The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)

partner, a young man named John D. Rockefeller whom Clark had
befriended at a commercial college both had attended a few years
before.
At first glance, it seemed an odd choice. Rockefeller was only
eighteen years old. He was working as a bookkeeper at a fairly large
produce-shipping firm named Hewitt and Tuttle, and he was in so
many ways the polar opposite of Clark: Clark loved to live well, with a
taste for fine things, gambling, and the ladies; he was feisty and
combative. Rockefeller was fiercely religious, unusually sober and
mild-mannered for his age. How could they possibly get along? And
Clark had calculated that his partner would have to put up at least
$2,000 to get the company under way. How would a bookkeeper from
a family of limited means have such savings? On the other hand, in his
two years at Hewitt and Tuttle, Rockefeller had earned a reputation as
one of the most fiercely efficient and honest clerks in town, a man who
could be relied upon to account for every penny spent and keep the
company in the black. More important, as Rockefeller was so young,
Clark could dominate the relationship. It was worth asking him.
To Clark’s surprise, when he suggested the partnership, Rockefeller
not only jumped at the opportunity with uncharacteristic zeal but
quickly came up with the $2,000, somehow borrowing the funds.
Rockefeller quit his job and the new company, called Clark and
Rockefeller, opened for business in April 1858.

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In its first years Clark and Rockefeller was a thriving enterprise. The
two men balanced each other out, and there was much business to be
had in Cleveland. But as time went on, Clark began to feel increasingly
irritated by the young man, and even a bit contemptuous of him. He
was more straitlaced than Clark had imagined; he had no discernible
vices. His main pleasure seemed to come from the accounting books
that he kept so well and finding ways to save money. Although still so
young, he already had a slumped posture from poring over his ledgers
day and night. He dressed like a middle-aged banker, and acted that
way as well. Clark’s brother James, who worked in the office, dubbed
him “the Sunday-school superintendent.”
Slowly Clark began to see Rockefeller as too dull and dreary to be
one of the faces of the company. Clark brought in a new partner from
an elite Cleveland family and dropped Rockefeller’s name from the
company title, hoping that would draw even more business.
Surprisingly, Rockefeller did not seem to object to this; he was all in
favor of making more money and cared little about titles.
Their produce business was booming, but soon word spread
through Cleveland of a new commodity that could spark the region’s
equivalent of a gold rush—the recent discovery of rich veins of oil in
nearby western Pennsylvania. In 1862 a young Englishman named
Samuel Andrews—an inventor/entrepreneur who had known Clark in
England—visited their offices and pleaded with Clark to become