Final answer:
Gilded Age entrepreneurs were motivated by their ego, as their success was fueled by personal drive alongside business acumen and innovation. Figures like Carnegie and Rockefeller were seen as both captains of industry and robber barons.
Step-by-step explanation:
According to advertising mogul Donny Deutsch, the Gilded Age entrepreneurs found a great motivator in their own ego. These titans of industry, including Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and J. P. Morgan, demonstrated their ambitions and ruthlessness as they built their industrial empires.
Their success stories were driven by not just their innovative thinking and business acumen, but also by their intense personal drive and self-belief. Carnegie, in particular, is noted for his belief in the wealthy's duty to society with his philanthropic efforts, although the same could not be said for all industrialists of the era. Despite the contributions to American society that some of these industrialists made, their relentless pursuit of wealth also led to them being labeled as robber barons in some historical accounts.