WEBVTT - The Birth of Xerox 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.760 Get in text with technology with tech Stuff from works 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:13.920 dot com. Pather is Welcome to tech Stuff. I am 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:17.799 your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer here at 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:20.800 how stuff works dot com and here on our show, 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:24.680 we talk about all things technological. Sometimes we look at 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:27.520 a specific technology. Sometimes we talk about a person who 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:31.520 is really important in the development of tech as we 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:34.000 know it. But today we're going to do one of 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:36.960 the types of episodes that you guys tell me you love, 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:41.680 and that's the history the story of a big company 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:44.280 that's important in technology. And the one we're gonna talk 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:47.360 about is Xerox. And I know there are a lot 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:52.280 of people out there who don't realize what how large 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:56.600 a role Xerox has played in the way technology works 0:00:56.600 --> 0:00:59.240 today and the way that we interact with our technology. 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:02.240 But the truth is it's a company that has had 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:06.520 a huge impact on the way we interact with our technology. 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:09.600 Now today we're gonna focus on the early years of 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:12.920 Xeroxes development. In fact, we're going to get only up 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:15.640 to a couple of years after they called themselves the 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:19.800 Xerox Company for the first time. So we're focusing on 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:23.039 the early times. But in the second part of this 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:26.280 episode series, we will focus more on some of the 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:29.080 R and D that Xerox did that has been so 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:34.720 transformational to our technology today. So let's focus on some 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:37.600 early stuff. We're really going to talk about the history 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:41.120 of Xerox, and it may sound straightforward. You're probably thinking 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:44.160 about copier machines, and in fact that will play a 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:48.120 huge role in Xerox's history. But we're gonna take some 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:49.920 time in these episodes because I'm sure it's going to 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:53.920 require a couple to really talk about how the company 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:57.400 has developed over time, and it's done far more than 0:01:57.520 --> 0:02:00.720 just make photocopiers and contributed in may your ways to 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:05.800 our technology. The story stretches back more than a century. Officially, 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:11.560 Xerox traces its history back to nineteen o six, although 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:14.000 it was a very different company and it had a 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:16.760 different name back in those days. And I'm already getting 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:19.560 ahead of myself, because even if we just jumped into 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:22.880 nineteen o six, we wouldn't have enough context to understand 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:26.920 what is happening in the world and and the company 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:31.200 that would become Xerox. So you know, I love my history, 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:33.640 and as I've said on other episodes, it's really tricky 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:37.840 to find a starting point for any given actual story, because, 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:41.000 as it turns out, life is a continuous timeline that 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:43.720 stretches all the way back into prehistory, which is a 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:46.440 bit grand to just talk about Xerox. If I were 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:50.800 to say, and then man discovered fire, you would be 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:54.480 here for many episodes, and I don't think we need 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:57.160 to go back quite that far. So instead, we're gonna 0:02:57.160 --> 0:02:59.720 talk about what was going on in the eighteen hundreds 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:05.440 the nineteenth century that leads towards the founding of Xerox. Now, 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:10.600 one person who was incredibly important to those early years 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:14.120 at Xerox never worked for the company. He was not 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:16.800 an employee of Xerox at all. In fact, he was 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:19.960 the man who created a company that was one of 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:25.240 Xerox's big competitors in the early days, and that was 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:29.120 George Eastman. He was the guy who founded Eastman Kodak. 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:33.360 George Eastman left school when he was fourteen years old 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:36.200 to go to work at an insurance company in Rochester, 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:39.640 New York. And he did that because his father had 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:44.040 passed away, and once his father had died, George Eastman 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:46.840 felt that he needed to go and get a job 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:49.760 in order to provide for his mother and for his 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:54.400 two older sisters. Several years later, after he had been 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:58.720 working for a while, Eastman became fascinated with photography, but 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:01.520 he was really frustrated that the equipment was so bulky 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:04.880 and awkward to use, and he began to tweak cameras. 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:06.840 He began to take stuff apart and try and figure 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:08.520 out ways to put it back together and make it 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:12.240 more compact and more user friendly. And he was really 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:16.080 working on a better solution. And among his many contributions 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:20.440 was the development of photo finishing chemicals. And after a time, 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:24.720 paper companies began to work on using techniques created by 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:29.640 Eastman to cope paper for special photographic use. So Kodak 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:32.520 was selling photographic paper, but they were doing so at 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:37.040 a premium. Other companies began to spring up trying to 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:42.520 sell photocopy or not photocopier, but photographic paper two customers, 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:45.040 but at a reduced price. So you saw a lot 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:47.680 of competition come up in those days. Kodak was doing 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:50.880 very well. It had really made a name for itself 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:55.440 early on as a photography company. But these other companies 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:58.120 that were mostly paper companies were trying to cope paper 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:00.960 so that they could be used for ato graphic purposes. 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:03.960 They were trying very hard to try and and and 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:11.479 compete with Codex consumer products. Now. Eastman also made significant 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:15.839 contributions to the community of Rochester. He was very much 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:20.480 a believer in reinvesting into his community, and that included 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:24.279 co founding the University of Rochester with John D. Rockefeller, 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:29.320 and Kodak was the largest employer in the area leading 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:34.800 into the twentieth century. In two, another important person in 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:40.080 our story enters, and that is Joseph Robert Wilson, sometimes 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:43.640 known as Dick to his friends and family and Mr 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:46.719 j R. Too pretty much everybody else. The reason he 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:50.680 was called Jr. Is his father was Joseph C. Wilson, 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:53.640 So you had to Joe Wilson's and there's gonna be 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:56.599 a third in just a minute. Uh. And so to 0:05:56.760 --> 0:05:59.840 differentiate the two, you had Joe C. Wilson, who was 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:04.160 a fairly important person in the Rochester community, and then 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:10.320 Joseph Robert Wilson or j R. As a young man, Jr. 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:14.200 Worked in his father's pawn shop in Rochester. He met 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:17.640 a young lady named Katherine m Upton. She was the 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:20.200 daughter of a railroad engineer, and the two of them 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:24.600 fell in love and they got married in nineteen o three. Now, 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:28.679 while all of that's going on, while the Wilson's family 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:33.080 is starting to grow, one year earlier, in nineteen o two, 0:06:33.320 --> 0:06:36.640 another company was founded, and this one was called the m. H. 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:41.280 Koon Company k u h N. This was a paper 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:45.479 coating company. This company was founded by an immigrant to 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:49.119 the United States, a person who was an emulsion maker. 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:51.840 He made these mixtures, these emulsions that you would use 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:54.440 to code paper for the purposes of turning it into 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:59.920 photographic paper and uh. He ended up founding this company 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:03.799 along with some former employees of Eastman Kodak, which again 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:07.880 that company was very much the largest employer over in Rochester, 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:12.520 New York. Now JR. Wilson was to start work at 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:15.640 this company. He was supposed to become an employee. His 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:19.080 father had arranged for it and made contact with the 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:21.560 folks over it at MH. Khon and said, can my 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:25.280 son work there? They said yes? But j. R. Wilson 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:30.120 fell seriously ill. He he caught a disease that affected 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:33.080 his kidneys and it laid him out. It put him 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:36.640 out of commission for about two years he was not 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:40.480 able to work. He was pretty seriously ill. Now he 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:45.440 eventually recovered from that illness, but by then that struggling 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:51.680 paper company had folded. It just couldn't couldn't exist anymore. 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:55.200 I realized I was talking about a paper company folding. 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:58.000 And you may think that that was an intentional pun, 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:00.880 but I assure you I didn't in it until after 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:05.680 I had said it. So the company has gone under, 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:10.160 and J. C. Wilson, the father Joe Joe C. Wilson, 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:12.920 decided that j R. Would be able to help head 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:17.200 up his own small business. So J C. Joe C. 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:21.520 Wilson decided to put up the money necessary to start 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:25.920 a new business and brought on the employees of MGE 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:28.840 Coon in the process. So those folks came over from 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:32.839 the company that was gone under and joined and they 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:37.640 named this new company the Halloyd Corporation H A. L. 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:41.000 O I. D. And Halloyd was in reference to some 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:44.480 of the chemicals in this emulsion that was being used 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:48.719 to coat the pieces of paper. This would become the 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:52.360 company that evolves into Xerox. So this is nineteen o six, 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:56.840 So six we get the Halloyd Corporation founding. This is 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:00.440 the moment that Xerox traces its history back to, even 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:03.560 though you could argue it goes back even further if 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:07.079 you're thinking in a big picture kind of way. Now, 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:10.200 the Halloyd Corporation's offices were on the eighth floor of 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:14.640 the cp Ford Shoe Company on Commercial Street in Rochester, 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:17.800 New York, and it was a loft space, so it 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:19.880 meant that they were at the very top of this 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:23.079 eight story building, which later on would lead J. R. 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:27.559 Wilson to make the amazing dad joke about how Xerox 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:32.200 started at the top. It's great, It was literally the 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:33.920 top floor of the building, which I think is a 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:38.120 cute story. The Halloyd Corporations product would still be this 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:41.760 photographic paper, so it's similar to what the previous company 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:45.400 was making. Uh, so that if you're wondering what this is, 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:49.360 this is the paper that photographers would use to produce photographs. 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:51.440 And the goal of the Halloid Corporation was to make 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:54.840 photographic paper that would be at a lower cost than 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:58.800 what Kodak could offer, and so they could then sell 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:03.080 small all are batches of this stuff. They couldn't produce 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:05.880 it in the same volume that Kodak could, but they 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:09.120 could do so at lower cost to the photographers. So 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:13.360 they were able to make a small profitable business, but 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:17.160 it was modest. It wasn't like it wasn't doing crazy 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:20.200 amounts of business like Kodak was, So Kodak really didn't 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:22.840 have any concern. There was a tiny little company that 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:26.920 didn't compete on any realistic level with Kodak at the time. 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:30.760 The process they used to make their photographic paper was 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:34.840 not exactly high tech. They would take this emulsion, they 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:37.800 would take sheets of paper, they would coat the paper 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:41.120 in the emulsion, and then they would dry the paper 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:44.320 by blowing cold air across it. And they used a 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:47.520 pretty primitive form of air conditioning to do it. They 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:51.640 would get enormous blocks of ice, and they would use 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:55.600 fans to blow air across the ice so that they 0:10:55.600 --> 0:11:00.440 could create this cool breeze to dry off the emulsion 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:06.040 coated pieces of paper, and uh set that emulsion mixture 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:08.840 into the paper itself. You know, you're setting it so 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:12.560 that it actually can be used for photographic purposes. The 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:16.000 big disadvantage to this was that there wasn't really a 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:20.360 lot of ways to to perform quality control, so the 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:24.240 product was largely inconsistent in those early days, there'd be 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:26.600 some batches that be great and some batches that were 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:29.480 not so great, and sometimes it meant that the company 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:32.960 had to throw out a batch because it just wasn't 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:37.400 it wasn't good enough to to sell to anybody. So 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.679 that inconsistency was costing the money. And at that point J. R. 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:45.600 Wilson hired an emulsion expert, someone who really knew the 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:49.679 chemistry behind this, to help him and received some sound 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:52.760 advice from this expert. The expert said, what they really 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:56.000 need to do was relocate the company to a new 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:59.480 spot where a new manufacturing plant that could be dedicated 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:03.600 to the manufacturing of this photographic paper, and that would 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:08.040 help them control the entire production experience from the beginning 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:10.520 through to the end, and that would help guarantee a consistent, 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:14.000 reliable product. And so in nineteen o seven, one year 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:16.680 after they founded the company, the entire company prepared to 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:19.959 move the operation to a new manufacturing plant. And by 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:23.480 that I mean the entire company consisted of a dozen people. 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:27.000 It was very tiny at the time. The move was 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:29.960 going to be extremely expensive. However, even though it was 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:33.960 a tiny company, We're talking about fifty thousand dollars needed 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:37.280 for the move to actually happen. And that doesn't sound 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:40.000 like a lot necessarily in the grand scheme of things, 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:43.520 but fifty thousand dollars in nineteen o seven is the 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:47.040 equivalent of more than a million dollars in today's money, 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:50.360 So it was a significant investment that J. R. Wilson 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:52.920 needed in order to make this happen. He did not 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:56.920 have fifty thousand dollars, and so there really weren't a 0:12:56.960 --> 0:13:00.240 whole lot of options open to him. Back in those days, 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:05.840 you couldn't find venture capitalists or get really impressive loans 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:11.240 from banks. You essentially had to find a rich Hatron 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:14.720 type person to put forth that money. So in this case, 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:19.840 that person was Gilbert E. Mosher. Mosher had founded a 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:23.160 company called Century Camera, which he had sold at a 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:27.600 tidy profit to Eastman Kodak, so he was really well 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:30.760 off already, and he agreed that he would front the 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.040 Halloyd Corporation the money they needed to move, but he 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:37.319 had some really hefty demands of his own that they 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:39.240 were going to have to meet for him to do this. 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:42.280 One of those demands was that he himself would become 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:46.000 the head of business operations and that his associate J. 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:51.800 Milner Walmsley would have ownership control effectively of the company. 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:54.840 That j R. Wilson would still own shares in the company, 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:58.760 but those shares in turn would be controlled by Walmsley, 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:02.880 which make the shares sound like they were Wilson's in 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:07.440 name only. Mosher and Walmsley had a lot of experience 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:11.920 running successful businesses, and Jr. Really wasn't in any position 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:16.640 to disagree. He would later complain extensively about the two 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:20.040 of them, uh and their management style, which was very 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:23.080 different from his own. It was, however, a great move 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:26.720 for the company. It was it led the Halloy In 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:32.240 Corporation to a profitable business. Jr. Was known as being 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:35.160 a great guide to customers. He was really outgoing and 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:39.040 gregarious two people who were coming into to look at 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:42.400 the products. But he had a reputation for being easily 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:45.520 upset at his employees. He had the sort of dark 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:49.520 moods in the office and was known to berate people 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:52.160 if he felt that they were not doing a good 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:56.240 enough job. And Uh, it was it was kind of tough. 0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:58.280 It sounds like to be an employee of J. R. 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:01.400 Wilson that it was not always very pleasant and when 0:15:01.400 --> 0:15:05.760 he was happy things were great, but he could get 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:08.280 really angry at the drop of a hat, according to 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:13.720 some reports from his employees at the time. So again, 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:17.920 Jared Wilson is known for complaining about his bosses mos 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:23.920 Mosher and Walmsley, but otherwise things kept on going pretty well. 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:29.480 His young son, j R. Wilson's young son, Joseph Chamberlain Wilson, 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:33.920 named after his grandfather. So you had Joe C. Wilson 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:39.200 j R. Wilson, then you have Joe Wilson. Everyone refers 0:15:39.240 --> 0:15:44.040 to this particular Joe Wilson as v. Joe Wilson. So 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:48.920 Joseph Chamberlain Wilson he witnessed his father's behavior and took 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:51.520 note of it and essentially said, you know what, if 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:54.160 I'm ever in a position where I'm leading a business, 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:58.600 i am not going to follow this particular managerial style. 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:01.280 I'm not gonna yell at my employees in this way. 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:04.080 I'm not going to be partying with them after hours 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:07.240 and going drinking at all hours and then turning around 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:09.040 and yelling at them. And I'm certainly not going to 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:13.120 go home and complain about the people who made this 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:16.160 business possible because they fronted a huge amount of money 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:19.040 so that we could have the manufacturing facilities we need. 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:22.400 So he was taking this all as kind of object 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:24.560 lessons at the time. He was a very young man 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:28.840 around this time. Now, young Joe Wilson was a good student. 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:33.479 He enjoyed studying. He was a fairly quiet and shy 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:37.880 young man. But he also was an honor student. He 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:43.440 was valedictorian of his high school class, and afterward he 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:47.680 enrolled in at the University of Rochester. Now, originally he 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:51.480 was looking at possibly moving away and doing studies at 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:56.040 some other university. His father, however, j R. Said Hey, 0:16:56.560 --> 0:16:59.640 if you enrolling classes at the University of Rochester, I'll 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:03.280 give you a buick. And Joe Wilson said, I like 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:06.320 a buick, And so he enrolled at the University of 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:10.520 Rochester h and pursued a degree in economics. He ended 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:14.240 up getting two buicks. Actually, um, although the second one 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:16.200 replaced the first one. It wasn't like he was driving 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:18.000 two of them at the same time, strapped to his 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:22.679 feet like giant electric razors. That's silly. You don't have 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:26.720 those scooters back at that time. And I like the 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:28.480 thought of it. I want to see fan art of 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:34.600 Joe Wilson astride two buicks gloriously riding off into the sunset. 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:37.199 But I can't draw that, so I leave that up 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:39.600 to you guys. He had really good grades at university 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:44.399 from in every single class except for physical education. He 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:47.920 was not a sporting kind of guy. He had he 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:52.800 was nearsighted, and he he liked to participate in a 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:56.879 supportive fashion in sports, like he would be a manager 0:17:57.000 --> 0:18:00.679 for a team, but he didn't like playing on teams 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:05.520 or participating in sports. Directly after he goes undergraduate degree, 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:07.879 he really wasn't sure what he wanted to do next. 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:09.960 He wasn't sure where he wanted to go. And part 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:13.760 of that was not just him being uncertain. It was 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:16.720 because the United States at the time was entering the 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:21.119 Great Depression, and this was an incredibly difficult time for 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:26.679 millions of people in the United States. So he he 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:28.960 saw that there were fewer and fewer options. There are 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:32.480 fewer jobs that were out there, And a professor of 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:35.240 his said, you know what you probably should do, since 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:37.640 you don't really have an idea of where you want 0:18:37.640 --> 0:18:40.040 to go yet and things are pretty tough, you should 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:43.080 enroll at the Harvard Business School and attend there for 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:46.800 a couple of years and really expand your education. You'll 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:49.160 get to see more opportunities that way, and you might 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:52.040 end up landing something you really want. And he thought, 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:53.679 you know what, that sounds like a good idea. And 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:56.040 of course, worst case scenario, I can go work for 0:18:56.119 --> 0:18:59.840 my dad's company, the Halloy Corporation. So he goes and 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:02.880 enrolls in the Harvard Business School. While he was there, 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:05.960 twenty percent of his classmates had to drop out during 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:08.800 their first year due to the Great Depression. They either 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:11.000 had to leave in order to help support their families 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:14.680 or they literally could not afford to attend anymore. And 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:18.359 so it was a pretty hefty dropout rate when you 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:22.000 lose a fifth of your classmates due to the economic times. 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:24.760 But he was able to stick with it, and he 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:27.520 graduated with honors from the Harvard Business School. And in 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:30.679 the meantime, he also would work for the Hallowyd Corporation. 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:34.600 He worked in their New York City office, But yeah, 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:38.080 he ended up working there, especially in the summers, and 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:41.679 he made twenty dollars a week as an assistant to 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:45.960 the bookkeeping department. He would continue working for Halloyd after 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:49.200 graduating and He also got engaged to a woman named 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:52.800 Peggy Curran. He had actually met Peggy Curran while he 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:56.320 was studying at the University of Rochester. She was a 0:19:56.359 --> 0:20:00.199 friend of a friend. That friend that they had in 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:06.080 common ended up catching pneumonia and was very seriously ill 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:09.479 for quite some time, and both Joe Wilson and Peggy 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:12.879 Curran would check in on this mutual friend they had 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:16.560 um and they wanted to make sure he was all right, 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:18.760 and as a result, they met each other. They fell 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:22.760 in love, they started dating. They had a massive, ugly breakup. 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:26.639 Peggy ended up moving away from Rochester for a while 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:32.680 to Buffalo, distant exotic Buffalo, New York, and Joe Wilson 0:20:33.119 --> 0:20:36.199 was despondent but figured that, you know, that was just 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:39.240 something that runs course, until he encountered another friend of 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:41.320 his who said, hey, where's that nice young lady you 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:43.760 were always hanging out with? And he says, oh, well, 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:46.360 she's moved off to Buffalo. She shuffled off to Buffalo, 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:49.520 in fact, and the fellow said, you need to get 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:52.119 your butt to Buffalo because she was the best thing 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:54.119 that ever happened to you, and if you don't do it, 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:57.520 you're an idiot, and Joe Wilson said, you know what, 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:00.960 You're probably right. He shuffled his way off to Buffalo 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:04.520 and he started to court Peggy Anew, who was not 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:10.560 immediately receptive to his advances, but she eventually started listening 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:14.480 to him more. And the story goes that at the 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:18.480 end of one of their their meetings, she was on 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:21.679 a train to leave and he was on the platform 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:24.160 to see her off, and as the train pulled out, 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:27.480 she leaned out and yelled, yes, I will marry you, 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:33.840 which is adorable that that uh worked out that way. Well, 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:37.359 all of this is obviously big life changing moments for 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:42.679 Joe Wilson and Uh. He would end up marrying Peggy 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:47.160 Current on October twelfth, nineteen thirty five. He's also still 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:51.080 working with the Halloyd Corporation and things were actually going 0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:54.080 pretty well over at Halloyd. Unlike many other businesses during 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:57.600 the Great Depression, Halloyd was actually making a profit. They 0:21:57.640 --> 0:22:01.359 weren't just staying in business, they were making money. They 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:04.879 weren't blowing everything out of the water. But in a 0:22:04.960 --> 0:22:08.080 world where many people were out of a job, this 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:10.920 was a company that was actually able to stay solvent 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:15.359 and make a profit, which is no small shakes. Also, 0:22:15.400 --> 0:22:20.040 photography was still one of the really big developing industries. 0:22:20.840 --> 0:22:22.880 I didn't mean to make that pun either, but it 0:22:22.920 --> 0:22:27.840 was a developing industry at that time. Halloyd also paid 0:22:27.880 --> 0:22:33.880 attention to some really interesting uh innovations. For example, there 0:22:33.920 --> 0:22:37.560 was a chemist named Homer Piper who created a new 0:22:37.640 --> 0:22:42.320 product called Halloyd Record in nine, which would become a 0:22:42.480 --> 0:22:47.920 very popular product, and it was this contribution that led 0:22:47.960 --> 0:22:53.280 to the company's overall success, particularly as they were waiting 0:22:53.320 --> 0:22:57.360 through the rest of the depression. This lesson really made 0:22:57.400 --> 0:23:02.320 a mark on young Joe Wilson. He saw that there 0:23:02.400 --> 0:23:06.840 was this innovation that really set Halloyd Corporation apart and 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:10.479 helped guarantee them some success, and he said that lesson 0:23:10.720 --> 0:23:12.600 was something he would carry with him through the rest 0:23:12.600 --> 0:23:14.800 of his life. That he wanted to make sure that 0:23:14.880 --> 0:23:17.640 the company that he worked for, whether it was Halloyd 0:23:17.640 --> 0:23:22.720 Corporation or someone else, would always pursue innovation, because only 0:23:22.760 --> 0:23:25.800 through innovation can you make sure that you are guaranteeing 0:23:25.840 --> 0:23:29.200 you have a spot at the industry. If you stick 0:23:29.240 --> 0:23:32.240 with the same thing and you never deviate from it, 0:23:32.320 --> 0:23:34.560 sooner or later someone else is going to do it 0:23:34.600 --> 0:23:37.680 better than you. Do, and you're gonna be out of business. 0:23:37.920 --> 0:23:41.880 So he said, the only way you could prosper would 0:23:42.280 --> 0:23:44.800 be to cultivate a company that pursued innovation in an 0:23:44.800 --> 0:23:48.399 effort to avoid stagnation. Now you might wonder what the 0:23:48.400 --> 0:23:50.720 heck is Halloyd record, but it was a type of 0:23:50.720 --> 0:23:55.840 photographic paper that was used in rectograph and photostat machines. 0:23:56.880 --> 0:23:59.440 Now that means I actually have the opportunity to tell 0:23:59.480 --> 0:24:03.160 you how about how some tech works. This is tech stuff, 0:24:03.200 --> 0:24:05.080 after all, and it is part of how stuff works. 0:24:05.119 --> 0:24:08.159 So we're gonna actually talk about how the rectograph and 0:24:08.160 --> 0:24:11.120 photo staff machines worked, and we'll get back to the 0:24:11.160 --> 0:24:14.000 story of Xerox Company once I'm done with that. Now, 0:24:15.160 --> 0:24:18.080 before I go and get all that tech stuffs out 0:24:18.080 --> 0:24:20.240 of the way, we actually do need to take a 0:24:20.320 --> 0:24:31.000 quick break first and thank our sponsors. All right. So 0:24:31.280 --> 0:24:34.640 I was talking about rectograph and photostat machines and what 0:24:34.680 --> 0:24:37.960