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Edison: The worst fisherman that ever lived
- philwelch 17y agoEdison is notably overrated. While he does deserve some credit, his approach to R&D was infamously brute-force. Tesla noted, “If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor.” He also infamously took credit for the inventions of his employees--the long and impressive list of things Edison invented is really a long and impressive list of things invented at Edison's lab. While it's hard to argue with success, not every successful man should be a figure of unquestioned admiration. Edison was famous in his day, and remains famous today, because he had the best PR and marketing in the business.
- gamble 17y agoEdison was the Bill Gates of his age. Even today, plenty of people believe that Gates had a hand in programming Windows. His greatest success as a businessman was marketing himself as a proxy for GE to a public that wasn't accustomed to the idea of corporate research. I think he was honestly talented, but no man could live up that image.
- zeynel1 17y agoPR and marketing is an important part of the discovery process. Unless you get your discovery in the market and build a business around it their is no discovery. Tesla made great discoveries but he was not a good marketer.
- philwelch 17y agoWestinghouse was a good marketer, however, so Tesla did not need to be.
- cromulent 17y agoClaiming that Edison invented the phonograph, the motion picture, and the electric light bulb is like claiming Steve Jobs invented the MP3 player, the GUI, and the mouse.