How Thomas Edison Changed the World
Today in History: Thomas Edison demonstrated his phonograph for the first time on this day in 1877. Thomas Edison is highly regarded as an inventor, a businessman, and as an industrialist, but there has been an effort to cast him as a total dick as well.
"The phrase 'Edison was the better business man' seems to be used as a negative description of Edison. Many successful inventors realize that experimentation and research takes money. Edison's first invention was the Universal Stock Ticker in 1869. Edison used the money he earned from the stock ticker to start his 'invention factory.'
Edison's legacy was in creating his 'invention factory' where Edison used his staff to develop ideas and turn them into patents. Some point to the concept of the invention factory as the reason for his success. Critics say Edison took his invention factory too far, and Edison took credit for any individual creativity by his employees.
How many inventions and innovations made in the name of Apple or Microsoft were not the direct work of Gates or Jobs? How is Edison getting credit for the work of his staff any different that the large number of engineers, designers, and programmers working for Microsoft or Apple, but all we hear about is the success of Bill Gates or Steve Jobs?
Likewise the term industrialist is used like it is mutually exclusive of being an inventor. Why is that? Steve Jobs was an industrialist, in some ways much more so than Thomas Edison, in that he was a leading figure in his industry. But the world today seems to see Steve Jobs as a hero, and Thomas Edison as a villain. In many ways I see Edison as very similar to Steve Jobs." ~Tom Peracchio
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