Kennedy Buler
EEE-2083
9 November 2022
Discussion Paper 9- The New Machine
In the series, The Men Who Built America, in episode 8 The New Machine, the focal point is on a few of the biggest names of businessmen and philanthropists in American History. These include John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford, JP Morgan and Andrew Carnegie. The episode outlines various parts of their careers and their trials and successes. It follows elements of their business endeavors like entrepreneurial ideation, innovations, and successes and failures. In the ending, we see that Henry Ford comes out successful as we followed the story of the model T gas-powered vehicle. In addition, we see the philanthropic efforts of Andrew Carnegie of how he gave away a large fraction of his fortune. Lastly, we see J.D. Rockefeller on trial for violations and lack of trust in some of his endeavors, so not necessarily a happy ending for everyone involved. How this episode is entrepreneurial, other than the fact that it lays out the stories of real entrepreneurs that set the stage for much of how our nation conducts business in the modern day, is that is shows how they through differently and how they framed their endeavors and successes and trials in order to build the empires that we all know of today. In my opinion, you cannot get much more entrepreneurial than the men listed above and their contributions to American society.
This is interesting to me because I feel like, first, you don't hear a lot about the setbacks of these men, but only about how they changed the world. Don’t get me wrong, of course they changed the world (on massive scales!) but it didn’t happen overnight either. Especially with the story of Andrew Carnegie, it really shows and outlines how there are bumps in the road to success.
When thinking of how this aspect of entrepreneurship affected society, I am kind of stunned. Think about it, our entire lives would be totally different if it wasn’t for the efforts of these men. The way we view the automobile industry, infrastructure and other things would be completely different and who knows what other effects that would’ve had on society. Would we be in the modernized way we do business now without them? Truthfully, I am not sure. If so, it would at least be in a whole other way. On the flip side, society at first definitely met these individuals in a stifling way and with doubts and negativity. Much like most entrepreneurial endeavors, society is often reluctant to change and views it as a threat sometimes. There was pushback from consumers, competitors and society as a whole, but in the end society gets to reap the benefits (think of how we all literally drive our own automobiles now). The interaction is very back and forth with the two, where there is stifle and uncertainty on the front end but then ends up being positive and society adapts in a large scale way. My final thought: what would life look life without these men? I honestly don’t really want to know.
-https://giphy.com/explore/Rockefeller
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-(https://giphy.com/explore/Rockefeller)