Cornelius Vanderbilt — "The public be damned! I am working for my stockholders."
The public be damned! I am working for my stockholders.
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More from Cornelius Vanderbilt
"Ain't got time to be sick."
"I am not a politician; I am a businessman."
"The only way to win is to never give up."
"I believe in God and hard work."
"If I could not run a steamboat alongside another man and do it as well as he for twenty percent less, I would leave the business."
About Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877)
American shipping and railroad magnate whose New York Central railroad and aggressive consolidation built the largest fortune in 19th-century America. Closely associated with John D. Rockefeller (later Gilded Age titan who learned the consolidation playbook). For an intellectual contrast, see Jay Gould, railroad speculator (1836-1892) — Vanderbilt built and ran railroads; Gould watered stock and manipulated markets. Their Erie Railroad rate-war and Gould's Black Friday (1869) gold-corner schemes were the public foil to Vanderbilt's quieter operational consolidation. The cleanest 'industrialist vs speculator' Gilded Age pairing.
Details
Reply to a reporter's question about public interest, though exact wording and context debated.
Date: 1882 (often cited as Vanderbilt, though sometimes attributed to William Henry Vanderbilt)
Power & LeadershipVerification
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