Andrew Carnegie's 1889 classic on spending what he called 'excess wealth,' modernized for today's audience. : Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist who became one of the richest men in world history through his company, Carnegie Steel. He sold Carnegie Steel to J.P. Morgan in 1901 for $480 million -- according to Time, that number equated to more than 2 percent of the American GDP. He was worth the equivalent of $309 billion today, and he spent the last several years of his life donating the majority of that money to universities, libraries and other public causes.