WEBVTT - Techs Top Rivalries 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:14.560 Get text with Technology, What textoff Chromos dot Com. He there, 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:18.560 and welcome to Text Stuff. I am your host, Jonathan Strickland, 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:21.680 and today I'm flying solo again and I hope you 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:27.520 enjoy the brand new theme song created by our producer Noel, 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:30.120 who went above and beyond the call of duty to 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:34.400 finally give us a new theme song. After seven years 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:37.000 of Tech Stuff, we got a new one. I hope 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:38.960 you guys enjoyed as much as I do. I love 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:41.120 that it has the spirit of the old one, but 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:44.200 it's totally original to tech Stuff, so you're not gonna 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:46.479 hear it anywhere else but right here. Let me know 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:48.400 what you think about it. I'm really eager to hear 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:51.920 about it. Today. I'm going to talk about something that 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:54.880 I think is pretty interesting. You know, technology is often 0:00:54.960 --> 0:01:00.280 intertwined with business, and that means rivalries are bound owned 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:03.720 to occur. Now, there have been some big rivalries in tech, 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:05.960 and I wanted to take some time to talk about 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:08.440 a few of the most notable ones. And this is 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:11.679 by no means a complete list. It's more of a 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:15.440 sampling and include some rivalries that happened more than a 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:20.800 century ago. So let's get started with the oldest rivalry 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:26.080 in my list, that is a railroad rivalry. This started 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:29.880 way back in eighteen sixty two and President Abraham Lincoln 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:34.319 signed into law the Pacific Railroad Act. Now, this was 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:37.760 an act that was meant to create a railroad that 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:42.640 would unify the rails, so you get a complete transcontinental 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:44.680 rail line where you could travel from the east coast 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:47.120 to the west coast. And it meant that you had 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:51.960 to bridge this huge gap that was started in the West. 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:57.640 I created these two entities, Union Pacific and Central Pacific. 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:01.560 Now Union Pacific started in Omahana, Braska, and it was 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:06.920 to build railroads westward. Central Pacific started in Sacramento, California, 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:10.200 and it was to build to the east. Now, the 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:16.160 two companies were fierce competitors because the amount of money 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:19.880 and land they received from the government. It didn't depend 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:22.560 on how efficient the systems were. It depended upon the 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:26.840 number of miles of track they laid. So speed was 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:31.200 valued higher than safety or efficiency, and the two companies 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:34.920 began to feverishly lay down track at the expense of 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:39.359 human lives. So the heads of the two companies were 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:43.360 collectively referred to as robber barons. If you've ever heard 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:47.880 that term. It's talking specifically about the railroad tycoons back 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:52.920 in the UH mid nineteenth century. They were fighting to 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:55.640 get the most wealth and power. They were engaging in 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:59.200 all sorts of questionable activities to gain an advantage as 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:03.320 the two lines of railroads converged. So as an example, 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:08.639 Union Pacific would build winding paths instead of a straight line. 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:11.799 Why because it meant that they actually increased the amount 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:14.760 of mileage of track they were laying down. They were 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:17.280 maximizing the amount of money and land they were getting 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:20.720 from the government by making the path longer than it 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:24.600 needed to be. It was much more lengthy than a 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:30.079 straight pathway. They also used cheaper materials than they may 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:34.080 have Well then they should have. Really they were using 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:37.920 wrought iron for the rails, which was fairly brittle, so 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:40.200 that was a problem. It would need to be replaced 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:46.560 before too long. And they were also using very cheap wood, 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:51.680 particularly because you know they were starting UH in Nebraska, 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:54.920 so they didn't have access to a lot of wood. 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:58.000 Nebraska has a lot of planes, so they were using 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:00.800 stuff like cotton wood, which was fairly brittle, and they 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:03.120 were using that for their railroad ties. Those are the 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:06.720 planks that connect the two sets of rails together and 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:10.720 keeps some space the right way. Uh. They also outsourced 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:13.760 a lot of the work for getting those railroad ties 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:18.760 to others in the Nebraska area, and those enterprising individuals 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:23.520 would take axes in hand, they'd have dollar signs in 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:27.120 their eyes, and they started hacking down all the trees, 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:30.760 even if those trees were on private property. In fact, 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:33.240 it got to a point where they were making claims 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:36.760 that farmers living in Nebraska didn't have a right to 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:40.400 claim private property because it had not been fully ratified 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:44.160 by the government. Yet the folks who are living on 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:48.520 that property begged to disagree, sometimes for the use of force. 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:52.680 They would actually fire shots at folks who were coming 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:56.200 into the land to cut down trees. And eventually even 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:59.440 Union Pacific said, all right, this, this might be going 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:02.799 a bit too far. Let's re evaluate how we're doing 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:07.760 business here. So both companies faced dangers exacerbated by their 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:11.239 willingness to cut corners to make more money, and both 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:16.640 were plagued by attacks from Native American tribes. Union Pacific 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:22.120 often would attempt to fight these attacks off their trains 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:25.280 that they would use to move along as the track 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:30.440 was being built were loaded with rifles. Meanwhile, Central Pacific's 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:34.799 workforce UH they were They were often joined by Native 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:39.839 Americans because Central Pacific started paying off tribes and having 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:45.080 them join the workforce. UH. Speaking of workforces, both Union 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:49.400 and Central used cheap labor. Central Pacifics workforce was primarily 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:54.320 Chinese augmented by some Native American workers, and Union Pacific 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:58.240 had hired on Irish laborers who were treated awfully at 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:02.919 that time, so both groups were even calling them second 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:07.440 class citizens as being generous. They were treated poorly. Central 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:11.000 Pacific suffered more losses to their workforce due to accidents 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:14.640 during the construction figures very not a lot of people 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:18.599 were particularly concerned about keeping an accurate count of the 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:22.800 number of deaths from injury, but estimations range from five 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:27.600 hundred to a thousand employees UH died while trying to 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:31.680 construct the railroad. Union Pacific they lost more employees to 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:36.200 disease and murder than they did to accidents. It turns 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:39.920 out they would stop in a lot of towns. Often 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:42.840 they would refer to them as the hell on Wheels 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:50.040 towns where there various workforce members were encountering problems with 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:54.720 prostitutes or violent criminals, and so a lot of them 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:57.640 didn't make it. In fact, I think I read one 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:01.200 estimation that said there was a ratio afford to one 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:06.600 Union Pacific employees who died from murder to accidents. So 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:09.560 for everyone who died from an accident, four, we're dying 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:13.640 from being murdered. So awful awful times. Even when the 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:17.360 two railroads were getting closer together, the two companies were 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:20.360 engaged in shady dealings and didn't worry so much about 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:23.200 the tracks actually meeting up properly, which was the whole 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:26.520 point of this enterprise in the first place. So the 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:29.520 two companies were still looking at ways to maximize the 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:31.680 amount of money and land they could get, rather than 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:35.200 completing the job as was assigned. And it was only 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:37.560 when the US government really got involved and made it 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:39.920 clear that the railroads were going to have to shape 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:43.200 up that they reached an agreement that Promontory Point in 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:48.400 Utah was the spot where the two railroads would finally connect. Now, 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:52.280 by then, both companies had spent huge amounts of money 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:55.760 and more than a thousand lives had been lost, And 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:58.960 if you want to look at how much track was 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:03.600 laid technically Union Pacific one because they had laid more track. 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:06.200 But the cost of both companies, not to mention the 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:09.640 cost to everyone else involved in this, whether it was 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:13.080 the land that it moved through or the people working 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:16.480 for the companies. It really makes this particular rivalry come 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:21.520 out as a draw, and not a pleasant one at that. Now, 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:24.560 the next big rivalry I want to talk about has 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.840 want I mentioned on the show several times before, and 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:33.160 it's Thomas Edison versus George Westinghouse. Now you might have 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:35.480 thought I was going to say Nicola Tesla there for 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:39.240 a second, but honest, honestly, really Tesla. He was a 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:43.200 brilliant engineer. He was also a brilliant self promoter. He 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:45.720 was a rock star of his day. But he was 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:52.320 not a very good businessman. So Edison and Westinghouse were 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:55.840 the powerhouses behind the two enormous companies battling to supply 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:58.960 electric power to the United States. So it's really George 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:02.880 Westinghouse who was the other entity in opposition to Thomas Edison. 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:06.199 Nicola Tesla played a very important role. But if you're 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:07.920 looking at the War of the currents, you really should 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:12.000 say Edison versus Westinghouse, not Edison versus Tesla. Now, this 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:14.720 war of the currents took place just a couple of 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:18.920 decades after the railroad Shenanigans I just talked about. This 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:21.920 would be in the eighteen eighties when Thomas Hasen was 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:26.120 looking to land an incredibly lucrative deal with the United 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:29.439 States to build power stations that would supply electricity to 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:33.560 homes and businesses through direct current. Now, essentially Edison would 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:35.240 just have to provide the patents and then he could 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:40.040 rake in royalties for years. He would become insanely wealthy 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:43.520 if he could land this deal. But there was a problem. 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:46.120 He was dead set on using that direct current as 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:49.640 a means of transmitting electricity, and that had limitations. Now, 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:52.400 there are a lot of advantages to using direct current. 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:57.679 Most of our electronics use direct current to operate. Anything 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:00.719 that uses a battery uses direct current. Most of our 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:03.559 most of the things we rely on use direct current. 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:08.200 There's usually a device that converts alternating current to direct 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:11.000 current so that we can actually use it. So if 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:14.120 we had direct current going straight into our homes, we 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:19.240 wouldn't need those additional converters and everything would be more efficient. 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:23.280 It's also a really simple way to generate electricity, but 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:27.160 they're big drawbacks, and the biggest one is that transmitting 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:30.880 DC power over distance isn't easy. You lose energy the 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:33.679 further away from the power source you are, so a 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:36.800 direct current, you want the load, that is the thing 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:40.040 that electricity is going to power, to be very close 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:42.800 to the source. The further away from the source it is, 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:45.200 the less energy is actually reaching the load, and the 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:47.800 less effective it is. So in other words, you would 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:51.760 have to build DC power plants, a lot more of 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:55.840 them and a lot closer to the loads as you 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:58.439 go along, and that was not a great solution for 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:00.880 some people, like it might be fine in an urban 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:05.280 environment where people are packed in very dense populations, but 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:09.320 in places like the suburbs or the rural areas, it 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:12.720 was a lot harder to justify because you couldn't build 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:15.320 the DC power plants as close to the homes as 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:19.960 needed to be. So Edison started looking into ways of 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:23.920 perhaps boosting DC power transmission. One of the people he 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:28.560 consulted with was Nicola Tesla, and Tesla had recommended that 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:33.280 Edison abandoned direct current or transmission and switched to alternating 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:37.719 current or a C electricity instead. Now, one thing you've 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:40.760 got to make clear, and I've said this before, it's 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:42.920 one of those things that I think a lot of 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:46.680 people are mistaken about. Tesla did not invent the idea 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:50.480 of alternating current. He's often given that credit, but that 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:53.640 is just not true. Alternating current had already been used 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:56.679 when Tesla was just a kid. He a c had 0:11:56.720 --> 0:12:00.760 existed before Tesla was really born. Didn't start getting widely 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:03.960 used in Europe until Tesla was a child. But at 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:07.959 any rate, there were already pre existing alternating current systems 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:12.839 that Tesla could witness and understand. Now, I don't want 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:15.440 to take too much away from Tesla, because he did 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:19.199 have brilliant ideas on how to make alternating current more 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:24.720 efficient and practical. He actually improved the process dramatically so 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:28.440 it could be an effective means of transmitting power. It's 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:32.320 just the principle itself had already existed before Tesla rose 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:38.160 to prominence. Now, Edison didn't see the benefit of alternating current. 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:41.360 He dismissed the idea, so Tesla would end up leaving 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:45.400 Edison's company and try to raise money for his own operation, 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:47.960 even going so far as to dig ditches for the 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:53.400 Edison company to raise money for his own company. Now 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:56.400 we need to talk about George Westinghouse. He was the 0:12:56.440 --> 0:12:59.840 founder of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, and he's 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:02.520 saw the value of alternating current. He thought that was 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:07.280 the future, so he bought Tesla's patents. Now Edison suddenly 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:11.880 took notice because while Tesla he thought was kind of 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:14.960 a wild, crazy idea man who wasn't a real threat, 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:20.040 Westinghouse had influence and a lot of money. So now 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:24.680 Edison actually had a legitimate threat, a legitimate competitor. Tesla, 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:27.680 while brilliant, wasn't really much of a threat to Edison. 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:30.600 He couldn't do much on his own. Westinghouse was a 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:33.719 different story, and Westinghouse was able to secure rights to 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:37.000 supply power to areas that Edison's power stations couldn't reach, 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:41.400 like those rural and suburban areas. Westinghouse also started making 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:45.400 some headway into urban markets, mostly by selling electricity at 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:50.600 a loss to undercut Edison. So Westinghouse wasn't above doing some, 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:55.680 you know, some potentially harmful business practices in order to 0:13:56.200 --> 0:14:01.680 eliminate the competition. Edison also not shy about competition. He 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:04.040 thrived on it. His response was to create a pr 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:08.720 campaign that claimed a c power was inherently deadly because 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:12.800 it required high voltage running through the wires. That's how 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:16.520 alternating current is able to get much better transmission than 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:20.600 direct current. With alternating current, used transformers to step up 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:23.120 the voltage until you get to these very high levels 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:26.800 to run through cable over great distances, and then use 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:29.680 other transformers to step down the voltage to deliver the 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:34.600 electricity to houses. And Edison was convinced that this alternating current, 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:38.320 this high voltage was absolutely deadly and if it were 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:43.360 put in widespread use, it would cause deaths by electrocution 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:47.480 across the United States. I assume he believed that. He 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:50.520 certainly acted as if he did uh, and he was 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:57.320 inspired to really push that idea. Now something happened that 0:14:57.480 --> 0:14:59.920 was a little bit against more than a little bit, 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:03.480 very much against Edison's principles. But I think it says 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:07.000 a lot about his character based upon what he did. 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:10.360 A dentist actually came up to him and had proposed 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:14.800 the idea of using electricity as a means of execution, 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:19.880 using electrocution to kill criminals. He thought that it could 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:23.360 be a faster and more humane way of putting someone 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:27.240 to death than the other methods of the era. Now, 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:32.440 Edison philosophically opposed the death penalty. He was not in 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:36.720 favor of it, but he also saw in this request 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:43.360 the possibility of associating Westinghouses alternating current power with electrocution, 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:49.680 and that led to Edison really pushing this idea, ultimately 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:55.320 leading to demonstrations public demonstrations in which Edison would electrocute 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:59.600 various animals, starting off with stray dogs. He would pay 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:02.720 to have stray dogs rounded up and then electrocute them 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:07.400 and to demonstrate that alternating current was deadly. Ultimately, the 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:11.720 big one that everyone remembers is that Edison used the 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:15.360 alternating current to put six thousand volts into an elephant, 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:19.960 electrocuting an elephant to death. Um it was an elephant 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:25.680 that had previously killed three different people, Although the treatment 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:27.960 of the elephant was a large factor in that, I 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:31.360 would imagine at any rate, Edison thought of this as 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:34.600 being completely justifiable, both for the means of putting his 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:37.560 competitor out of business and to end what he viewed 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:42.160 as a dangerous technology. Now, Edison even funded the design 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:45.360 of an electric chair, but he did so behind the scenes, 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:50.000 so he essentially paid off the inventor, Harold Brown was 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:55.040 given the task to design an electric chair, and Edison 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:59.000 was paying Harold Brown to use alternating current in that design. 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:02.800 So when the murderer, William Kimmler was scheduled to be 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:05.400 the first criminal to be executed by the electric chair, 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:12.160 Edison tried to popularize the term westinghoused for electrocution, as 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:18.080 in Kimmler was to be westinghoused, not just executed by electricity. 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:23.520 So again pretty negative pr campaign. By the way, that 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:27.600 execution did not go so well. Kimmler was strapped into 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:33.360 the chair, the switch was thrown, and Kimdler he tensed up. 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:36.600 People said that they saw him grip the sides of 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:40.399 the chair so hard that his hands began to bleed um. 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:45.880 He was convulsing when the A C dynamo essentially ran 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:49.040 off juice when they turned the switch off. Uh. They 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:52.479 were raided to pronounce Kimler dead when he suddenly started 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:57.280 breathing again, which horrified many of the witnesses. There were 0:17:57.320 --> 0:18:02.200 reports of people fainting or being sick because this supposedly 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:07.280 humane means of putting someone to death had just dramatically 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:14.040 had this this reaction of convulsions, and now the prisoner 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:18.359 was breathing again, not conscious, but was breathing. Meanwhile, the 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:22.280 A C dynamo needed to be charged again in order 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:25.840 for it to deliver another shock. So it took some time, 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:28.960 and it led some people to fear that Kindler would 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:33.640 regain consciousness, but they were able to deliver a second 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:39.040 fatal shock uh and actually complete the execution by electrocution. 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:44.440 Westinghouse was absolutely horrified by the whole ordeal and said 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:49.960 that the demonstration showed that electrocution is not a humane 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:54.080 method humane method of execution, and proclaimed there would never 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:58.600 again be an execution by electrocution. Now, all of this 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:04.320 grim theater ended up being unnecessary. Edison's efforts were all 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:08.960 for not because Westinghouse secured the rights supply electricity to 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:14.920 the eight Chicago World's Fair. The fair allowed Westinghouse an 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:19.280 opportunity to generate a huge amount of positive publicity for 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:23.400 the Westinghouse company and for alternating current, and the transmission 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:28.320 method was secure, so Westinghouse one out in the short run. Anyway, 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:33.320 Eventually Edison's company would win out and Westinghouse would kind 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:38.560 of fade into obscurity, but the actual rivalry during their lifetimes. 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:42.119 Westinghouse was the clear winner of that one. Alright. So 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:45.560 those are two classic rivalries from ages past. Now we're 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:48.280 going to jump forward about a century to look at 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:52.320 the next one, because, uh, I mean, there are tons 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:54.199 of different rivalries I could focus on, but some of 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:55.960 these are really fun and some of them are so 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:59.800 are very illustrative of how far people are willing to 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:04.120 go in order to get their ideas across. So that's next. 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:07.159 One I want to talk about is Motorola versus a 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:09.760 T and T in the mobile phone wars. And this 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:12.679 was in the late nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:15.720 when a T and T S research and development arm 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:18.480 called Bell Labs. We've talked about Bell Labs on this 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:21.880 show many times. Bell Labs was working on a new 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:25.520 way to make and receive phone calls, uh, and it 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:30.000 was a cellular service. It was using a cell methodology 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:33.720 to transfer phones from one cell to the next to 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:36.800 allow a continuous phone call whenever a phone was in motion, 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:42.440 and a T and T S aim was to create 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:46.200 this technology specifically for car phones. That was really the 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:48.800 application they were looking at. They weren't thinking about mobile 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:51.760 phones but car phones. So I guess you could argue 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:53.960 that car phones are mobile, but you couldn't take them 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:56.159 out of the car. They would just be, you know, 0:20:56.280 --> 0:21:00.200 built into the car itself. Another company thought there could 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:04.359 be a different use personal mobile phones, things that you 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:06.840 could actually carry with you, they wouldn't be stuck in 0:21:06.880 --> 0:21:11.160 the car, and that company was Motorola. So Motorola gave 0:21:11.200 --> 0:21:14.600 the project of developing a truly mobile phone to Martin Cooper, 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:17.320 and Cooper and his team got to work in nineteen 0:21:17.400 --> 0:21:20.000 seventy two on developing a phone that could be carried 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:23.320 on a person and one that didn't require any sort 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:26.680 of wires connected to a base station, so it would 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:31.679 be another cell phone type of phone. The phone that 0:21:31.720 --> 0:21:35.719 they designed was officially named the Dina Tack d Y 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:42.760 in A T A C, and inside the Motorola group 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:45.479 they referred to it as a shoe phone because of 0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:47.359 the shape of the phone. It was a big brick 0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:50.200 of a thing that looked kind of like the shape 0:21:50.240 --> 0:21:53.040 of a shoe. In nineteen seventy three, the team was 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:55.920 ready to unveil the project and perform a public demonstration, 0:21:56.080 --> 0:22:00.439 so Cooper had the perfect idea to do this. His 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:03.840 team installed a cell transmitter on a New York City building. 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:06.960 They got permission to attach a transmitter to a tower, 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:13.159 and on April third, Ninete Martin Cooper grabbed the phone. 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:18.000 It's weighed about two pounds, and took that out to 0:22:18.119 --> 0:22:21.159 the streets of New York City and he used that 0:22:21.200 --> 0:22:25.399 phone to call a person named Joel Ingle. So who 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:29.800 was Joel Lingle? He was an engineer who worked at 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:33.320 Bell Labs. So essentially Ingle was a T and T 0:22:33.600 --> 0:22:37.840 S counterpart to motor Rola's Martin Cooper. So Cooper essentially 0:22:37.880 --> 0:22:42.679 calls his his counterpart and to his competitor, and he 0:22:42.840 --> 0:22:46.000 rather cheekily needled Ingle with the reveal that he was 0:22:46.080 --> 0:22:49.159 being called on a mobile phone that wasn't a car phone, 0:22:49.840 --> 0:22:52.040 and then Cooper went on his jolly little way to 0:22:52.080 --> 0:22:56.439 hold a press conference about the developing technology. Now, would 0:22:56.520 --> 0:22:59.600 mobile phones be limited to cars if it weren't for 0:22:59.680 --> 0:23:04.639 motor Rolla and Martin Cooper. Probably not, And even Motorola's 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:07.440 invention wouldn't be ready for consumers for another ten years 0:23:07.520 --> 0:23:10.200 or so. But the rivalry was a really fun one, 0:23:10.240 --> 0:23:14.719 so I decided I had to include it. In this episode, Okay, 0:23:14.760 --> 0:23:17.520 we've got to talk about a little company called Apple. 0:23:18.280 --> 0:23:21.399 Apple has had some of the most famous rivalries in 0:23:21.520 --> 0:23:26.399 technology with lots of different companies, in fact, largely because 0:23:26.480 --> 0:23:29.080 Apple is involved with lots of different types of tech. 0:23:29.400 --> 0:23:32.159 So it's not as simple as Apple versus Microsoft, or 0:23:32.200 --> 0:23:34.720 even Apple versus IBM, but both will play a part. 0:23:35.000 --> 0:23:36.520 So I'm gonna give a rundown on some of the 0:23:36.520 --> 0:23:40.800 biggest rivalries involving Apple, including an internal rivalry within the 0:23:40.840 --> 0:23:43.520 company itself. Just keep in mind that a lot of 0:23:43.560 --> 0:23:46.800 these rivalries overlap each other, so it's not like one 0:23:46.880 --> 0:23:49.320 began and ended and then another one began and ended. 0:23:50.200 --> 0:23:52.560 But the first one we need to look at is 0:23:52.640 --> 0:23:56.920 Apple versus IBM. So both companies were aiming to dominate 0:23:56.960 --> 0:24:00.280 the personal computer market. Apple had an early success. They 0:24:00.280 --> 0:24:03.120 had really hit the ground running with the Apple too. 0:24:03.160 --> 0:24:06.960 It was incredibly popular for its time. But IBM was 0:24:07.000 --> 0:24:10.920 a huge company with nearly a century of history behind it, 0:24:11.400 --> 0:24:14.359 and IBM had been building computers for enterprises and felt 0:24:14.359 --> 0:24:17.760 the PC market was the next big thing. So as 0:24:17.800 --> 0:24:22.400 the IBM PC debuted, Apple had to strike back. So 0:24:23.200 --> 0:24:27.520 famous Apple at ran during the Super Bowl and it 0:24:27.600 --> 0:24:31.760 portrayed IBM as the evil Empire. It was sort of Orwellian, 0:24:32.000 --> 0:24:37.080 very faceless, and everyone is just a number, a cog 0:24:37.119 --> 0:24:41.080 in a machine, and the Macintosh computer was positioned to 0:24:41.119 --> 0:24:44.159 be the machine for people wishing to maintain their individuality 0:24:44.280 --> 0:24:47.600 rather than to become a clone. Jobs himself had said 0:24:47.640 --> 0:24:50.840 that if for some reason we make some big mistake 0:24:50.880 --> 0:24:54.160 and IBM wins, my personal feeling is that we are 0:24:54.240 --> 0:24:58.280 going to enter a computer dark ages. For about twenty years, 0:24:59.280 --> 0:25:02.880 shots were five aired um. IBM fought back by employing 0:25:02.920 --> 0:25:05.679 a former ally of Apple. And that brings us to 0:25:05.800 --> 0:25:10.000 the second big rivalry in Apple's history. And we're talking 0:25:10.040 --> 0:25:14.320 about Apple and Microsoft, and this one is a doozy. 0:25:14.400 --> 0:25:18.520 So the two companies shared a lot of similarities. Microsoft 0:25:18.560 --> 0:25:23.479 was founded on April fourth, nineteen seventy Apple was founded 0:25:23.520 --> 0:25:29.960 on April one, nineteen seventy six, so almost a year later, 0:25:30.320 --> 0:25:33.520 not quite, just barely shy of a year later. So 0:25:33.640 --> 0:25:40.840 Microsoft is just a hair under a year older than Apple. Meanwhile, 0:25:41.119 --> 0:25:43.520 two of the co founders, you know, Bill Gates for 0:25:43.600 --> 0:25:47.359 Microsoft and Steed Jobs for Apple, were very similar. Both 0:25:47.359 --> 0:25:51.679 were college dropouts, both had big ideas. Gates's approach was 0:25:51.760 --> 0:25:55.159 to develop software that would run on personal computers in 0:25:55.200 --> 0:26:00.639