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Chernow’s Rockefeller biography is as magisterial and complex as its subject. Not sure what he’d make of Elon Musk, especially considering Rockefeller’s zealously guarded privacy, not to mention his support for abolition and then Black colleges like Spelman. My sense is he’d see something of his bombast of his father in Musk. But no doubt he’d recognize Google and Alphabet approvingly, but might note that the break up of Standard Oil had a positive effect on his wealth and that of its shareholders.

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What a thought experiment! I've been thinking since July about what Friedrich von Hayek and Adam Smith would have to say about this emergence of techno-oligarchs who all cite their work as their raison d'etre -- probably less than impressed.

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