John D. Rockefeller

 John D. Rockefeller was one of the most influential men of his time. He was the leader of one of the biggest oil companies, the Standard oil company. Rockefeller helped this company come to power through a lot of spying, stealing, and making other companies go out of business for a monopoly of 90% of all the oil in the US. He was seen as a symbol of richness and greed throughout his time as a businessman but then when he retired, he donated 500m dollars to charity. He was born in 1839 and died 97 years later in 1937. He was accused of predatory pricing and also paying railroads to prioritize himself. To grow his company he would buy many other companies to become part of his own. And when just standard oil in the state of new jersey fell, 30 new companies were created from the ashes. In retirement, Rockefeller helped found the University of Chicago as well as Rockefeller University. 

Currently, we are in what is starting to be classified as "The gilded age 2.0" this is because there are many resemblances between what is happening now and what happened in the late 1800s. One example of this is the incredible difference between who is on top and who is on the bottom. Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, currently has hundreds of billions of dollars and owns crazy mega yachts, houses, and cars. Jeff Bezos workers, however, work in terrible conditions where they are standing for more than 12 hours a day, don't have restroom breaks, and during all of this only get paid minimum wage. We have also seen rapid growth in the economy and technology. These reasons and more are why I think that we are in another gilded age just like the one more than 100 years ago.

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