Many people noted that Rockefeller seldom said “I,” except when telling a joke, preferring the first-person plural when discussing Standard Oil. “Don’t say that I ought to do this or that,” he preached to colleagues. “We ought to do it. Never forget that we are partners; whatever is done is for the general good of us all.”30 He preferred outspoken colleagues to weak-kneed sycophants and welcomed differences of opinion so long as they weren’t personalized. In their private deliberations, the Standard executives, for all their swashbuckling reputation, tended to be cordial and formal.
