Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie built the American steel industry and then gave almost all of it away. His Carnegie Steel Company, which he sold to J.P. Morgan in 1901 for $480 million (over $380 billion in today's dollars), was the largest industrial enterprise in the world. Carnegie's vertical integration strategy — owning the mines, the railroads, the ships, and the mills — made steel cheap enough to build the skyscrapers, bridges, and railroads that created modern America.

Carnegie immigrated to America from Scotland at age 12, penniless. He worked as a bobbin boy in a cotton factory, then as a telegraph operator, then as a railroad executive, before recognizing that steel would be the material of the industrial age. He applied relentless cost-cutting, Bessemer process innovations, and vertical integration to drive the price of steel down while increasing production to staggering volumes. His genius was not in inventing new technology but in organizing production more efficiently than anyone else.

His 'Gospel of Wealth' essay argued that the rich have a moral obligation to distribute their fortunes for the public good during their lifetimes — a philosophy he lived by. Carnegie funded 2,509 libraries, Carnegie Hall, Carnegie Mellon University, and dozens of educational institutions. He gave away $350 million (over $10 billion in today's dollars) before his death. He is the original model for philanthropic capitalism, and his influence on Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and The Giving Pledge is direct and acknowledged.