===Senior staff===
After 1868 he made New York City his base and seldom visited Pittsburgh, leaving daily operations in the hands of partners and senior subordinates. Carnegie always maintained that the secret of his business success lay not in his own genius as a maker of steel, but in his ability to select the proper man for the job to be done. He was one of the first industrialists to hire scientists for research, and he suggested for his own epitaph, "Here lies a man who was able to surround himself with men far cleverer than himself." Carnegie hired the best steelmakers--his own brother, Thomas M. Carnegie (1843–1886) (who died young), [[Henry Clay Frick]], [[Charles M. Schwab]], and the person he considered the greatest steel man of them all, Capt. "Bill" Jones.
Carnegie was not at home inside the factory. He did best 500 miles away, selecting and backing the experts, going over the accounts sent by telegraph every day to look for cost savings, and visiting bankers and financiers to sell bonds and railroads to sell rails and bridgework. He was the greatest salesman of his day because he understood how his firm could best serve his customer's needs. For example, he worked with the brilliant civil engineer James Eads (1820-87), whose "Eads Bridge" across the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Missouri, symbolized the interrelationship of steel, railroads, and high finance during the [[Gilded Age]]. To build his great bridge, Eads relied on Carnegie to supply high-quality steel, meet urgent deadlines, give bridge-building counsel, and provide the financial acumen that became essential for raising large sums of money for Eads finally to complete his bridge in 1874.