Industrialist, philanthropist, founder of Standard Oil.
1839–1937 · Cleveland, Ohio
Install John's frameworks in Claude Code
/plugin marketplace add adamtpang/summon.guide
/plugin install rockefellerInstalls 3 skills from John, plus the rest of summon.guide. Source on GitHub.
Rockefeller was born July 8, 1839, in Richford, New York, the second of six children. His father William “Devil Bill” Rockefeller was a traveling con man and bigamist who once boasted, “I cheat my boys every chance I get.” His mother Eliza was a devout Baptist who insisted he tithe from his very first paycheck. He blended both parents: her thrift and discipline with his cunning. At sixteen he completed a ten-week course in bookkeeping at Folsom's Commercial College in Cleveland and took his first job at Hewitt & Tuttle for fifty cents a day. From that paycheck onward he kept a personal ledger he called Ledger A, recording every penny earned and spent. He celebrated “Job Day” every September 26 for the rest of his life.
In 1863 Rockefeller and partners entered the oil refining business in Cleveland, recognizing that refining — not drilling — was where the durable margins lived. He incorporated Standard Oil on January 10, 1870. Through what became known as the Cleveland Massacre of February 1872, he acquired 22 of 26 competing refiners in six weeks, paying generously in Standard Oil stock and cash. By 1879 his company refined 90% of all American oil. He built the first true vertical-and-horizontal industrial monopoly: pipelines, tankers, barrels, and retail. The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 was passed largely in response to him, and the U.S. Supreme Court ordered Standard Oil dissolved in 1911 — but the breakup multiplied his wealth, since he held stock in every successor company.
After a nervous breakdown in his fifties left him with alopecia and the appearance of a much older man, Rockefeller retired from active management at 57 and devoted the rest of his life to systematic philanthropy guided by Frederick T. Gates. He gave away approximately $540 million (roughly $11 billion in 2025 USD), founding the University of Chicago, Rockefeller University (the first U.S. biomedical research institute), the General Education Board which helped end hookworm in the American South, and the Rockefeller Foundation, which played a central role in the Green Revolution. He died May 23, 1937, just two months short of his 98th birthday. He had spent the last decades of his life handing out shiny new dimes to children and adults he met as a teaching gesture about the value of saving.
Frameworks distilled from John’s life, packaged as Claude Code skills. Each skill is invoked with a slash command and grounded in the primary biographies listed under References.
/rockefeller:rockefellerOpen Ledger A. Find the drop of solder. Tithe before anything else. Move generously, execute ruthlessly.
Source: Titan by Ron Chernow
/rockefeller:ledgerTrack every penny. Find your drop of solder. Tithe before anything else.
Source: Titan by Ron Chernow — Chapter 3 (Ledger A) and Chapter 25 (the dimes and daily habits)
/rockefeller:crisisBuy when blood runs in the streets. Pre-commit your buy list. Move generously, execute ruthlessly.
Source: Titan by Ron Chernow — Chapter 12 (Panic of 1873) and Chapter 6 (Cleveland Massacre)
Install in Claude Code
/plugin marketplace add adamtpang/summon.guide
/plugin install rockefellerBring John’s frameworks into your terminal. One install registers every guide’s skills.
Each Claude Code skill above is grounded in a specific passage of a specific book. These are the primary sources we drew from for John.
“The secret of success is to do the common things uncommonly well.”
“Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.”
“Singleness of purpose is one of the chief essentials for success in life.”
“I believe the power to make money is a gift from God.”
“Competition is a sin.”
“I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity.”
Their voice on summon.guide is grounded in:
Further reading: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller
Other guides
