#368 Rockefeller's Autobiography

One of the best things about this book is that Rockefeller is constantly talking about the way that him and his partners built their business, and he would compare and contrast the methods that they would use compared to some of his, quote, unquote, unintelligent competition, which is the word and the phrase that he uses. And his description of unintelligent competition was the type of person who never really knew all the facts about their own business, that they kept their books in such a way that they did not actually know when they were making money or when they were losing money. And he has a great phrase for this where he says, this casual way of conducting affairs did not appeal to me. And even when years before he he founded Standard Oil, when he was working for other people, when he was 16 years old, he said, I learned to have great respect for figures and facts no matter how small they were. The importance that Rockefeller put on cost control jumps off the pages, and he repeats it over and over and over again. This obsession with cost control is something that Rockefeller had in common with Andrew Carnegie. In fact, Andrew Carnegie is mentioned multiple times in Rockefeller's autobiography. There's a great line in one of Carnegie's biographies that I read that said, Carnegie would repeat this mantra time and time again. Profits and prices are cyclical, subject to any number of transient forces of the marketplace. Costs, however, could be strictly controlled. And in Carnegie's view, any savings achieved in costs were permanent. This shared obsession is something that I was talking about with my friend Eric, who's the cofounder and CEO of Ramp. Ramp is now a partner of this podcast. I've gotten to know all the cofounders of Ramp and have spent a ton of time with them over the last year or two. They all listened to the podcast, and then they picked up on the fact that the main theme from the podcast is on the importance of watching your costs and controlling your spend, and how doing so gives you a massive competitive advantage over your, quote, unquote, unintelligent competition in Rockefeller's words. That is a main theme for Ramp. The reason that Ramp exists is to give you everything you need to control your spend. Ramp gives you everything you need to control your costs. In this book, Rockefeller lays out a blueprint for success in any endeavor. And on his list, two of the things that are on his list is control expenses and invest in technology that helps you become more efficient. That sounds like Rockefeller is describing Ramp. Ramp gives you easy to use corporate cards for your entire team, automated expense reporting, and cost control. Ramp can completely automate all of your expense management. If you've read a bunch of biographies of History of Grace Entrepreneurs, or if you've listened to a bunch …