John D. Rockefeller
So self-righteous that he claimed, “God gave me my money.” The most corrupt mogul of the most corrupt era, he masterminded a grand, cruel conspiracy in 1871 with the railroads to double the price of transporting oil for all producers except his cartel.
Henry Clay Frick
On July 6, 1892, Frick’s private militia of 300 Pinkertons fired on a crowd of striking steelworkers and their families. Then he had them evicted from company-owned houses, blacklisted, and tried for murder.
Henry Ford
Ford used shadowy henchmen to run “secret police” who spied on employees. He had machine guns, tear gas, and a private army at the ready to deter union organizers. He cheated on his wife with his teenage personal assistant and then had the younger woman marry his chauffeur as a cover.
Walt Disney
The man behind the Mouse was a suspicious control freak — a dictatorial boss who underpaid his workers, clashed with labor organizing efforts, made anti-Semitic smears about the other Hollywood studio heads, and wouldn’t give due recognition to Mickey’s real creator, animator Ub Iwerks, who was supposedly his oldest friend.
