What I learned from rereading James J. Hill: Empire Builder by Michael P. Malone.
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Notes and highlights from the episode:
—He had unlimited energy, was stubborn, had a temper, was supremely arrogant and he did more to transform the northern frontier of the United States than any other single individual.
—One of the things he learned from history and biography: The power of one dynamic individual: Like so many other nineteenth-century youths, young Jim Hill fell under the spell of Napoleon. He came to believe in the strength of will, the power of one dynamic individual to change the world, the conquering hero. (He says that the railroad entrepreneurs conquered the distance between remote communities in the American west)
—He accustomed himself to handle a large workload.
—If you want to know whether you are destined to be a success or a failure in life, you can easily find out. The test is simple and it is infallible: Are you able to save money? If not, drop out. You will lose. You may think not, but you will lose as sure as you live. The seed of success is not in you. –James J. Hill
—He held people’s attention as he engaged them in characteristic rapid-fire, highly animated conversation, gesturing expansively and driving home his point with jabbing motions of his hands—the embodiment of high energy.
—He worked incredibly hard, sometimes laboring late into the night, falling asleep at the desk, then getting up for a swim in the river and a cup of black coffee, then going back to work.
—“Rebates existed in other industries. I just applied them to oil.” Rockefeller said. [Don’t copy the what, copy the how] —John D: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers by David Freeman Hawke. (Founders #254)
—"The very best employee at any job at any level of responsibility is the person who generally believes that this is their last job working for someone. The next thing they'll start will be their own. — Max Levchin in The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley by Jimmy Soni. (Founders #233)
—Hill drank little, worked hard, and confined his socializing to respectable settings. As always, he read incessantly. He permitted himself few distractions in his relentless drive to achieve wealth and status.
—Inefficiency disturbs him greatly.
—James J. Hill loved eliminating steps.
—Genius has the fewest moving parts.
—Hill limited the number of details. Then he makes every detail perfect.
—Hill called vertical integration, rational integration.
—Hill always gets out quickly in front of the emerging trend.
—Hill had an entirely pragmatic business personality. When competition suited him in a market, he competed fiercely. But when competition became wasteful to him, he did not hesitate to end it, even if this meant joining with old enemies and creating a monopoly.
—Hill was making profits owning steamboats. Then a competitor from Canada starts running the same route and the rates and profits dwindle. Hill discovers a neglected maritime law that prohibited foreign ships from operating in American waters. Hill then persuades the US Treasury Department to enforce the law against his competitor. The competitor has to transfer ownership to an American. After that Hill then merges with that competitor and forges another monopoly.
—This railroad is my monument. — James J Hill
—As man emerged into history, he became a road maker; the better the road, the more advanced his development. — James J. Hill.
—By 1885 Railroads brought in twice the revenue than the federal government.Railroads were the nations largest employer.The railroaders were the largest private land holders in the country.They owned more than 10% of land in the United States.
—Hill identified an opportunity hiding in plain sight: Unlike most who viewed the Saint Paul and Pacific as a near-worthless derelict, Hill viewed it as a miracle waiting to happen, a potentially wondrous enterprise simply lacking competent leadership. He studied the road constantly, reading every scrap of information he could find about it and boring anyone who would listen with endless detail as to what it could one day be.
—He possessed a priceless advantage compared with most other nineteenth-century rail titans. Rather than coming from the outside world of finance, as most of them did, he arose from the inside world of freighting and transportation, and he knew this world in
