How to Battle the World’s Richest Man

Jay Gould was smart. He was praised by Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, and the other robber barons of his day for his intellect.

Jay ascended in the mid-1800s by jumping from bookkeeping, to the tanning business, to Wall Street financing, until he finally landed in the railroad industry.

While it takes great intellect to be so dynamic, Gould credited his outsized success to attention to detail.

He would meticulously read legal documents and scour financial statements. This information enabled him to develop arcane strategies for deals that overcame his adversaries.

To opponents and outsiders, he seemed like a magician. But the reality was that he had collected insights that they had overlooked.

It allowed Gould to wrestle the Erie Railroad away from Cornelius Vanderbilt in the 1860s. Through diluting Vanderbilt’s stock, blocking his allies from joining the board of directors, and bribing a bunch of legislators, he went toe-to-toe with the world’s richest man and won.

At the time of Gould’s death, he owned 15% of the total rail mileage in the United States.

No matter the opponent you face, you’d be well served to sweat the details.

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