If you think your education is holding you back, remember that Thomas Edison never learned to spell and was home schooled by a mom who was completely unqualified.
It was his insatiable curiosity that propelled him forward.
It was his insatiable curiosity that propelled him forward.
Up to his 20s, Edison thought nothing of walking 150 miles to the next town to find work.
He frequently slept in rat-infested rooms and worked surrounded by cockroaches.
It's amazing how much wealthier & comfortable society has become since then (1860s).
He frequently slept in rat-infested rooms and worked surrounded by cockroaches.
It's amazing how much wealthier & comfortable society has become since then (1860s).
Oh boy, the short sellers would go wild with this one
Graham Bell to Western Union, telegraph monopoly: Here, take my telephone patents.
WU: Pffff, what would we do with this electrical toy?
WU: Pffff, what would we do with this electrical toy?
Edison was no good managing money, but this is still painful to read 🤦♂️
First appearance of Sam Insull, who’d later become Edison’s apprentice and creator of the centralized power industry
Edison, upon inventing the phonograph in 1877, correctly anticipated many of the applications we would recognize today as Audible, Spotify and Alexa
Edison would make huge promises and proclamations before his inventions were ready; partly to raise money for them, partly to lay claim to their success:
Lightbulb finally invented, Edison allowed anyone to come through his laboratory and witness the revolution firsthand:
After the first demo of his test power station in 1881, a prescient statement: we will make electric light so cheap, only the rich will afford to burn candles.
As in the episode in which the telegraph incumbent (Western Union) snubbed Edison’s telephone, here again the incumbent gaslight companies ridiculed his electric lighting system and carefully avoided buying his patents cheaply.
A lot needed to be built for the new power plant and distribution system, but Edison couldn’t raise the money. So he risked his entire fortune for new manufacturing facilities:
Edison builds the entire ecosystem (“beautifully conceived”) and takes Samuel Insull as his right hand man. They buy the land to build what would become General Electric:
Manhattan has Edison to thank for having buried the electric lines rather than raising them overhead:
Remember that NYT story about how the NYC subway costs too much to build because it’s 4x overstaffed (link)? Check out what NYC did to Edison in 1881:
Edison opened up NYC’s Pearl Street power generating station, giving the city electricity for the first time. The reaction? 🥱 😴
It’s so important to keep an open mind all the time. Your beloved approach may have become obsolete. It was a lesson that cost Edison dearly (AC/DC war):
I love it that Edison had a dude on payroll whose only job was to wake him up from naps:
Edison had taken up iron ore mining after 1892 (🤯) and did it from first principles, ignoring the experts:
