Rockefeller's monopoly was built on genuine operational efficiency, not just coercion

Chernow is careful to show that Standard Oil's dominance wasn't purely a product of dirty tricks — Rockefeller had a real, obsessive talent for identifying waste in refining operations and squeezing costs out of every stage of production, transportation, and distribution, often achieving efficiencies competitors simply couldn't match through operational skill alone.

His famous attention to minute details — tracking barrel costs down to fractions of a cent, standardizing processes across acquired refineries — reflected an almost monastic discipline applied to business, treating cost control as itself a kind of moral virtue rather than a cold necessity. This gave Standard Oil real, legitimate advantages that would have made it formidable even without its more coercive tactics.

Chernow's point is that separating out the efficient, legal Rockefeller from the coercive, monopolistic Rockefeller misunderstands the man, because both emerged from the same underlying temperament of relentless, disciplined control. Rockefeller's monopoly succeeded partly because he really was better at running an oil business than almost anyone else alive at the time.