01 The Fake Colonel Who Struck Oil

In Episode 1, we are launching our chapter by chapter deep dive into the absolute Bible of the industry, Daniel Yergin’s The Prize, starting with the raw audacity of Chapter 1 that literally built the modern world. We strip away the polished boardrooms to reveal that the petroleum age began in the mud with a bunch of guys hallucinating with greed. This is the origin story of how a broke linguist named George Bissell and a railroad conductor turned fake Colonel named Edwin Drake gambled everything to find a cheap, safe light for a world that was literally dark. Listeners can expect a high stakes narrative exploring how a missing five hundred dollar check almost killed the global energy industry before it began and how the breakthrough of the drive pipe saved the first oil well from total collapse. We deconstruct the chaos of the Pithole boomtown and the bizarre legal Rule of Capture; a doctrine based on hunting migratory birds that forced the industry into a cutthroat cycle of overproduction and waste. From the brutal physics of crude oil to its role in funding the Union during the American Civil War, we examine the moment oil became a strategic weapon of national power.So sit back, relax and enjoy, or whip your book open and use this as a handy companion guide for The Prize by Daniel Yergin!