:34.730 --> 00:07:37.490 total, twelve of whom lived to adulthood. That 00:07:37.490 --> 00:07:39.970 is a small army to support. And that costs money. 00:07:40.740 --> 00:07:42.759 Serious money. It does. And the sources say that 00:07:42.759 --> 00:07:44.319 when they moved to New Brunswick, New Jersey 00:07:44.319 --> 00:07:47.100 for one of his business ventures, Sophia operated 00:07:47.100 --> 00:07:50.620 a very profitable inn called Bologna Hall. It 00:07:50.620 --> 00:07:53.259 was known for its food, its cleanliness, and 00:07:53.259 --> 00:07:55.199 the proceeds from that inn were used to feed, 00:07:55.379 --> 00:07:58.339 clothe, and educate those 12 children. So wait 00:07:58.339 --> 00:08:00.300 a minute. She was covering the overhead of the 00:08:00.300 --> 00:08:02.560 entire family with her own business. That's the 00:08:02.560 --> 00:08:04.939 crucial part. This is a huge strategic advantage 00:08:04.939 --> 00:08:07.750 for him. Because Sophia was covering the family's 00:08:07.750 --> 00:08:10.269 living expenses, Cornelius didn't have to draw 00:08:10.269 --> 00:08:12.589 a salary from his boat business to buy groceries 00:08:12.589 --> 00:08:15.069 or shoes for the kids. He could take every single 00:08:15.069 --> 00:08:18.310 cent of profit. Every cent. And plow it right 00:08:18.310 --> 00:08:20.810 back into buying more boats, expanding his routes. 00:08:20.949 --> 00:08:23.550 It was like having an angel investor living in 00:08:23.550 --> 00:08:25.649 your house, funding your life so you could fund 00:08:25.649 --> 00:08:28.370 your business. That puts a whole new spin on 00:08:28.370 --> 00:08:31.470 the self -made man narrative. He had a partner 00:08:31.470 --> 00:08:33.909 who was... Effectively subsidizing his capital 00:08:33.909 --> 00:08:36.549 expenditure from day one. Precisely. And that 00:08:36.549 --> 00:08:39.110 capital accumulation, that ability to reinvest 00:08:39.110 --> 00:08:42.110 everything, allowed him to make his first really 00:08:42.110 --> 00:08:45.929 big pivot. In 1817, he made a move that confused 00:08:45.929 --> 00:08:48.509 a lot of people. He stopped working for himself 00:08:48.509 --> 00:08:50.870 and went to work for a man named Thomas Gibbons. 00:08:51.250 --> 00:08:54.250 This is section two, the monopoly breaker. And 00:08:54.250 --> 00:08:56.649 it starts with this strange move. Why would a 00:08:56.649 --> 00:08:58.750 guy with an ego like the Commodore go work for 00:08:58.750 --> 00:09:01.809 a boss? Because he saw the future. And the future 00:09:01.809 --> 00:09:04.710 was steam. Vanderbilt had been a sailing man. 00:09:04.970 --> 00:09:08.029 He was an expert with wind and tide. But Thomas 00:09:08.029 --> 00:09:10.269 Gibbons offered him a chance to captain a steamboat. 00:09:10.669 --> 00:09:12.870 This was the new technology. It was dangerous, 00:09:13.070 --> 00:09:15.250 boilers could explode, but it was powerful. And 00:09:15.250 --> 00:09:16.909 it wasn't just about the technology, was it? 00:09:17.049 --> 00:09:19.629 Gibbons was in a fight. Gibbons was in a war. 00:09:20.009 --> 00:09:22.590 At the time, the waters of New York were completely 00:09:22.590 --> 00:09:25.909 locked down by a monopoly held by the heirs of 00:09:25.909 --> 00:09:28.730 Robert Fulton, the inventor of the steamboat. 00:09:29.100 --> 00:09:32.399 and a powerful politician named Robert Livingston. 00:09:32.600 --> 00:09:35.320 So Robert Fulton invents the steamboat, and the 00:09:35.320 --> 00:09:37.679 state basically gives him and his partner the 00:09:37.679 --> 00:09:39.940 exclusive right to use it. Effectively, yes. 00:09:40.100 --> 00:09:42.860 The New York legislature granted them the exclusive 00:09:42.860 --> 00:09:45.860 right to operate steamboats in all New York waters 00:09:45.860 --> 00:09:48.700 for a term of years. They had licensed a man 00:09:48.700 --> 00:09:51.200 named Aaron Ogden to run the lucrative ferry 00:09:51.200 --> 00:09:53.860 route between New York and New Jersey. And Thomas 00:09:53.860 --> 00:09:56.159 Gibbons wanted it. Gibbons wanted to break that 00:09:56.159 --> 00:09:58.840 monopoly mostly because he had a personal vendetta 00:09:58.840 --> 00:10:01.539 against Ogden. It was a long, bitter rivalry. 00:10:01.879 --> 00:10:04.659 He wanted to drive Ogden into bankruptcy. I love 00:10:04.659 --> 00:10:06.659 that so much of this history is driven by spite. 00:10:06.820 --> 00:10:08.639 It's not just business. It's deeply personal. 00:10:08.840 --> 00:10:11.299 So where does Vanderbilt fit into this? Is he 00:10:11.299 --> 00:10:13.720 just driving the boat? He starts as the captain 00:10:13.720 --> 00:10:16.059 of Gibbons's boat, the Bologna, but he very quickly 00:10:16.059 --> 00:10:18.200 becomes the business manager, the general on 00:10:18.200 --> 00:10:20.360 the ground. And he attacks this job with this 00:10:20.360 --> 00:10:22.419 aggressive creativity. He was running at sort 00:10:22.419 --> 00:10:24.700 of guerrilla warfare on the water. What do you 00:10:24.700 --> 00:10:27.450 mean by that? Well, because what they were doing 00:10:27.450 --> 00:10:29.990 was technically illegal in New York, Vanderbilt 00:10:29.990 --> 00:10:32.769 had to dodge process servers from Ogden's company 00:10:32.769 --> 00:10:35.309 who were trying to arrest him and impound the 00:10:35.309 --> 00:10:37.470 boat. So he's basically a blockade runner in 00:10:37.470 --> 00:10:40.529 his own harbor. He is. He devised secret hiding 00:10:40.529 --> 00:10:43.070 spots on the boat, a hidden locker he could slip 00:10:43.070 --> 00:10:46.549 into. He would drop passengers off at nonstandard 00:10:46.549 --> 00:10:49.929 docks to avoid the authorities. He flew a flag 00:10:49.929 --> 00:10:53.710 that said New Jersey must be free. It was this 00:10:53.710 --> 00:10:56.629 constant cat and mouse game. He was clearly thriving 00:10:56.629 --> 00:10:59.330 on the conflict. Absolutely. But while Vanderbilt 00:10:59.330 --> 00:11:02.049 was the muscle on the water, the real fight escalated 00:11:02.049 --> 00:11:05.029 all the way to the Supreme Court. This becomes 00:11:05.029 --> 00:11:08.169 the famous case. Gibbons V. Ogden. Vanderbilt 00:11:08.169 --> 00:11:10.370 wasn't the lawyer, obviously. No, but he was 00:11:10.370 --> 00:11:12.549 deeply involved in the strategy. He actually 00:11:12.549 --> 00:11:15.230 went down to Washington, D .C. himself. He helped 00:11:15.230 --> 00:11:17.169 hire Daniel Webster, who was the most famous 00:11:17.169 --> 00:11:19.210 order and lawyer of the day, to argue the case. 00:11:19.850 --> 00:11:21.789 Vanderbilt knew they needed the heavy artillery. 00:11:22.149 --> 00:11:23.950 And what was the legal argument? The argument 00:11:23.950 --> 00:11:27.279 was simple but profound. Does a state like New 00:11:27.279 --> 00:11:29.940 York have the right to grant a monopoly on commerce 00:11:29.940 --> 00:11:32.799 that crosses state lines? Or does that power 00:11:32.799 --> 00:11:35.039 belong to the federal government under the Commerce 00:11:35.039 --> 00:11:37.379 Clause of the Constitution? And what was the 00:11:37.379 --> 00:11:41.159 verdict? In 1824, the Supreme Court, led by Chief 00:11:41.159 --> 00:11:44.179 Justice John Marshall, ruled decisively in Gibbons' 00:11:44.299 --> 00:11:47.080 favor. They said that states had no power to 00:11:47.080 --> 00:11:49.679 interfere with interstate commerce. Only the 00:11:49.679 --> 00:11:51.860 federal government could regulate that. Now, 00:11:51.919 --> 00:11:53.980 this sounds like a dry legal rolling, but this 00:11:53.980 --> 00:11:56.159 is a massive deal for the American economy, right? 00:11:56.240 --> 00:11:58.860 It's arguably the legal bedrock of the modern 00:11:58.860 --> 00:12:01.019 American economy. It meant that you could do 00:12:01.019 --> 00:12:03.320 business across state lines without getting blocked 00:12:03.320 --> 00:12:06.360 by local monopolies or protectionist laws. It 00:12:06.360 --> 00:12:08.080 turned the United States... from a collection 00:12:08.080 --> 00:12:11.080 of separate state markets into one giant, unified 00:12:11.080 --> 00:12:13.899 free market. And Vanderbilt, by fighting this 00:12:13.899 --> 00:12:17.740 very personal, spite -fueled battle, helped create 00:12:17.740 --> 00:12:19.980 that precedent. He was there at the creation. 00:12:20.179 --> 00:12:22.600 He helped unlock the competitive interstate commerce 00:12:22.600 --> 00:12:25.179 that would drive American prosperity for the 00:12:25.179 --> 00:12:27.440 next century. So the Commodore helps break the 00:12:27.440 --> 00:12:30.620 monopoly. Gibbons eventually dies. What does 00:12:30.620 --> 00:12:33.460 Vanderbilt do next? Does he stick with the company? 00:12:33.700 --> 00:12:36.669 He runs it for Gibbons' son for a bit. But by 00:12:36.669 --> 00:12:40.190 1829, he's ready. He strikes out entirely on 00:12:40.190 --> 00:12:42.570 his own. He takes his knowledge of steam, his 00:12:42.570 --> 00:12:45.169 accumulated capital, and his ferocious reputation, 00:12:45.509 --> 00:12:48.629 and he starts his own lines. And here is where 00:12:48.629 --> 00:12:51.590 we see his signature tactic really develop. The 00:12:51.590 --> 00:12:54.419 Price War. This is where the... robber baron 00:12:54.419 --> 00:12:56.539 versus captain of industry debate gets really 00:12:56.539 --> 00:12:59.679 interesting it really does in 1834 he decides 00:12:59.679 --> 00:13:02.139 to go after the hudson river steamboat association 00:13:02.139 --> 00:13:05.000 this was a new monopoly a cartel really running 00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:07.879 the route between new york city and albany they 00:13:07.879 --> 00:13:09.759 thought they had the route locked down and then 00:13:09.759 --> 00:13:11.940 vanderbilt shows up and vanderbilt shows up he 00:13:11.940 --> 00:13:13.919 launches a rival service called the people's 00:13:13.919 --> 00:13:16.259 line the people's line i mean the marketing is 00:13:16.259 --> 00:13:19.659 just brilliant so populous it was very intentional 00:13:19.659 --> 00:13:22.120 he's channeling the spirit of andrew jackson 00:13:22.120 --> 00:13:24.679 framing him himself as the champion of the common 00:13:24.679 --> 00:13:27.279 man against the greedy elites, the monopolists. 00:13:27.519 --> 00:13:30.419 And his weapon was price. The association was 00:13:30.419 --> 00:13:33.080 charging $3 for a ticket. Which was a decent 00:13:33.080 --> 00:13:36.039 amount of money back then. A fair bit. So Vanderbilt 00:13:36.039 --> 00:13:39.240 comes in and drops the price to $1. The association 00:13:39.240 --> 00:13:42.299 matches him. Vanderbilt drops it to 10 cents. 00:13:42.559 --> 00:13:44.860 10 cents. How do you even make money on 10 cents 00:13:44.860 --> 00:13:47.299 a ticket? Eventually he dropped it to zero. Free 00:13:47.299 --> 00:13:50.139 passage. Okay, now you're losing me. How is a 00:13:50.139 --> 00:13:52.480 business sustainable if the product is literally 00:13:52.480 --> 00:13:55.519 free? There has to be a catch. It's the original 00:13:55.519 --> 00:13:58.220 concession stand model. He packed the boat with 00:13:58.220 --> 00:14:00.500 people who were thrilled to ride for free, but 00:14:00.500 --> 00:14:02.320 he charged them for the food and drinks sold 00:14:02.320 --> 00:14:04.580 on board. Oh, that's clever. He made a profit 00:14:04.580 --> 00:14:07.620 on the huge volume of food sales, while the competition 00:14:07.620 --> 00:14:10.740 who had high overhead, fewer passengers, and 00:14:10.740 --> 00:14:13.539 no real food strategy was just bleeding cash 00:14:13.539 --> 00:14:17.120 on every trip. That is genius and absolutely 00:14:17.120 --> 00:14:19.820 brutal. It destroyed the association's margins. 00:14:20.120 --> 00:14:22.379 They couldn't compete. Eventually, the monopoly 00:14:22.379 --> 00:14:25.159 gave up. They came to him and paid him a large 00:14:25.159 --> 00:14:28.440 lump sum and an annual stipend just to stop competing 00:14:28.440 --> 00:14:30.240 on their river. Wait, so they paid him to go 00:14:30.240 --> 00:14:33.490 away. They bribed their competitor. Yes. This 00:14:33.490 --> 00:14:35.610 is a tactic that would later be called greenmail. 00:14:36.529 --> 00:14:39.450 He proved he could destroy their profits, so 00:14:39.450 --> 00:14:41.409 it was cheaper for them to just buy him out. 00:14:41.590 --> 00:14:44.190 He took their money, agreed to leave the Hudson 00:14:44.190 --> 00:14:46.750 River route, and promptly moved all his operations 00:14:46.750 --> 00:14:49.370 to the Long Island Sound. And I'm guessing he 00:14:49.370 --> 00:14:51.669 did the same thing there. He did the exact same 00:14:51.669 --> 00:14:55.070 thing there. By the 1840s, he dominated the Sound 00:14:55.070 --> 00:14:57.149 and started taking over the connecting railroads, 00:14:57.250 --> 00:14:59.590 too. He was building an integrated transportation 00:14:59.590 --> 00:15:03.440 network. So if you're a regular person, a passenger, 00:15:03.620 --> 00:15:07.159 you love Vanderbilt. He's making travel affordable 00:15:07.159 --> 00:15:09.159 for the first time. You love him. He's driving 00:15:09.159 --> 00:15:11.399 down prices. He's making it possible for people 00:15:11.399 --> 00:15:13.720 to move around the country cheaply. That's the 00:15:13.720 --> 00:15:16.539 core of the captain of industry argument. But 00:15:16.539 --> 00:15:18.960 if you're his competitor, he's a monster. He's 00:15:18.960 --> 00:15:21.019 a predator who exists to destroy your business 00:15:21.019 --> 00:15:24.039 and then get paid off. Exactly. He democratized 00:15:24.039 --> 00:15:26.259 travel through ruthless aggression. He created 00:15:26.259 --> 00:15:28.600 value for the consumer by destroying the value 00:15:28.600 --> 00:15:31.059 of his rivals. It's a complex legacy. And all 00:15:31.059 --> 00:15:33.259 this time, he's just building a massive pile 00:15:33.259 --> 00:15:37.899 of cash. And then 1849 hits, the gold rush. This 00:15:37.899 --> 00:15:40.679 changes everything. This is the next major chapter, 00:15:40.799 --> 00:15:44.230 and it takes him onto the world stage. Gold is 00:15:44.230 --> 00:15:47.210 discovered at Sutter's Mill in California. Suddenly, 00:15:47.289 --> 00:15:49.990 the entire East Coast wants to get to the West 00:15:49.990 --> 00:15:52.289 Coast. And there's no easy way to do it. No. 00:15:52.590 --> 00:15:54.809 There's no cross -country railroad yet. That's 00:15:54.809 --> 00:15:56.889 decades away. You have two terrible options. 00:15:57.070 --> 00:15:59.350 You can go overland by wagon, which is incredibly 00:15:59.350 --> 00:16:02.549 dangerous and takes months, or you go by ship. 00:16:02.809 --> 00:16:05.690 Most people went to Panama, crossed the disease 00:16:05.690 --> 00:16:07.830 -ridden isthmus on mules through the jungle, 00:16:07.970 --> 00:16:10.070 and then took another ship up to San Francisco. 00:16:10.110 --> 00:16:12.879 But Vanderbilt looks at a map. and sees something 00:16:12.879 --> 00:16:15.580 else. He sees Nicaragua. He notices that it's 00:16:15.580 --> 00:16:17.779 significantly closer to the U .S. than Panama. 00:16:17.980 --> 00:16:19.919 And he has a bold idea. He thinks he can build 00:16:19.919 --> 00:16:22.860 a canal there. A canal? Long before the Panama 00:16:22.860 --> 00:16:25.860 Canal was even a serious proposal. Yes. He actually 00:16:25.860 --> 00:16:27.480 got a charter from the Nicaraguan government 00:16:27.480 --> 00:16:29.600 to build one. But the engineering challenges 00:16:29.600 --> 00:16:32.779 were immense. And more importantly, the funding 00:16:32.779 --> 00:16:35.080 wasn't there yet. The investors were too scared. 00:16:35.240 --> 00:16:38.600 So he pivots. He pivots brilliantly. He launches 00:16:38.600 --> 00:16:40.740 a company called the Accessory Transit Company. 00:16:41.320 --> 00:16:44.240 He used ocean steamships to get passengers to 00:16:44.240 --> 00:16:47.500 the Caribbean side of Nicaragua. Then they would 00:16:47.500 --> 00:16:50.220 take smaller, custom -built steamboats up the 00:16:50.220 --> 00:16:53.340 San Juan River and across the vast Lake Nicaragua. 00:16:53.879 --> 00:16:56.980 Then a short 12 -mile carriage ride on a road 00:16:56.980 --> 00:16:59.360 he built to the Pacific Ocean and another one 00:16:59.360 --> 00:17:01.559 of his ships up to San Francisco. Was it faster 00:17:01.559 --> 00:17:03.899 than the Panama Route? It cut two days off the 00:17:03.899 --> 00:17:06.440 journey and was significantly cheaper. He absolutely 00:17:06.440 --> 00:17:09.200 cornered the market on gold rush travel. The 00:17:09.200 --> 00:17:11.400 sources say he was personally making over a million 00:17:11.400 --> 00:17:13.960 dollars a year in 1850s money just from this 00:17:13.960 --> 00:17:16.799 one route. A million a year. That's an astronomical 00:17:16.799 --> 00:17:19.299 sum. It made him one of the richest men in America. 00:17:19.579 --> 00:17:21.640 And this is where we get into some serious international 00:17:21.640 --> 00:17:24.339 intrigue. Because while Vanderbilt is making 00:17:24.339 --> 00:17:26.740 this fortune, he decides to take a victory lap. 00:17:26.940 --> 00:17:31.369 A big one. He does. In 1853, he built a massive 00:17:31.369 --> 00:17:34.549 steamship yacht called the North Star. It was 00:17:34.549 --> 00:17:38.130 270 feet long, larger than many Navy vessels. 00:17:38.849 --> 00:17:41.269 He packed up his entire family, and even his 00:17:41.269 --> 00:17:43.609 pastor, and took them on a grand tour of Europe. 00:17:43.869 --> 00:17:46.490 It was this unprecedented display of American 00:17:46.490 --> 00:17:48.950 wealth. He was showing off to the monarchies 00:17:48.950 --> 00:17:51.240 of Europe. But while the cat's away... The mice 00:17:51.240 --> 00:17:54.019 will play. His partners in the accessory transit 00:17:54.019 --> 00:17:56.839 company men he trusted, Charles Morgan and Cornelius 00:17:56.839 --> 00:17:59.279 Garrison, conspired against him while he was 00:17:59.279 --> 00:18:02.079 gone. They manipulated the stock, they forged 00:18:02.079 --> 00:18:04.279 board meeting minutes, and they denied him the 00:18:04.279 --> 00:18:06.420 payments he was owed from the company. They basically 00:18:06.420 --> 00:18:08.599 stole it from him while he was meeting with the 00:18:08.599 --> 00:18:10.980 Tsar in Russia. Oh, that is a big mistake. You 00:18:10.980 --> 00:18:13.480 do not steal from the Commodore. No, you do not. 00:18:13.579 --> 00:18:15.619 When Vanderbilt returned and found out what had 00:18:15.619 --> 00:18:17.980 happened, his response was just legendary. He 00:18:17.980 --> 00:18:20.200 didn't scream or shout. He wrote a letter to 00:18:20.200 --> 00:18:21.839 him. them it's one of the most famous letters 00:18:21.839 --> 00:18:23.819 in american business history what did it say 00:18:23.819 --> 00:18:26.859 it was short and to the point it read gentlemen 00:18:26.859 --> 00:18:30.200 you have undertaken to cheat me i won't sue you 00:18:30.200 --> 00:18:33.279 for the law is too slow i'll ruin you yours truly 00:18:33.279 --> 00:18:36.299 cornelius vanderbilt that gives me chills the 00:18:36.299 --> 00:18:38.960 law is too slow i'll ruin you And did he? He 00:18:38.960 --> 00:18:41.640 absolutely did. He didn't sue. He launched a 00:18:41.640 --> 00:18:44.259 rival steamship line to California via Panama 00:18:44.259 --> 00:18:47.259 this time. He slashed prices again, bleeding 00:18:47.259 --> 00:18:49.140 their profits until their stock was worthless. 00:18:49.339 --> 00:18:52.180 But the conflict in Nicaragua got even messier. 00:18:52.380 --> 00:18:54.339 And this is where a guy named William Walker 00:18:54.339 --> 00:18:56.240 enters the picture. Yes, this is the part of 00:18:56.240 --> 00:18:58.420 the story that just sounds like a crazy action 00:18:58.420 --> 00:19:01.460 movie. Who is William Walker? William Walker 00:19:01.460 --> 00:19:04.730 was an American filibuster. Now, in the 19th 00:19:04.730 --> 00:19:06.730 century, that word didn't mean talking for a 00:19:06.730 --> 00:19:09.450 long time in the Senate. It meant a private military 00:19:09.450 --> 00:19:12.730 adventurer, a mercenary leader. Okay. Walker 00:19:12.730 --> 00:19:15.549 took a small mercenary army to Nicaragua, got 00:19:15.549 --> 00:19:17.650 involved in a civil war, and essentially took 00:19:17.650 --> 00:19:20.170 over the government. He declared himself president 00:19:20.170 --> 00:19:22.529 of Nicaragua. You just took over a country, an 00:19:22.529 --> 00:19:25.329 American citizen. Briefly, yes. It was part of 00:19:25.329 --> 00:19:29.069 this whole manifest destiny ideology. And Vanderbilt's 00:19:29.069 --> 00:19:31.589 old rivals, Morgan and Garrison, they saw an 00:19:31.589 --> 00:19:34.019 opportunity. They bribed Walker. They gave him 00:19:34.019 --> 00:19:37.200 cash and logistical support. In exchange, Walker 00:19:37.200 --> 00:19:39.779 annulled Vanderbilt's original charter and seized 00:19:39.779 --> 00:19:41.819 all of his boats and properties in Nicaragua. 00:19:42.000 --> 00:19:46.220 So now Vanderbilt has lost his company to a military 00:19:46.220 --> 00:19:49.680 dictator who is being bankrolled by his business 00:19:49.680 --> 00:19:52.079 enemies. Exactly. Most businessmen would just 00:19:52.079 --> 00:19:54.180 write off the loss at this point. It's a foreign 00:19:54.180 --> 00:19:57.240 country. There's been a military coup. What can 00:19:57.240 --> 00:19:59.660 you do? But this is Cornelius Vanderbilt. So 00:19:59.660 --> 00:20:02.660 he declares his own private war. He tried to 00:20:02.660 --> 00:20:04.640 get the US and British governments to intervene, 00:20:04.839 --> 00:20:08.539 but they were hesitant to get involved. So Vanderbilt 00:20:08.539 --> 00:20:11.039 went rogue. What did he do? He partnered with 00:20:11.039 --> 00:20:13.259 the government of Costa Rica, which was already 00:20:13.259 --> 00:20:16.420 fighting Walker's regime. Vanderbilt then sent 00:20:16.420 --> 00:20:19.900 a secret agent. A tough, resourceful guy named 00:20:19.900 --> 00:20:22.980 Sylvanus Spencer to lead a raid. A raid, like 00:20:22.980 --> 00:20:25.539 a special forces operation. Very much so. Spencer 00:20:25.539 --> 00:20:27.700 knew the river. He knew exactly where the steamboats 00:20:27.700 --> 00:20:29.960 were docked. He led a small unit of Costa Rican 00:20:29.960 --> 00:20:32.539 commandos up the San Juan River. They moved by 00:20:32.539 --> 00:20:34.920 night, and they captured the steamboats one by 00:20:34.920 --> 00:20:37.380 one, often without firing a shot. Why capture 00:20:37.380 --> 00:20:39.480 the boats? Why not just attack Walker's army 00:20:39.480 --> 00:20:42.000 directly? Logistics. It's always about logistics 00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:44.680 with Vanderbilt. He knew that Walker's army relied 00:20:44.680 --> 00:20:47.369 on a steady stream of fresh recruits and... supplies 00:20:47.369 --> 00:20:50.210 coming from the U .S. Those recruits traveled 00:20:50.210 --> 00:20:53.410 on those very steamboats. Ah, so by capturing 00:20:53.410 --> 00:20:56.009 the boats. He cut off Walker's supply line completely. 00:20:56.390 --> 00:20:59.029 No more recruits, no more ammunition, no more 00:20:59.029 --> 00:21:01.910 food. He strangled the regime from the river. 00:21:02.049 --> 00:21:04.069 He didn't attack the army. He attacked its supply 00:21:04.069 --> 00:21:06.789 chain. He did. Walker was isolated and eventually 00:21:06.789 --> 00:21:08.849 his government collapsed. He was driven out of 00:21:08.849 --> 00:21:12.170 Nicaragua. Vanderbilt, a private American citizen, 00:21:12.509 --> 00:21:15.009 effectively defeated a foreign government using 00:21:15.009 --> 00:21:18.069 logistics and business strategy. That is unbelievable. 00:21:18.289 --> 00:21:20.890 It really highlights that for Vanderbilt, transportation 00:21:20.890 --> 00:21:23.150 wasn't just about moving people from A to B. 00:21:23.250 --> 00:21:26.170 It was about power. If you control the bottleneck, 00:21:26.190 --> 00:21:28.789 you control the outcome. Exactly right. And in 00:21:28.789 --> 00:21:31.650 a final ironic twist, even after winning, he 00:21:31.650 --> 00:21:33.710 decided the Nicaraguan route was too politically 00:21:33.710 --> 00:21:36.930 unstable. So ever the pragmatist, he switched 00:21:36.930 --> 00:21:39.750 his focus, took over the Panama monopoly, and 00:21:39.750 --> 00:21:42.150 forced the existing Panama lines to pay him a 00:21:42.150 --> 00:21:45.210 massive monthly non -compete fee just to stay 00:21:45.210 --> 00:21:47.410 out of the market. So he was getting paid not 00:21:47.410 --> 00:21:51.269 to work. The ultimate passive income. A masterstroke. 00:21:51.589 --> 00:21:54.309 Okay, so this brings us into the 1860s. The Civil 00:21:54.309 --> 00:21:57.170 War breaks out. Vanderbilt is getting older now. 00:21:57.369 --> 00:22:00.369 He's in his late 60s. How does the war affect 00:22:00.369 --> 00:22:03.069 him and his empire? It was a period that brought 00:22:03.069 --> 00:22:06.130 out a strange mix of patriotism and ultimately 00:22:06.130 --> 00:22:10.029 profound personal tragedy for him. In 1861, at 00:22:10.029 --> 00:22:12.630 the start of the war, the Union Navy was scrambling 00:22:12.630 --> 00:22:15.630 for ships to blockade the South. Vanderbilt owned 00:22:15.630 --> 00:22:17.549 the largest and fastest steamship in the country, 00:22:17.690 --> 00:22:19.789 the Vanderbilt. He tried to donate it to the 00:22:19.789 --> 00:22:21.970 Union, maybe. A very generous gift. You would 00:22:21.970 --> 00:22:24.750 think. But initially, the Secretary of the Navy, 00:22:24.950 --> 00:22:27.549 Gideon Wells, actually rejected it. He thought 00:22:27.549 --> 00:22:29.890 the ship was too large, too luxurious, and would 00:22:29.890 --> 00:22:31.869 be too expensive to maintain and operate with 00:22:31.869 --> 00:22:34.589 coal. He basically said, no thanks, we don't 00:22:34.589 --> 00:22:36.910 want your giant white elephant. That had to sting 00:22:36.910 --> 00:22:39.329 the Commodore's ego. Oh, it did. It was a huge 00:22:39.329 --> 00:22:42.450 public embarrassment. Until, that is, the Confederates 00:22:42.450 --> 00:22:44.910 changed the game. They launched the CSS Virginia, 00:22:45.269 --> 00:22:47.109 the ship more famously known as the Merrimack. 00:22:47.289 --> 00:22:49.380 It was an iron... clad warship and it caused 00:22:49.380 --> 00:22:52.619 panic absolute panic it sailed out and started 00:22:52.619 --> 00:22:55.140 destroying the union's wooden ships like they 00:22:55.140 --> 00:22:58.640 were toys the north was terrified the ship was 00:22:58.640 --> 00:23:01.920 seemingly invincible and suddenly a giant fast 00:23:01.920 --> 00:23:05.059 steamship looked pretty good to the Navy. All 00:23:05.059 --> 00:23:07.099 of a sudden, Abraham Lincoln and the War Department 00:23:07.099 --> 00:23:09.720 were personally appealing to Vanderbilt for help. 00:23:09.920 --> 00:23:12.400 He took the Vanderbilt, had its bow reinforced 00:23:12.400 --> 00:23:14.980 with iron to turn it into a massive battering 00:23:14.980 --> 00:23:17.579 ram, and filled the boilers with high -grade 00:23:17.579 --> 00:23:20.940 fuel. He even hand -picked the officers. The 00:23:20.940 --> 00:23:23.599 ship was sent to hunt the ironclad. Did it ever 00:23:23.599 --> 00:23:25.670 fight the Merrimack? They never had a direct 00:23:25.670 --> 00:23:28.329 confrontation, but its presence helped bottle 00:23:28.329 --> 00:23:30.750 up the Confederate ironclad, preventing it from 00:23:30.750 --> 00:23:33.569 terrorizing the rest of the coast. Later in the 00:23:33.569 --> 00:23:36.009 war, the Vanderbilt was sent on a long chase 00:23:36.009 --> 00:23:38.650 to hunt the very successful Confederate raider 00:23:38.650 --> 00:23:42.029 Alabama. For his contribution, Congress awarded 00:23:42.029 --> 00:23:44.690 him the Congressional Gold Medal. The highest 00:23:44.690 --> 00:23:47.309 civilian honor. It was. So he goes from being 00:23:47.309 --> 00:23:49.650 scorned by the Navy to being celebrated as a 00:23:49.650 --> 00:23:51.890 national hero. But you mentioned tragedy. This 00:23:51.890 --> 00:23:53.630 wasn't a triumphant time for him personally. 00:23:54.079 --> 00:23:57.460 No, it was devastating. While he was managing 00:23:57.460 --> 00:24:00.400 all this, his personal life completely collapsed. 00:24:00.839 --> 00:24:03.980 His youngest and favorite son was George Washington 00:24:03.980 --> 00:24:07.059 Vanderbilt II. And why was he the favorite? George 00:24:07.059 --> 00:24:09.619 was everything the Commodore valued. He was a 00:24:09.619 --> 00:24:11.880 West Point graduate. He was strong, disciplined, 00:24:12.180 --> 00:24:15.000 athletic. The Commodore saw himself in George, 00:24:15.160 --> 00:24:17.200 or at least the idealized version of himself 00:24:17.200 --> 00:24:20.480 that he wanted to see. He saw George as the heir 00:24:20.480 --> 00:24:22.900 apparent, the one with the strength and fortitude 00:24:22.900 --> 00:24:25.180 to carry on the empire. But George gets sick. 00:24:25.559 --> 00:24:28.559 He contracts an illness, probably tuberculosis, 00:24:28.660 --> 00:24:30.960 and dies during the war without ever seeing a 00:24:30.960 --> 00:24:32.859 day of combat. That must have just crushed him. 00:24:33.039 --> 00:24:36.039 It broke him. It fundamentally changed his view 00:24:36.039 --> 00:24:39.259 of his own legacy and his succession plans. Because 00:24:39.259 --> 00:24:41.180 up until this point, he had always viewed his 00:24:41.180 --> 00:24:44.119 eldest son, William, known as Billy, as a total 00:24:44.119 --> 00:24:45.940 disappointment. Which is funny because Billy 00:24:45.940 --> 00:24:47.960 ends up being a business titan in his own right. 00:24:48.319 --> 00:24:51.559 He does. But early on, Billy was quiet. He was 00:24:51.559 --> 00:24:53.700 anxious. He wasn't this larger -than -life figure. 00:24:54.480 --> 00:24:57.460 Vanderbilt called him a blockhead and a blatherskite. 00:24:57.559 --> 00:25:00.400 A blatherskite. Yeah. I love these old insults. 00:25:00.420 --> 00:25:03.640 He famously exiled Billy to a farm on Staten 00:25:03.640 --> 00:25:06.200 Island and basically told him to make a living 00:25:06.200 --> 00:25:08.299 digging in the dirt because he wasn't fit for 00:25:08.299 --> 00:25:10.400 real business. Go farm, Billy. You're no good 00:25:10.400 --> 00:25:13.549 at capitalism. Essentially. But what the Commodore 00:25:13.549 --> 00:25:16.289 didn't realize or didn't want to see was that 00:25:16.289 --> 00:25:18.910 Billy had turned that farm into a massively profitable 00:25:18.910 --> 00:25:22.069 enterprise. He was a meticulous accountant and 00:25:22.069 --> 00:25:25.230 a great manager. With George gone, the Commodore 00:25:25.230 --> 00:25:28.009 had no choice but to pivot his legacy to Billy. 00:25:28.289 --> 00:25:30.990 He started bringing Billy into the inner circle. 00:25:31.269 --> 00:25:33.710 And speaking of pivots, this leads us to the 00:25:33.710 --> 00:25:36.750 most surprising business move of his entire life. 00:25:36.890 --> 00:25:39.329 The Great Pivot. I love that term for it. The 00:25:39.329 --> 00:25:42.930 year is 1864. Vanderbilt is 70 years old. Most 00:25:42.930 --> 00:25:44.990 men are dead or have been retired for decades. 00:25:45.450 --> 00:25:48.289 And Vanderbilt decides to sell his ships, all 00:25:48.289 --> 00:25:51.190 of them, his entire steamship empire. He's the 00:25:51.190 --> 00:25:53.309 undisputed king of steamships. Why would he sell? 00:25:53.430 --> 00:25:55.670 He saw the future again. And the future was rail. 00:25:55.849 --> 00:25:57.769 He realized that while ships were profitable, 00:25:57.950 --> 00:26:00.049 the railroads were the essential arteries of 00:26:00.049 --> 00:26:02.150 the coming industrial economy. They could run 00:26:02.150 --> 00:26:04.390 year round. They were faster. They could go places 00:26:04.390 --> 00:26:07.329 ships couldn't. So he started buying railroads. 00:26:07.490 --> 00:26:10.799 At 70 years old. That's like a tech billionaire 00:26:10.799 --> 00:26:14.299 today deciding at age 70 to switch from software 00:26:14.299 --> 00:26:17.599 to, I don't know, asteroid mining. It's a completely 00:26:17.599 --> 00:26:19.839 different industry with different rules. It was 00:26:19.839 --> 00:26:22.500 a massive, massive risk. And he started with 00:26:22.500 --> 00:26:25.160 a railroad that Wall Street considered absolute 00:26:25.160 --> 00:26:29.279 garbage. The New York and Harlem Railroad. Why 00:26:29.279 --> 00:26:31.680 was it considered garbage? It didn't go anywhere 00:26:31.680 --> 00:26:34.420 important, really. It didn't connect to a major 00:26:34.420 --> 00:26:37.180 city like Chicago or Albany. It just went north 00:26:37.180 --> 00:26:39.519 from Manhattan into the countryside. It was seen 00:26:39.519 --> 00:26:42.619 as a little commuter line for farmers. Worthless. 00:26:42.740 --> 00:26:45.180 But Vanderbilt saw something nobody else valued 00:26:45.180 --> 00:26:47.900 enough. He saw one thing. The Charter. What was 00:26:47.900 --> 00:26:49.880 so special about the Charter? It was the only 00:26:49.880 --> 00:26:52.759 steam railroad that had the legal right to enter 00:26:52.759 --> 00:26:55.400 the center of Manhattan. Its tracks ran down 00:26:55.400 --> 00:26:57.880 4th Avenue, which is now Park Avenue, all the 00:26:57.880 --> 00:27:00.420 way to 42nd Street and even further south at 00:27:00.420 --> 00:27:02.960 the time. Location, location, location. Precisely. 00:27:03.400 --> 00:27:06.240 As the city grew and became more dense, the government 00:27:06.240 --> 00:27:09.279 banned noisy, dirty steam locomotives in the 00:27:09.279 --> 00:27:11.599 lower parts of the city. But the Harlem line 00:27:11.599 --> 00:27:14.480 had this grandfathered in right of way. It was 00:27:14.480 --> 00:27:16.559 the only driveway into the biggest house on the 00:27:16.559 --> 00:27:18.640 block. So if any other railroad wanted to get 00:27:18.640 --> 00:27:20.740 their passengers or freight into the heart of 00:27:20.740 --> 00:27:22.839 the city, they had to connect to his tracks and 00:27:22.839 --> 00:27:25.400 pay him for the privilege. He leveraged this 00:27:25.400 --> 00:27:28.259 position brilliantly. He forced a merger with 00:27:28.259 --> 00:27:31.079 the Hudson River Railroad. Then he went after 00:27:31.079 --> 00:27:33.410 the mighty New York Central. which ran all the 00:27:33.410 --> 00:27:36.369 way to Buffalo and the Great Lakes. By 1870, 00:27:36.470 --> 00:27:38.470 he merged them all into the New York Central 00:27:38.470 --> 00:27:41.069 and Hudson River Railroad. It was one of the 00:27:41.069 --> 00:27:44.349 first giant corporations in U .S. history. A 00:27:44.349 --> 00:27:46.369 behemoth. But it wasn't all smooth sailing on 00:27:46.369 --> 00:27:48.470 the rails. We have to talk about the Erie War. 00:27:48.630 --> 00:27:50.990 This is a legendary story in the history of finance. 00:27:51.150 --> 00:27:53.490 Oh, the Erie War is fantastic. It's a clash of 00:27:53.490 --> 00:27:55.950 titans. It was Vanderbilt versus three of the 00:27:55.950 --> 00:27:58.630 most notorious speculators of the era, Daniel 00:27:58.630 --> 00:28:01.069 Drew, Jay Gould, and James Fisk. And what was 00:28:01.069 --> 00:28:03.609 the conflict over? Vanderbilt wanted to control 00:28:03.609 --> 00:28:06.089 the Erie Railway to complete his monopoly on 00:28:06.089 --> 00:28:09.230 all rail traffic into New York City. So he started 00:28:09.230 --> 00:28:12.109 doing what he did best, buying up all the stock 00:28:12.109 --> 00:28:14.890 to corner the market. Can you explain a corner 00:28:14.890 --> 00:28:18.069 for those of us who aren't day trading 19th century 00:28:18.069 --> 00:28:20.849 stocks? A corner is when you buy up so many of 00:28:20.849 --> 00:28:23.130 the available shares of a company that anyone 00:28:23.130 --> 00:28:26.039 who has shorted the stock that is. bet that its 00:28:26.039 --> 00:28:28.440 price would go down, is forced to buy the shares 00:28:28.440 --> 00:28:30.940 back from you at whatever exorbitant price you 00:28:30.940 --> 00:28:33.619 decide to set. Vanderbilt was trying to buy everything. 00:28:34.059 --> 00:28:36.420 So his plan was just to buy the majority of shares. 00:28:37.119 --> 00:28:39.579 Seems simple enough. It should have been. But 00:28:39.579 --> 00:28:41.859 Gold and Fisk were on the board of the Erie, 00:28:41.900 --> 00:28:44.869 and they played dirty. unbelievably dirty. They 00:28:44.869 --> 00:28:47.490 utilized a loophole in the corporate bylaws and 00:28:47.490 --> 00:28:49.890 they literally set up a printing press in the 00:28:49.890 --> 00:28:52.890 basement of the Erie railway offices. A printing 00:28:52.890 --> 00:28:55.369 press? Why? To print new stock certificates. 00:28:55.769 --> 00:28:59.049 Thousands and thousands of them. As fast as Vanderbilt 00:28:59.049 --> 00:29:01.329 was buying shares on Wall Street, Gould and Fisk 00:29:01.329 --> 00:29:04.109 were printing new unauthorized shares and secretly 00:29:04.109 --> 00:29:06.150 dumping them into the market for Vanderbilt's 00:29:06.150 --> 00:29:08.529 brokers to buy. This is what's called watering 00:29:08.529 --> 00:29:11.960 the stock. Exactly. The term comes from the old 00:29:11.960 --> 00:29:14.539 ranchers trick of forcing cows to drink tons 00:29:14.539 --> 00:29:17.099 of water right before weighing them for sale. 00:29:17.220 --> 00:29:20.240 So they seemed heavier and more valuable. Gould 00:29:20.240 --> 00:29:23.440 was diluting the value of the company. Vanderbilt 00:29:23.440 --> 00:29:25.759 was pouring millions of dollars into buying what 00:29:25.759 --> 00:29:27.940 he thought was a limited supply of stock. But 00:29:27.940 --> 00:29:30.240 the supply was effectively infinite. So he's 00:29:30.240 --> 00:29:32.619 pouring millions into a bucket with a giant hole 00:29:32.619 --> 00:29:34.880 in the bottom. A hole that's getting bigger every 00:29:34.880 --> 00:29:37.039 minute. He eventually realized what was happening. 00:29:37.119 --> 00:29:39.220 He supposedly said if this printing. press keeps 00:29:39.220 --> 00:29:42.539 going i'll be broke he finally stopped buying 00:29:42.539 --> 00:29:45.279 but he had lost a fortune millions and millions 00:29:45.279 --> 00:29:47.519 of dollars that sounds completely illegal it 00:29:47.519 --> 00:29:50.480 was murky it was definitely unethical vanderbilt 00:29:50.480 --> 00:29:54.279 sued of course but jay gold wasn't done he took 00:29:54.279 --> 00:29:58.460 a suitcase filled with 500 000 in cash An insane 00:29:58.460 --> 00:30:01.559 amount of money up to Albany. He bribed the key 00:30:01.559 --> 00:30:03.619 members of the New York state legislature to 00:30:03.619 --> 00:30:06.319 pass a law that retrospectively legalized the 00:30:06.319 --> 00:30:08.940 stock they had illegally issued. Wow. He didn't 00:30:08.940 --> 00:30:11.019 just break the law. He bought a new one. He did. 00:30:11.180 --> 00:30:13.599 It was the robber baron era in its most naked 00:30:13.599 --> 00:30:16.519 form. Vanderbilt eventually recovered some of 00:30:16.519 --> 00:30:19.140 his money through settlements, but he never conquered 00:30:19.140 --> 00:30:22.339 the Uri. It was the one time he really got outmaneuvered 00:30:22.339 --> 00:30:24.640 by rogues who were even more ruthless than he 00:30:24.640 --> 00:30:26.960 was. But he still had his New York central empire. 00:30:27.369 --> 00:30:30.069 And he left a huge physical mark on the city 00:30:30.069 --> 00:30:34.009 from that. A massive mark. In 1871, he opened 00:30:34.009 --> 00:30:37.130 the Grand Central Depot on 42nd Street. It was 00:30:37.130 --> 00:30:39.230 the predecessor to the Grand Central Terminal 00:30:39.230 --> 00:30:41.990 we know today. But here is the key infrastructure 00:30:41.990 --> 00:30:44.730 move. To make it all work, he decided to sink 00:30:44.730 --> 00:30:47.769 the tracks on 4th Avenue. Sink them. As in, put 00:30:47.769 --> 00:30:50.170 them underground? Yes. He put them in a massive 00:30:50.170 --> 00:30:52.089 trench and then covered them up, creating the 00:30:52.089 --> 00:30:54.589 Park Avenue Tunnel. If you've ever been to New 00:30:54.589 --> 00:30:57.269 York, the reason Park Avenue is so wide and grand 00:30:57.269 --> 00:31:00.029 and valuable today is because Cornelius Vanderbilt 00:31:00.029 --> 00:31:03.450 buried the noisy, smoky trains underground. He 00:31:03.450 --> 00:31:06.410 literally created the geography of modern midtown 00:31:06.410 --> 00:31:09.289 Manhattan. It's incredible how one person's business 00:31:09.289 --> 00:31:12.730 decision can shape a city for 150 years. So let's 00:31:12.730 --> 00:31:14.529 look at the man himself in these later years. 00:31:14.650 --> 00:31:17.670 He's unbelievably rich. Does he live like a king? 00:31:17.990 --> 00:31:20.690 You know, it's surprising, but no. He lived at 00:31:20.690 --> 00:31:23.170 10 Washington Place in Greenwich Village. It 00:31:23.170 --> 00:31:26.130 was a large, nice townhouse, but it was modest 00:31:26.130 --> 00:31:28.750 compared to the insane palaces his grandchildren 00:31:28.750 --> 00:31:30.950 would build a few years later. He wasn't into 00:31:30.950 --> 00:31:33.509 high society. Not at all. He didn't go to the 00:31:33.509 --> 00:31:35.950 opera. He didn't collect fine art. He thought 00:31:35.950 --> 00:31:37.990 it was all a waste of time. He cared about his 00:31:37.990 --> 00:31:40.569 business and he cared about racehorses. Horses. 00:31:40.569 --> 00:31:43.190 He loved strutting horses. That was his passion. 00:31:43.630 --> 00:31:46.130 In his late 70s, he would take his carriage out 00:31:46.130 --> 00:31:48.490 to Harlem Lane, which is now St. Nicholas Avenue, 00:31:48.690 --> 00:31:51.509 and he would race against other drivers. This 00:31:51.509 --> 00:31:54.650 old man, this billionaire, tearing down the road, 00:31:54.730 --> 00:31:57.190 whipping his horses, challenging anyone to a 00:31:57.190 --> 00:31:59.609 drag race. That is a great image. The billionaire 00:31:59.609 --> 00:32:01.980 drag racer. And he had a... new wife by this 00:32:01.980 --> 00:32:04.380 point, didn't he? Yes. His first wife, Sophia, 00:32:04.680 --> 00:32:08.940 died in 1868 after a long illness. The Commodore 00:32:08.940 --> 00:32:12.420 was heartbroken for a bit, but in 1869, he married 00:32:12.420 --> 00:32:14.880 Frank Armstrong Crawford. Frank was a woman's 00:32:14.880 --> 00:32:17.339 name. It was in this case. She was a much younger 00:32:17.339 --> 00:32:19.980 cousin from Alabama. She was in her 30s while 00:32:19.980 --> 00:32:22.160 he was in his late 70s. And the sources say she 00:32:22.160 --> 00:32:23.940 had a pretty big influence on him in his final 00:32:23.940 --> 00:32:26.720 years. A huge influence. She was very religious 00:32:26.720 --> 00:32:28.839 and socially conscious. She really worked to 00:32:28.839 --> 00:32:31.859 soften his rough edges. And she, along with a 00:32:31.859 --> 00:32:34.349 connection to... a Methodist bishop named Holland 00:32:34.349 --> 00:32:37.369 McTier convinced Vanderbilt to make the only 00:32:37.369 --> 00:32:40.529 major philanthropic gift of his entire life. 00:32:40.670 --> 00:32:42.490 This would be Vanderbilt University. Correct. 00:32:42.650 --> 00:32:46.670 He gave an initial gift of $1 million to found 00:32:46.670 --> 00:32:49.779 a university in Nashville, Tennessee. The idea 00:32:49.779 --> 00:32:51.779 was that it would help heal the sectional wounds 00:32:51.779 --> 00:32:55.059 of the Civil War. A northern tycoon funding a 00:32:55.059 --> 00:32:57.400 major southern university. It was meant as a 00:32:57.400 --> 00:32:59.900 gesture of reconciliation. That's a nice part 00:32:59.900 --> 00:33:01.960 of his legacy. But we have to talk about the 00:33:01.960 --> 00:33:04.650 family drama. Because when you have 13 kids and 00:33:04.650 --> 00:33:07.730 $100 million, things get complicated. We mentioned 00:33:07.730 --> 00:33:09.829 Billy, who he finally came to see as capable. 00:33:10.109 --> 00:33:12.210 What about the others? Well, there was his other 00:33:12.210 --> 00:33:14.569 surviving son, Cornelius Jeremiah Vanderbilt. 00:33:14.609 --> 00:33:17.029 The Commodore considered him a complete wastrel. 00:33:17.089 --> 00:33:19.890 A wastrel? Another great 19th century insult? 00:33:20.089 --> 00:33:22.630 What was his issue? Cornelius Jeremiah was a 00:33:22.630 --> 00:33:25.589 compulsive gambler. He was also epileptic, which 00:33:25.589 --> 00:33:27.990 in those days carried a terrible stigma. He was 00:33:27.990 --> 00:33:30.150 constantly borrowing money, using the famous 00:33:30.150 --> 00:33:32.670 family name to run up huge debts all over town. 00:33:33.009 --> 00:33:35.789 He would write bad checks. The Commodore had 00:33:35.789 --> 00:33:38.029 a very difficult, cold relationship with him. 00:33:38.250 --> 00:33:40.529 He basically kept him on a tiny allowance just 00:33:40.529 --> 00:33:42.450 to keep him out of jail and stop him from embarrassing 00:33:42.450 --> 00:33:45.130 the family. And his nine daughters. He provided 00:33:45.130 --> 00:33:47.359 for them. He bought them all nice houses. But 00:33:47.359 --> 00:33:49.660 he was very much a man of his time. He did not 00:33:49.660 --> 00:33:51.859 view women as potential managers of his empire. 00:33:52.200 --> 00:33:54.839 He had this core belief that the fortune had 00:33:54.839 --> 00:33:57.759 to be kept intact in one piece to remain powerful. 00:33:57.880 --> 00:33:59.799 It couldn't be split up. And this becomes the 00:33:59.799 --> 00:34:02.700 crux of the final battle of his life. The will. 00:34:02.799 --> 00:34:05.279 The biggest battle of all. Okay. Take us to the 00:34:05.279 --> 00:34:09.139 end. It's January 4th, 1877. The Commodore dies. 00:34:09.659 --> 00:34:12.480 He dies at age 82, basically of exhaustion and 00:34:12.480 --> 00:34:15.000 chronic disorders he'd had for years. The estate 00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:18.119 is valued at $105 million. The entire country, 00:34:18.199 --> 00:34:20.619 the newspapers, they're all waiting breathlessly 00:34:20.619 --> 00:34:22.760 to see where this unprecedented fortune goes. 00:34:23.059 --> 00:34:24.880 And when the will is read, it's a bombshell. 00:34:25.019 --> 00:34:28.739 It's a shockwave. 95 % of the entire wealth went 00:34:28.739 --> 00:34:32.280 to one son, Billy, and by extension to Billy's 00:34:32.280 --> 00:34:35.920 four sons. 95%. Yeah. To one son out of all those 00:34:35.920 --> 00:34:38.880 children. Yes. The nine daughters received comparatively 00:34:38.880 --> 00:34:43.000 small amounts, around $250 ,000 to $500 ,000 00:34:43.000 --> 00:34:46.219 each, which was a lot of money in 1877. You could 00:34:46.219 --> 00:34:48.559 live like a king on that, but it was a pittance 00:34:48.559 --> 00:34:51.900 compared to the total. Cornelius Jeremiah, the 00:34:51.900 --> 00:34:54.360 wastrel, got the income from a small trust fund, 00:34:54.420 --> 00:34:57.039 but no capital. Billy got the keys to the entire 00:34:57.039 --> 00:34:59.300 kingdom. I can't imagine the siblings took this 00:34:59.300 --> 00:35:01.699 well. Not at all. They sued. And this trial was 00:35:01.699 --> 00:35:03.719 an absolute spectacle. It was the OJ Simpson 00:35:03.719 --> 00:35:06.400 trial of the 1870s front page news every single 00:35:06.400 --> 00:35:08.639 day. They sued on the grounds that the Commodore 00:35:08.639 --> 00:35:11.380 was of unsound mind when he wrote the will. And 00:35:11.380 --> 00:35:13.429 their main argument was. Interesting. It was 00:35:13.429 --> 00:35:15.329 wild. They argued he was under the influence 00:35:15.329 --> 00:35:17.409 of spiritualists. Spiritualists, you mean? Yeah. 00:35:17.630 --> 00:35:20.369 Mediums and ghosts. Yes. In his later years after 00:35:20.369 --> 00:35:22.889 Sophia died, Vanderbilt had become very interested 00:35:22.889 --> 00:35:25.829 in mediums and seances. It was a popular craze 00:35:25.829 --> 00:35:28.150 at the time. The lawsuit alleged that Billy had 00:35:28.150 --> 00:35:30.730 conspired with and bribed a spiritualist named 00:35:30.730 --> 00:35:33.829 Mr. Stoddard. What was the claim? The claim was 00:35:33.829 --> 00:35:36.610 that during a seance, a spirit claiming to be 00:35:36.610 --> 00:35:38.989 the Commodore's deceased wife, Sophia, appeared 00:35:38.989 --> 00:35:41.789 and told him that Billy was the only trustworthy 00:35:41.789 --> 00:35:44.610 one, the only son capable of handling the great 00:35:44.610 --> 00:35:47.110 fortune. So the argument was that Billy used 00:35:47.110 --> 00:35:49.989 a fake ghost to manipulate his senile father 00:35:49.989 --> 00:35:52.769 into giving him all the money. Exactly. The siblings' 00:35:52.869 --> 00:35:55.130 lawyers painted this picture of a senile man 00:35:55.130 --> 00:35:58.070 terrified of death, taking financial advice from 00:35:58.070 --> 00:36:00.550 ghosts that were being paid off by his son. That 00:36:00.550 --> 00:36:03.460 is just incredible. The ghost told me to leave 00:36:03.460 --> 00:36:06.159 all the money to Billy. Did the court buy it? 00:36:06.239 --> 00:36:08.880 It never got to a final verdict. The trial dragged 00:36:08.880 --> 00:36:11.880 on for over a year, and it was deeply humiliating 00:36:11.880 --> 00:36:14.099 for the family. It was airing all their dirty 00:36:14.099 --> 00:36:16.860 laundry in public, the Commodore's affairs, his 00:36:16.860 --> 00:36:19.619 volcanic temper, his eccentric health beliefs. 00:36:19.860 --> 00:36:22.190 And Billy just wanted it to end. Billy, being 00:36:22.190 --> 00:36:24.250 the pragmatist, knew this was destroying the 00:36:24.250 --> 00:36:26.449 family's reputation, so he settled out of court. 00:36:26.610 --> 00:36:29.050 He gave the siblings a bit more cash, an extra 00:36:29.050 --> 00:36:31.710 $200 ,000 here, a bigger trust fund there, to 00:36:31.710 --> 00:36:34.090 make them all go away. But he kept the bulk of 00:36:34.090 --> 00:36:36.510 the fortune. The empire remained intact, just 00:36:36.510 --> 00:36:39.309 as his father had wished. So in the end, Billy 00:36:39.309 --> 00:36:42.510 wins. The Commodore's gone. What is the final 00:36:42.510 --> 00:36:44.809 legacy here, when we step back and look at the 00:36:44.809 --> 00:36:48.170 whole picture? It is so complicated. On one hand, 00:36:48.230 --> 00:36:50.730 you have the pure robber baron narrative. He 00:36:50.730 --> 00:36:53.389 crushed his competitors without remorse. He manipulated 00:36:53.389 --> 00:36:56.250 markets. He operated with a ruthlessness that 00:36:56.250 --> 00:36:59.409 would be highly illegal today. He bought laws 00:36:59.409 --> 00:37:01.590 from legislatures when he needed them. But on 00:37:01.590 --> 00:37:04.650 the other hand, the captain of industry argument. 00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:06.920 He drove the cost of transportation down for 00:37:06.920 --> 00:37:09.159 everybody. He made travel and shipping cheaper 00:37:09.159 --> 00:37:12.440 and faster for millions of people. He consolidated 00:37:12.440 --> 00:37:15.840 a chaotic patchwork of inefficient small railroads 00:37:15.840 --> 00:37:18.800 into a unified, powerful system that really powered 00:37:18.800 --> 00:37:21.340 America's industrial growth after the Civil War. 00:37:21.599 --> 00:37:24.320 The historian T .J. Stiles, his best biographer, 00:37:24.500 --> 00:37:27.519 argues that he vastly improved and expanded the 00:37:27.519 --> 00:37:30.039 nation's transportation infrastructure. And that's 00:37:30.039 --> 00:37:32.099 undeniable. It's the classic tradeoff, isn't 00:37:32.099 --> 00:37:34.179 it? We got this incredible, efficient infrastructure. 00:37:34.320 --> 00:37:37.420 But we got it through monopoly, brute force and 00:37:37.420 --> 00:37:40.420 political manipulation. And we still see his 00:37:40.420 --> 00:37:43.440 physical legacy everywhere. There's the statue 00:37:43.440 --> 00:37:46.280 of him at Grand Central Terminal. He stands there 00:37:46.280 --> 00:37:48.599 looking down the length of Park Avenue, the very 00:37:48.599 --> 00:37:51.280 avenue he created. And of course, there's the 00:37:51.280 --> 00:37:53.579 Gilded Age mansions. Right. The money didn't 00:37:53.579 --> 00:37:55.739 stay in the business for long. Not all of it. 00:37:55.760 --> 00:37:58.619 His grandson, another George Washington Vanderbilt, 00:37:58.659 --> 00:38:01.199 built the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina. 00:38:01.360 --> 00:38:03.320 It's still the largest private home in the United 00:38:03.320 --> 00:38:06.159 States that was built with the Commodores Railroad 00:38:06.159 --> 00:38:08.639 money. And you have famous descendants like Gloria 00:38:08.639 --> 00:38:11.699 Vanderbilt and Anderson Cooper. Yes, though by 00:38:11.699 --> 00:38:14.119 Anderson Cooper's time, the vast fortune had 00:38:14.119 --> 00:38:17.480 mostly been dissipated or donated away. The famous 00:38:17.480 --> 00:38:20.139 Vanderbilt balls and the dozens of mansions, 00:38:20.139 --> 00:38:22.039 they ate through the Capitol pretty quickly. 00:38:22.199 --> 00:38:24.780 But the name still feels like American royalty. 00:38:25.199 --> 00:38:27.440 So here is the final provocative thought for 00:38:27.440 --> 00:38:29.639 you listening. We look back at Vanderbilt as 00:38:29.639 --> 00:38:31.900 this historical figure, almost like that statue 00:38:31.900 --> 00:38:34.119 in the train station. But think about the power 00:38:34.119 --> 00:38:36.760 he actually wielded. He was a private citizen 00:38:36.760 --> 00:38:39.460 who could effectively declare war on a country. 00:38:39.820 --> 00:38:42.739 who could hold the entire U .S. economy in the 00:38:42.739 --> 00:38:45.639 palm of his hand. In today's world of tech giants 00:38:45.639 --> 00:38:48.440 and global billionaires, are we seeing a return 00:38:48.440 --> 00:38:52.440 to the age of the Commodore? Do our modern tycoons 00:38:52.440 --> 00:38:55.320 have that same kind of geopolitical power? It 00:38:55.320 --> 00:38:57.840 is a question worth asking, I think. The technology 00:38:57.840 --> 00:39:00.739 changes. It goes from steam to silicon. But the 00:39:00.739 --> 00:39:03.360 fundamental dynamics of power, wealth, and influence, 00:39:03.579 --> 00:39:06.039 those might be timeless. Something to mull over 00:39:06.039 --> 00:39:07.679 next time you're walking through Grand Central. 00:39:07.820 --> 00:39:10.039 Look up at that statue and ask yourself, who 00:39:10.039 --> 00:39:11.860 is really running the show? Thanks for listening 00:39:11.860 --> 00:39:13.820 to The Deep Dive. We will catch you next time.