The six largest companies on the planet are now technology-based. Like the industrialist of the late 19th century, they disrupted their industries and changed the way they worked. In the process, they repeated the same destructive decisions from the past. Businessmen or Swindlers? While it wasn’t a new term — it dates back to the Middle Ages and used to describe feudal warlords — the name stuck on business tycoons in the 19th century. Originally, they were portrayed as positive self-made men that helped build the nation. Their image changed for the worse as the century ended and critics and newspapers painted them in a different light. There was a certain truth to the phrase thanks to some captains of industry, especially those that controlled the railroads. Leland Stanford and Charles Crocker along with other shareholders of the Central Pacific railroad company gained the rights to build the western portion of the Transcontinental Railroad. They received subsidies and land grants to…
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