Rethinking your R&D activity: Lessons from Thomas Edison
from Product Life by Atomica Creative Hosted by Tatsuya Nakagawa
[Recommended for Innovators and Manufacturers] There are many stories of inventors who ended up broke, even if their inventions were first class world-beaters. Perhaps the best known one is Nikola Tesla who invented AC (Alternating Current) electrical systems and technology which is widely used throughout the world today. He was in direct competition with Thomas Edison's DC (Direct Current) technology. Tesla had the apparently superior technology for most electrical power applications but Edison's technology held the market for some time even after George Westinghouse, inventor of the railway air brake system still in use today, backed Tesla. Edison actively resisted changing from his established DC to the superior AC technology but eventually did make the wholesale change as the market dictated. Unlike Edison, Tesla died in relative obscurity as a broke, lonely and unhappy man. When Edison died, the President asked everyone in the country to dim their lights for a minute of remembrance, a practice that was widely observed. What led to these two prominent individuals to such vastly different outcomes? Tesla is the poster boy for inventoritis, arguably being a greater inventor and scientist than Edison while self-educated Edison was free of it and still has the reputation as being the World's Greatest Inventor.
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