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Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, it's Jacob. Today. We are going to play

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Speaker 1: for you an episode of a new show that I'm

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Speaker 1: hosting in addition to What's Your Problem. The new show

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Speaker 1: is called Business History because it's a show about the

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Speaker 1: history of business. I'm hosting it with Robert Smith, who

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Speaker 1: some of you might remember I used to work with

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Speaker 1: at Planet Money. He was a co host at Planet Money.

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Speaker 1: And the episode we're going to play today is about

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Speaker 1: Thomas Edison, who is an extremely What's Your Problem kind

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Speaker 1: of guy, huge figure in the history of technology, very

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Speaker 1: interesting in many ways. This is actually the first of

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Speaker 1: a three episode series we're doing about Edison. If you

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Speaker 1: happen to subscribe to Pushkin Plus, you can listen to

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Speaker 1: the whole series now. Otherwise they'll come out one episode

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Speaker 1: a week over the next few weeks in the Business

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Speaker 1: History Feed, which you can of course get wherever you

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Speaker 1: are listening to this show right now. So if you

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Speaker 1: happen to want to see me and Robert in addition

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Speaker 1: to hear us, you can watch it on YouTube. I

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Speaker 1: hope you like the show. If you like it, of

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Speaker 1: course I would love it if you would subscribe. Thanks.

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Speaker 2: Here's the show Business History, Episode two Edison Part one.

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Speaker 1: What if that's the segment that's sponsored, sponsored by what

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Speaker 1: by whoever wants to pay for it. We can talk

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Speaker 1: about that afterwards. I suppose Thomas Edison died in nineteen

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Speaker 1: thirty one. He was eighty four years old, and when

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Speaker 1: he died, the President of the United States, Herbert Hoover,

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Speaker 1: decided that Edison was such a big deal that the

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Speaker 1: whole country, the entire United States, needed a moment of mourning.

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Speaker 1: So Hoover is talking this over with his says, what

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Speaker 1: should we do to honor Edison? And somebody says, what

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Speaker 1: if the whole country turns off the electricity for one

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Speaker 1: minute to honor Thomas Edison, the man who brought electricity

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Speaker 1: to the masses. And you're laughing for what I think

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Speaker 1: is an obvious reason, right.

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Speaker 2: Because if you think about it, who needs electricity all

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Speaker 2: the time?

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Speaker 1: Right? Everyone?

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Speaker 2: Everybody, Fire departments, hospital, sanitation systems, They all needed every

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Speaker 2: minute they need this thing that Edison helped create, electric power, this.

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Speaker 1: Thing that nobody had, nobody had, you know a few

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Speaker 1: decades before this crucially right, this itself is testament to Edison. Right,

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Speaker 1: this fact that if you turn off electricity for one minute,

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Speaker 1: people will die. And Hoover actually puts out this official

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Speaker 1: statement where he walks through this thought process that he

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Speaker 1: and his aides have gone through. He writes, quote, this

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Speaker 1: demonstration of the dependence of the country upon electrical current

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Speaker 1: for its life and health is in itself a monument

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Speaker 1: to mister Edison's genius. And so Hoover decides, Okay, we'll

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Speaker 1: do this more modest thing where it's like, if you

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Speaker 1: want to turn off the lights for one minute at

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Speaker 1: ten PM, and a lot of the country does it, so.

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Speaker 2: I can imagine the nation city in the dark for

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Speaker 2: sixty seconds, just waiting to turn the lights back on.

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Speaker 2: You can hear a fridge whirring in the background. Did

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Speaker 2: not exist when Edison was born. Maybe the radio's playing

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Speaker 2: softly that wasn't around. And when the light comes back on,

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Speaker 2: people could see cars in the streets, planes in the

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Speaker 2: sky that didn't exist fifty years earlier. You could see

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Speaker 2: the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building.

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Speaker 1: Both brand new at the time, as were skyscrapers in general,

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Speaker 1: because you couldn't build a skyscraper if you didn't have electricity,

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Speaker 1: because nobody's going to walk. What is it one hundred

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Speaker 1: stories up right, buildings were like ten stories tall max.

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Speaker 1: Before electric grids.

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Speaker 2: When we look back, Edison's life was probably this moment

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Speaker 2: in US history where the most progress was made between

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Speaker 2: the time he was born and the time he died

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Speaker 2: technological progress, and if you look in such a compressed

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Speaker 2: period of time, it is unimaginable how much life changed

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Speaker 2: for people.

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Speaker 1: Certainly if you were eighty years old, but even if

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Speaker 1: you were sixty years old, your life was entirely different

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Speaker 1: by nineteen thirty than it had been when you were

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Speaker 1: a small child. And you know, to be clear, Edison

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Speaker 1: wasn't the cause of all of that. He didn't have

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Speaker 1: anything to do with cars and planes. He didn't really

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Speaker 1: invent the light bulb, in fact, though people thought he did.

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Speaker 1: And there was this myth of Edison that was part

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Speaker 1: of the story. But I think Edison really did do

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Speaker 1: as much as anybody. He certainly did an incredible amount

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Speaker 1: to use technology and business to bring about this incredible

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Speaker 1: change in daily life for hundreds of millions of people.

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Speaker 2: I'm Jacob Goldstein and I'm Robert Smith. And this is

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Speaker 2: Business History, a show about the history of business.

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Speaker 1: So why would call it business history? Because it's about

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Speaker 1: the history of business. And today we are starting on

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Speaker 1: a three part series big pretty sure it's going to

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Speaker 1: be three about Thomas Edison. Edison was this incredible figure

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Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. He was an inventor, a tinker.

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Speaker 1: He was like a grinder, you know, workaholic, huge self promoter,

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Speaker 1: great entrepreneur. Invented the photograph, built the first electric grid

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Speaker 1: of any size to light up Lower Manhattan, controlled essentially

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Speaker 1: the entire American movie business. But today, in the first

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Speaker 1: episode about Edison, I'm going to argue that the most

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Speaker 1: important thing he did came before any of that, and

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Speaker 1: it wasn't even any particular thing or system that he invented.

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Speaker 1: It was this kind of meta breakthrough. It was this

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Speaker 1: new way of inventing, and it happened early in Edison's life.

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Speaker 1: It happened before he was thirty years old. So he

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Speaker 1: came up with a new way of inventing that industrialized invention,

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Speaker 1: and that really created the template for the modern twentieth

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Speaker 1: century style of progress. That was his great break.

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Speaker 2: Which we see even to Internet AI everything. Thomas Alva Edison,

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Speaker 2: it's one of those people you love saying is middle

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Speaker 2: name Alva He was born in what was already an

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Speaker 2: age of miracles. There was the railroad, and there was

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Speaker 2: the telegraph, and they were shrinking this very notion of distance,

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Speaker 2: of time and space. It felt like an age that

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Speaker 2: was on the move, and the spirit of invention, of

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Speaker 2: innovation was everywhere. And Edison had this particular combination of traits, right.

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Speaker 2: He was an inventor, that's we learned about in school,

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Speaker 2: of course, but he was also a hustler, an entrepreneur.

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Speaker 2: He was interested in new things, but he always asked himself,

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Speaker 2: what are people willing to pay for?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's really striking. You see both of these traits,

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Speaker 1: the entrepreneur and the inventor of the tinker. You see

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Speaker 1: them from very early in his life. You see him

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Speaker 1: from when he's a kid, a little kid. So he's

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Speaker 1: born in eighteen forty seven in a town called Port Huron, Michigan.

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Speaker 1: On the show of Lake Huron, I'll be honest with you,

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Speaker 1: I did not remember as one of the great lakes.

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Speaker 1: It's one of the greatest of the lakes. You have

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Speaker 1: got it, have you been.

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Speaker 2: I was born between Lake Huron and Lake Erie in London, Ontario, Canada.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't have got it. Yeah. So he's

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Speaker 1: born on the shore of Lake Huron, this little town

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Speaker 1: out in the middle of nowhere. He barely goes to school,

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Speaker 1: goes to school for like a few months here and there.

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Speaker 1: It was a bad distracted student and he's working from

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Speaker 1: a young age. When he's twelve, he gets a job

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Speaker 1: selling like candy and newspapers on the train that goes

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Speaker 1: back and forth from Port Huron to Detroit. He's working

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Speaker 1: the angles, he's hustling. There's this detail that I love,

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Speaker 1: which is, you know, when the train gets to Detroit,

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Speaker 1: he gets a bunch of newspapers to sell on the

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Speaker 1: way back to Port Huron. And if he has some

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Speaker 1: unsold papers, when he's almost back to the end of

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Speaker 1: the line, while the train is still moving at the

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Speaker 1: edge of town in Port Huron, there's this like sandbank

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Speaker 1: or something. He throws the bundle of papers off the

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Speaker 1: train into the sandbank. Then he jumps off the moving

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Speaker 1: train after him and walks home, selling the papers one

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Speaker 1: by one.

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Speaker 2: These days, we don't let twelve year olds out by themselves,

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Speaker 2: you know, in the modern era, these guy's jumping off trains.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and like obviously a bad idea, but in my heart,

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Speaker 1: I kind of love it, like in my twelve year

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Speaker 1: old boy heart's seat on the log Yeah yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1: So you know he's out there selling newspapers on the train,

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Speaker 1: off the train, and after a little while he thinks, wait,

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Speaker 1: I'm just like a chump. I'm out here working for

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Speaker 1: the man. I could be selling my own papers. And

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Speaker 1: so he buys a used printing press, puts it into

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Speaker 1: some space on a baggage car on the train, and

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Speaker 1: starts printing his own newspaper on the train.

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Speaker 2: What is he reporting on? Like the guy in seat

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Speaker 2: thirteen B. You know he's got a hot tip.

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Speaker 1: It's it's not a lot of news. It's that news heavy.

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Speaker 1: You might call it a newsletter. Yeah, okay, the Weekly Herald,

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Speaker 1: Thomas A. Edison publisher. It's like one page, but selling

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Speaker 1: it and making all the profits and keeping all the

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Speaker 1: profits right, cutting out the middle man. So there's entrepreneur Edison,

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Speaker 1: and like right next to entrepreneur Edison in that same

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Speaker 1: baggage car, you see Edison the inventor, because next to

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Speaker 1: the printing press, he sets up this little chemistry lab.

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Speaker 2: So he's got like magnesium and potassium. He's like making

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Speaker 2: things turn purple.

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Speaker 1: I'm imagining like things bubbling. I don't I don't know.

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Speaker 1: There's one thing I do know, which is he has

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Speaker 1: some phosphorus. And the reason I know he has fosporus, right, oh,

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Speaker 1: is at some point the phosphorus like spills or whatever

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Speaker 1: and starts a fire on the train bag, on the train,

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Speaker 1: on the train car. Yeah, which is like, obviously that's

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Speaker 1: gonna happen. You have a teenage boy with like dangerous

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Speaker 1: chemicals out to trade. Of course you're gonna start a fire.

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Speaker 1: And of course if you do that, you're gonna get fired,

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Speaker 1: which is what happens to Edison. So he gets fired

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Speaker 1: and now comes this very Horatio Alger turn and that

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Speaker 1: is this So not long before the fire and the firing,

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Speaker 1: Edison has been hanging out at a train station and

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Speaker 1: there is this little toddler stay with me, who is

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Speaker 1: out playing on the track and a loose car train

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Speaker 1: car comes rolling at the toddler and sees it happening,

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Speaker 1: and he goes it grabs the toddler and brings him

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Speaker 1: to safety.

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Speaker 2: And this story is almost too perfect, right. A runaway

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Speaker 2: box car toddler on the tracks is Steven Spielberg writ

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Speaker 2: this apocryphull the word you're looking for. The history he

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Speaker 2: gave is apocryphal, too good to be true.

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Speaker 1: Although I looked at this and thought about it, and

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Speaker 1: I think it is true. You know, there is one

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Speaker 1: recent biographer of this guy, Randall Strauss, who is like

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Speaker 1: particularly skeptical of Edison's self mythologizing, and he thinks it's true.

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Speaker 1: And you can see letters between Edison and the kids dad.

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Speaker 1: So I think the world used to just be more wild, right,

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Speaker 1: like more dangerous. So yes, I think it's true. But

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Speaker 1: at this moment it is in fact helpful for Edison

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Speaker 1: because because the father of the child that Edison rescues

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Speaker 1: runs the station but also is a telegraph operator, and

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Speaker 1: so when Edison gets fired, this grateful father teaches Edison

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Speaker 1: to be a telegraph operator. This is the next phase

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Speaker 1: of Edison's life, right, Being a telegraph operator proves to

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Speaker 1: be a huge opportunity for him. But I want to

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Speaker 1: say one thing first, because it's another big moment, and

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Speaker 1: that is Edison, by the time he's twelve years old,

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Speaker 1: is mostly deaf, like not entirely deaf. People can shout

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Speaker 1: to him and he can hear but the key quote

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Speaker 1: he has later is I haven't heard a bird sing

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Speaker 1: since I was twelve years old, which is poignant, especially

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Speaker 1: for like I was gonna spoiler alert invent the phonograph,

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Speaker 1: but he said Edison said he didn't mind it. It

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Speaker 1: helped him focus, helped him like tune out distractions. He

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Speaker 1: was a very focused man. And there is this actually

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Speaker 1: lovely detail which is later in his life when he's

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Speaker 1: like famous and going to lectures, you know in big halls,

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Speaker 1: when you can't hear what the guy is saying, his

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Speaker 1: assistant will tap on Edison's leg. We'll tap with the

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Speaker 1: person is saying in morse code.

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Speaker 2: So this is an opportunity for Edison because at this point,

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Speaker 2: like the telegraph is the cutting edge communication tool, like

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Speaker 2: it's just exploding at this time. They've just around this

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Speaker 2: time laid the first transatlantic cable. Suddenly you could communicate instantaneously.

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Speaker 1: Right, You're in the.

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Speaker 2: Midst of a civil war. People want to know the news,

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Speaker 2: and suddenly they can know it. They can move troops,

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Speaker 2: they can know what's happening, and people are just sort

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Speaker 2: of getting used to this idea of information is not

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Speaker 2: this rare thing that you print on the newspaper and

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Speaker 2: deliver the next day. Like information is power, it's instantaneous. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: Edison learning.

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Speaker 1: To be a telegraph operator is him walking into this

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Speaker 1: great technological moment of his time. And there is this

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Speaker 1: one particular story that I love about how transformation all

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Speaker 1: the tele is. It's about a pickpocket gang in London

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Speaker 1: run by a guy named Fiddler Dick. Govnor watch out

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Speaker 1: for Fiddler Dick. Uh very good. What Fiddler Dick's gang

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Speaker 1: does is this, They loiter on a train platform and

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Speaker 1: then the train pulls in, and you know, it's chaos.

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Speaker 1: People are getting off the train, people are getting on,

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Speaker 1: they're moving around, they've got all their stuff out, and

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Speaker 1: Fiddler Dick and his boys pick the pockets to the

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Speaker 1: people in the crowd, and then just as the train's

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Speaker 1: about to pull out, they hop on the train and

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Speaker 1: head to the next station. And this is an incredible strategy, right,

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Speaker 1: because if you are on a moving train in say

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Speaker 1: eighteen forty, there is literally no way to send information

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Speaker 1: faster than you are traveling. You might as well be

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Speaker 1: going at the speed of light, because no message is

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Speaker 1: going to get to your destination before you do, right,

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Speaker 1: So then you just get off the train at the

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Speaker 1: next station, and nobody knows anything is a miss. And

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Speaker 1: then one day in eighteen forty four, a cop in

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Speaker 1: London sees the Fiddler Dick gang strike right, somebody the

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Speaker 1: platform's like, whatever, my wallet, whatever, I don't know. Somebot

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Speaker 1: to stop that boy, and they're on the train and

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Speaker 1: they're gone. But then the cup is like, oh wait

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Speaker 1: a minute, we got a telegraph now, and you're just telegraphs.

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Speaker 1: They head to the next station. Fiddler Dick out of

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Speaker 1: the boys get arrested. Thank you Telegraph. Here's Fiddler Dick.

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Speaker 1: You got Fiddler Dick by the telegraph. So this is

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Speaker 1: the world that Edison is going into. And it means

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Speaker 1: that if you know how to send and receive Morse code,

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Speaker 1: you can write your ticket. It's like being a coder

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Speaker 1: in whatever twenty twenty. What it was the best year

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Speaker 1: to be a coder? Twenty twenty? Probably right.

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Speaker 2: I feel like we should just say here, if Netflix

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Speaker 2: is listening in, we could write the Adventures of Young Edison,

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Speaker 2: telegraph operator, traveling the nation, solving crime, wading inventions. I

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Speaker 2: love it, actually, yes, next time on the Adventures of

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Speaker 2: Young Thomas Edison.

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Speaker 1: Very good it's basically this episode, but with a little

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Speaker 1: more like murder. Well, sure, that's here's a murder.

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Speaker 3: We'll be back in just a minute.

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Speaker 1: Thomas Edison, he's going from town to town, you know,

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Speaker 1: he's in Indianapolis, Memphis, Louisville, and he'll roll into town,

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Speaker 1: get a room with some other telegraph operators, and go

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Speaker 1: to work and make money. And he's spending all his

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Speaker 1: money still experimenting, buying chemicals and stuff to build batteries.

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Speaker 1: And there's this moment in Louisville. Actually his room is

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Speaker 1: above the telegraph office and he spills some acid on

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Speaker 1: the floor and it eats a hole through the floor

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Speaker 1: and drips down into like the boss's office below. So

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Speaker 1: he gets fired, but who cares, right, he's like a

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Speaker 1: teenager and he has this valuable skill. So he winds

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Speaker 1: up eventually in Boston as a telegraph operator. And this

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Speaker 1: is where there's kind of a big turn, the next

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Speaker 1: big turn in his life.

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Speaker 2: So in the classic story of an entrepreneur, right, you

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Speaker 2: need to have the basic skills, you need to have

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Speaker 2: a bunch of ideas, but you also have to sort

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Speaker 2: of take a risk. You have to have that moment

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Speaker 2: of failure before you pivot, and I feel like we're

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Speaker 2: about to get to that.

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Speaker 1: Yes, that's right, both the failure and the pivot. Right.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, So it's eighteen sixty nine. Edison is twenty

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Speaker 1: two years old and he gets his first patent ever,

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Speaker 1: first of one thousand and ninety three patents he will

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Speaker 1: get legend in his lifetime legend and this one for him,

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Speaker 1: it's for an electric vote recorder, right. And so the

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Speaker 1: idea is he's in Boston, which is the state capital

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Speaker 1: of Massachusetts, right, and you know the voting is super inefficient, right,

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Speaker 1: I whatever. The gentleman from whatever, I don't know what, wherever.

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Speaker 2: He sees a he sees a pain point there if

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Speaker 2: someone has to write down eyes and knais.

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Speaker 1: And so he invents this automatic counting machine and takes

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Speaker 1: it to I think it takes it to the state House.

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Speaker 1: He takes it to some legislator, takes it to the

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Speaker 1: you know, customer, and they're like, look, this is very clever,

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Speaker 1: but I'll tell you a little secret. We don't actually

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Speaker 1: want our votes counted instantly, right. We need that time

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Speaker 1: to go talk to the other legislators see if we

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Speaker 1: can sway them. Maybe go out in the lobby and

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Speaker 1: see if any the lobbyists out there want to discuss

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Speaker 1: our campaign contributions or whatever they called them back then. Right,

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Speaker 1: So in fact, this is not a problem. It would

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Speaker 1: it would create a problem for the legislators. They don't

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Speaker 1: want it, nobody buys it. He has built a thing

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Speaker 1: that nobody wants.

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Speaker 2: And this is a classic lesson for entrepreneurs. I mean

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Speaker 2: even today in business school, people will come up with

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Speaker 2: ideas and even make a prototype of it and be like,

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Speaker 2: look at how amazing this idea is. And you'll be like, well,

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Speaker 2: does anyone want it? Did you talk to your customers

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Speaker 2: and like, oh, not yet. But it's clearly genius, so Engavier, right,

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Speaker 2: it's having genius. Yeah, having a genius idea without a

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Speaker 2: need for it is nothing. It's like not having it

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Speaker 2: at all.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. It reminded me of you know why Combinator, the

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Speaker 1: famous startup incubator in Silicon Valley. I think their motto

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Speaker 1: is something like make something people want. And I seem

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Speaker 1: to recall, although I could not find evidence of this

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Speaker 1: when I went to look for it, but I seem

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Speaker 1: to recall that they give entrepreneurs a T shirt if

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Speaker 1: their business gets to some level of success that says, congratulations,

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Speaker 1: you made something people want. It's a very simple, elegant lesson,

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Speaker 1: and it's a lesson that Edison really learns, really internalizes

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Speaker 1: at this point in his life.

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Speaker 2: And we'll see this for the rest of his life

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Speaker 2: when he he interacts with other inventors, right, you know,

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Speaker 2: he's the king inventor, So he's often brought in to.

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Speaker 1: Be like, what do you think about this?

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Speaker 2: And you know, they're showing it off to Edison being like, oh,

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Speaker 2: isn't this amazing? And he's thinking, all right, how much

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Speaker 2: can I get for it? Who will pay a nickel

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Speaker 2: to use this thing? How I get into stores? Like

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Speaker 2: what's the revenue model? Essentially, and this is one of

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Speaker 2: the things that makes him a great inventor and a

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Speaker 2: great businessman.

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Speaker 1: So Edison takes this lesson and he turns to the

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Speaker 1: finance industry smart smart, because finance is just literally the

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Speaker 1: business of money, right, and if you can help people

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Speaker 1: make more money, they will pay you for that. And

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Speaker 1: right around this time, people have started using the telegraph

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Speaker 1: to send real time information about stock prices. This is

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Speaker 1: basically the invention of the stock ticker is a thing

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Speaker 1: that has happened.

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Speaker 2: Which is powerful because if stocks are trading for a

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Speaker 2: different price, let's just say in London, New York, New York, Chicago,

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Speaker 2: then that's this huge opportunity to buy cheap and want

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Speaker 2: place and sell expensive in another place. This arbitrage opportunity.

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Speaker 2: And having that information means you can spot those opportunities exactly.

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Speaker 1: And if you can improve that a little bit, if

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Speaker 1: you can make it faster or clearer, whatever, people will

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Speaker 1: make more money. We saw this even into the twenty

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Speaker 1: first century when people were building crazy, you know, dedicated

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Speaker 1: fiber optic lines and satellite towers and wild things to

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Speaker 1: move price information faster. So Edison moves to New York,

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Speaker 1: of course finance Wall Street and gets a contract from

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Speaker 1: the Golden Stock Telegraph Company of New York City. Really,

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Speaker 1: what does that company do? I love old company names, right,

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Speaker 1: What does the National Biscuit Company make? They make biscuits.

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Speaker 2: I feel like the Golden Stock Telegraph Company became like

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Speaker 2: go Telcom in the eighties and and now is known

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Speaker 2: as Spritzel.

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Speaker 1: Yes, Fritzel, but no I for some reason. And so

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Speaker 1: now Edison is in New York and he is able

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Speaker 1: to stop being a telegraph operator, he's able to do

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Speaker 1: with his job. Start his first company, straightforward name Newark

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Speaker 1: Telegraph Works. Ask me why why was it located in Newark?

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Speaker 1: And what did they work on? Telegraph? He's hiring workers,

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Speaker 1: he delivers that first stock ticker. And he's also he's

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Speaker 1: working on all these incremental improvements, right, like not crazy

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Speaker 1: things that are going to make him famous, but he's

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Speaker 1: just making all these tweaks that give little efficiency gains,

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Speaker 1: you know, little better batteries and weird electrical things. Right.

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Speaker 1: His company's growing. He gets married, married to a Jersey

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Speaker 1: girl named Mary Stillwell, they buy a house. But Edison

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Speaker 1: is definitely not a family man. He's working. He's always

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Speaker 1: working all the time. In fact, in his first year

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Speaker 1: of marriage he gets thirty nine patents, but I'm sure

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Speaker 1: he made it home for dinner never probably zero times.

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Speaker 1: And then in eighteen seventy four he comes up with

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Speaker 1: a big idea. Doesn't sound like a big idea to us,

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Speaker 1: but it is a big idea. It's a system that

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Speaker 1: lets you send four messages at once on a single

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Speaker 1: telegraph line. Calls it the quadruplex.

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Speaker 2: Now, at this point, telegraph was essentially one wire and

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Speaker 2: you basically tap into one side of the wirepp peep

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Speaker 2: person listens on the other end, taps.

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Speaker 1: Back, and the wire is made of copper. Right, it's

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Speaker 1: copper wire. So it's expensive. It's expensive, right, And they're

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Speaker 1: running the copper wire all over the country, you know,

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Speaker 1: across the Atlantic Ocean. Costs a lot of money to

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Speaker 1: run all that copper wire, right, And so if you

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Speaker 1: can get more messages on the same amount of wire,

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Speaker 1: that is a huge efficiency gain, right. That makes things cheaper. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because it's more efficient. It's something that no one would

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Speaker 1: ever see or notice. But if you're running a company,

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Speaker 1: I mean that is a huge productivity increase. And I

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Speaker 1: want to just like zoom out from this for a moment,

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Speaker 1: because you know, we talk about technology now, we talk

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Speaker 1: about like amazing things and maybe it's scary, like AI

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Speaker 1: or whatever, but it's it's kind of exciting and dramatic.

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Speaker 1: But in the long run, maybe the most important thing

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Speaker 1: that technology does is make stuff cheaper, makes it cheaper

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Speaker 1: to communicate, makes it cheaper to grow food, makes it

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Speaker 1: cheaper to make clothes. And when everything gets cheaper, everybody

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Speaker 1: gets richer. Right. The way we have had material progress

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Speaker 1: is by technology effectively making things cheaper. So shout out

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Speaker 1: to that. And that is what Edison is doing here.

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Speaker 1: He is making the most important communications technology of its

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Speaker 1: stay cheaper.

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Speaker 2: So he's on a roll. He's got dozens of inventions

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Speaker 2: at this point, he's been tweaking. He's finally got something

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Speaker 2: that people are going to pay money for. He's got

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Speaker 2: a family, right, But he's not yet this world changing inventor.

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Speaker 2: Because there's one last piece of the puzzle any entrepreneur needs,

429
00:24:08,636 --> 00:24:12,476
Speaker 2: and that is scale. He needs money. He needs so

430
00:24:12,556 --> 00:24:14,036
Speaker 2: much money. There's a special name for it.

431
00:24:14,636 --> 00:24:17,596
Speaker 1: Capital. Yeah, he needs capital. Like, I don't know at

432
00:24:17,596 --> 00:24:19,996
Speaker 1: what point does money become capital. I mean, I know

433
00:24:20,036 --> 00:24:21,956
Speaker 1: you could say it's like the structure of it is it.

434
00:24:21,996 --> 00:24:26,716
Speaker 1: But I feel like nobody calls one hundred thousand dollars money, right, that's.

435
00:24:26,556 --> 00:24:28,356
Speaker 2: Not that is investment capital.

436
00:24:28,436 --> 00:24:32,156
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, he in fact, at one point writes to

437
00:24:32,196 --> 00:24:34,116
Speaker 1: the head of Western Union. Western Union is the big

438
00:24:34,116 --> 00:24:36,556
Speaker 1: telegraph company. He's doing a lot of work for them.

439
00:24:36,956 --> 00:24:39,436
Speaker 1: He writes to the head of Western Union, I need

440
00:24:39,556 --> 00:24:42,756
Speaker 1: ten nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three or two

441
00:24:42,796 --> 00:24:47,156
Speaker 1: thousand dollars anyone you would like to advance he's actually

442
00:24:47,156 --> 00:24:50,316
Speaker 1: writing this to that funny it's good, it's charming. He

443
00:24:50,396 --> 00:24:53,116
Speaker 1: had this kind of homespun charm people talked about like

444
00:24:53,316 --> 00:24:56,076
Speaker 1: he was from the Midwest. He had that Midwestern charm.

445
00:24:56,116 --> 00:24:57,956
Speaker 1: Is that a thing? I think it is for Edison?

446
00:24:57,996 --> 00:25:00,196
Speaker 1: It is dressed in kind of country clothes, even when

447
00:25:00,196 --> 00:25:02,316
Speaker 1: he was famous. So he's writing this to the head

448
00:25:02,356 --> 00:25:05,276
Speaker 1: of Western Union, this big executive, William Morton, and in

449
00:25:05,316 --> 00:25:08,836
Speaker 1: fact Orton advances Edison five thousand dollars and then they

450
00:25:08,836 --> 00:25:12,956
Speaker 1: start to properly negotiate over Edison's big idea over the quadruplex.

451
00:25:13,596 --> 00:25:17,436
Speaker 1: Edison wants twenty five thousand plus royalties. Orton, you know,

452
00:25:17,516 --> 00:25:20,076
Speaker 1: controls Western Union can kind of do whatever he wants.

453
00:25:20,076 --> 00:25:23,276
Speaker 1: So he's sort of I think playing games with Edison, stalling.

454
00:25:23,316 --> 00:25:26,276
Speaker 1: He goes off to the Midwest for Christmas break, and

455
00:25:26,436 --> 00:25:28,476
Speaker 1: Edison is just has to kind of wait around, right,

456
00:25:28,596 --> 00:25:31,876
Speaker 1: has to wait for his big capital infusion. One day,

457
00:25:31,996 --> 00:25:37,676
Speaker 1: as this is happening, into Edison's little Newark, New Jersey, workshop,

458
00:25:38,196 --> 00:25:40,396
Speaker 1: walks Jay Gould.

459
00:25:41,076 --> 00:25:46,796
Speaker 2: Jay Gould legendary. He was a railroad magnet, a big

460
00:25:46,836 --> 00:25:49,996
Speaker 2: financial speculator. O't call him investor, I'm calling him a speculator.

461
00:25:50,036 --> 00:25:52,956
Speaker 2: He was a classic robber baron. But more than that,

462
00:25:52,996 --> 00:25:55,596
Speaker 2: you know, there was this whole robber barons they called him. Right,

463
00:25:55,996 --> 00:25:58,556
Speaker 2: everybody you know thought, oh, they're stealing all our money,

464
00:25:58,596 --> 00:26:01,996
Speaker 2: they're manipulating the markets. But even the robber barons hated

465
00:26:02,276 --> 00:26:05,516
Speaker 2: Jay Gould. He was a robber barons, robber baron. Now

466
00:26:05,596 --> 00:26:08,796
Speaker 2: I will say I've toured his mansion recently up on

467
00:26:08,836 --> 00:26:11,036
Speaker 2: the Highs and River, and the tour guys say he

468
00:26:11,076 --> 00:26:14,036
Speaker 2: was misunderstood. He was actually a really great guy. But

469
00:26:14,076 --> 00:26:17,796
Speaker 2: we'll do a future episode. It's a very nice manchion.

470
00:26:17,996 --> 00:26:20,436
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Even at the time, right, even at the time,

471
00:26:20,596 --> 00:26:21,876
Speaker 1: people was like the he.

472
00:26:21,876 --> 00:26:24,556
Speaker 2: Was always trying to corner the market, like like take

473
00:26:24,676 --> 00:26:25,996
Speaker 2: all the gold contract.

474
00:26:25,996 --> 00:26:28,556
Speaker 1: I tried to corner gold stuff stuff like that.

475
00:26:29,236 --> 00:26:33,276
Speaker 2: Some economists have argued that he was hated because he

476
00:26:33,356 --> 00:26:38,076
Speaker 2: went against big company interests and in fact things got

477
00:26:38,156 --> 00:26:38,996
Speaker 2: cheaper because of him.

478
00:26:38,996 --> 00:26:40,796
Speaker 1: But we will look at this in the future show.

479
00:26:40,876 --> 00:26:42,556
Speaker 1: Robert bart who is in it for the little guy.

480
00:26:42,676 --> 00:26:44,836
Speaker 1: He was going to give that mansion to the poor someday,

481
00:26:45,716 --> 00:26:48,676
Speaker 1: you know. To be continued. He walks in, this guy,

482
00:26:48,756 --> 00:26:52,476
Speaker 1: this famous guy walks into Edison's little shop, and Gold actually,

483
00:26:52,476 --> 00:26:56,756
Speaker 1: among other things, controls the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company.

484
00:26:56,996 --> 00:27:00,756
Speaker 1: Arrival to Western Union, Jay Gold has heard about the quadruplex,

485
00:27:01,556 --> 00:27:05,516
Speaker 1: and if you're Edison, it is great news when Jay

486
00:27:05,556 --> 00:27:07,916
Speaker 1: Gold walks in the door. Right. It's like that Seven

487
00:27:08,116 --> 00:27:10,396
Speaker 1: Bugs Bunny when Bug Funny looks at a guy and

488
00:27:10,436 --> 00:27:12,316
Speaker 1: the whole guy is just a big bag with a

489
00:27:12,396 --> 00:27:15,676
Speaker 1: dollar sign on it. Right, Because if Western Union is

490
00:27:15,716 --> 00:27:18,356
Speaker 1: all you have, if the head of Western Union is

491
00:27:18,476 --> 00:27:21,036
Speaker 1: jerking around and going off for Christmas break and not

492
00:27:21,076 --> 00:27:22,996
Speaker 1: giving you any money, you don't have any leverage. Right,

493
00:27:22,996 --> 00:27:25,436
Speaker 1: You basically have to just take what they offer. But

494
00:27:25,596 --> 00:27:29,276
Speaker 1: now now there are multiple buyers for what you're selling.

495
00:27:29,276 --> 00:27:32,116
Speaker 1: Now there are multiple buyers for your quadruplex, and you

496
00:27:32,236 --> 00:27:37,276
Speaker 1: have leverage. And so the very next day Edison goes

497
00:27:37,356 --> 00:27:41,076
Speaker 1: to Gould's mansion on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, goes down

498
00:27:41,116 --> 00:27:44,916
Speaker 1: to Gould's office in the basement, and Edison actually wrote

499
00:27:44,916 --> 00:27:48,996
Speaker 1: about this exchange later. Edison wrote, Here's what he wrote.

500
00:27:49,036 --> 00:27:51,196
Speaker 1: Gould started in at once and asked me how much

501
00:27:51,196 --> 00:27:54,356
Speaker 1: I wanted. I said, make me an offer. Then he said,

502
00:27:54,596 --> 00:27:57,436
Speaker 1: I'll give you thirty thousand dollars and I said, I'll

503
00:27:57,476 --> 00:28:00,196
Speaker 1: sell any interest I may have for that money, which

504
00:28:00,276 --> 00:28:01,876
Speaker 1: was somewhat more than I thought I could get.

505
00:28:02,676 --> 00:28:06,316
Speaker 2: Great negotiating lesson always let the other guy say the

506
00:28:06,396 --> 00:28:10,596
Speaker 2: number first, because right, if it's more than you wanted, you.

507
00:28:10,796 --> 00:28:13,036
Speaker 1: Just say yes. You just say yes, thank you, pleasure

508
00:28:13,036 --> 00:28:15,756
Speaker 1: doing business with you. So then of course Edison gets

509
00:28:15,756 --> 00:28:18,876
Speaker 1: the money. Gold actually sells a yacht and gives Edison

510
00:28:18,916 --> 00:28:22,196
Speaker 1: the money from the yacht. Lovely Robert Baron detail, and

511
00:28:22,236 --> 00:28:25,356
Speaker 1: then of course Western Union sues Gould over ownership of

512
00:28:25,396 --> 00:28:28,876
Speaker 1: the quadrupleags. The lawsuit goes on forever. Edison's inventions are

513
00:28:28,876 --> 00:28:31,196
Speaker 1: going to end up tied up in lawsuits again and again, right,

514
00:28:31,356 --> 00:28:34,156
Speaker 1: intellectual property story. But Edison doesn't care this time because

515
00:28:34,396 --> 00:28:36,516
Speaker 1: he's got his money. What does he do with it?

516
00:28:37,316 --> 00:28:40,716
Speaker 1: He does the most important thing he's ever going to

517
00:28:40,756 --> 00:28:43,236
Speaker 1: do in his life. He knew it. He does the

518
00:28:43,356 --> 00:28:46,036
Speaker 1: thing that is going to transform the very nature of

519
00:28:46,116 --> 00:28:49,996
Speaker 1: invention itself itself in the world. And what that thing

520
00:28:50,156 --> 00:28:54,396
Speaker 1: is is he moves to the country. He moves to

521
00:28:54,436 --> 00:28:57,436
Speaker 1: this little failed housing development out in the middle of

522
00:28:57,436 --> 00:29:02,316
Speaker 1: nowhere in New Jersey called Menlo Park, next to the railroad,

523
00:29:02,436 --> 00:29:06,436
Speaker 1: between New Jersey and Philadelphia. So it's early eighteen seventy six.

524
00:29:06,476 --> 00:29:09,436
Speaker 1: By this point, Edison is twenty nine years old. He's

525
00:29:09,476 --> 00:29:13,836
Speaker 1: got two kids who he calls Dot and Dash. Oh yeah,

526
00:29:13,956 --> 00:29:16,156
Speaker 1: very sweet, although it's not like he hangs out with them.

527
00:29:16,196 --> 00:29:19,276
Speaker 1: What he actually loves is the telegraph. His family moves

528
00:29:19,316 --> 00:29:21,796
Speaker 1: into this big house that used to be the sales

529
00:29:21,836 --> 00:29:24,836
Speaker 1: office for this failed housing development in Melo Park, some

530
00:29:24,916 --> 00:29:27,756
Speaker 1: of his workers move into some of the other empty houses,

531
00:29:28,396 --> 00:29:31,916
Speaker 1: and then on top of this little hill not far

532
00:29:31,956 --> 00:29:34,436
Speaker 1: from the train station. I think you can see Manhattan

533
00:29:34,436 --> 00:29:36,356
Speaker 1: from the top of the hill, not sure. On top

534
00:29:36,396 --> 00:29:39,596
Speaker 1: of this little hill, he builds the thing, the main

535
00:29:39,756 --> 00:29:43,636
Speaker 1: thing that is like the manifestation of his big idea.

536
00:29:44,196 --> 00:29:46,316
Speaker 1: It's a lab. It's a lab for him and his

537
00:29:46,356 --> 00:29:48,596
Speaker 1: employees where they're going to work. And he says, in

538
00:29:48,636 --> 00:29:51,236
Speaker 1: this building he is going to come up with quote

539
00:29:51,876 --> 00:29:55,076
Speaker 1: a minor invention every ten days and a big thing

540
00:29:55,196 --> 00:29:56,316
Speaker 1: every six months or so.

541
00:29:56,516 --> 00:29:59,156
Speaker 2: It's amazing because if you would ask most people at

542
00:29:59,156 --> 00:30:01,556
Speaker 2: this time, if you ask most people today, they would say,

543
00:30:01,596 --> 00:30:03,876
Speaker 2: invention is one of those things that you know comes

544
00:30:03,876 --> 00:30:07,676
Speaker 2: from God or the greater spirit, you know, the eureka moment,

545
00:30:07,836 --> 00:30:10,116
Speaker 2: you know, and everyone's he is like, oh, it was

546
00:30:10,116 --> 00:30:12,876
Speaker 2: out walking when it suddenly came to me fully formed,

547
00:30:13,116 --> 00:30:16,116
Speaker 2: Like this is the myth of invention, and maybe it

548
00:30:16,196 --> 00:30:19,916
Speaker 2: happens sometimes this way. But for Thomas Edison to say, yeah,

549
00:30:19,956 --> 00:30:23,956
Speaker 2: we got a schedule here, we got a calendar like invent, invent, invent.

550
00:30:23,956 --> 00:30:26,196
Speaker 1: It's taking away the magic, right, It's taking it from

551
00:30:26,276 --> 00:30:29,276
Speaker 1: this kind of romantic world to the industrial world.

552
00:30:29,516 --> 00:30:31,836
Speaker 2: And you didn't maybe know if it was possible, but

553
00:30:31,876 --> 00:30:33,036
Speaker 2: it ended up being possible.

554
00:30:33,196 --> 00:30:36,876
Speaker 1: So what he builds there is a long, two story

555
00:30:37,036 --> 00:30:40,916
Speaker 1: wood building one hundred feet long twenty five feet wide,

556
00:30:41,356 --> 00:30:44,436
Speaker 1: painted white. People say it looks like a schoolhouse or

557
00:30:44,476 --> 00:30:47,636
Speaker 1: a church without a steeple. And on the ground floor

558
00:30:47,676 --> 00:30:51,596
Speaker 1: there's a machine shop. Upstairs there's a lab. Eventually people

559
00:30:51,636 --> 00:30:54,916
Speaker 1: will call this the invention Factory, which is a perfect

560
00:30:54,996 --> 00:30:58,476
Speaker 1: name for it, but right now nobody calls it anything, right,

561
00:30:58,476 --> 00:31:01,316
Speaker 1: because nobody outside the telegraph industry has even heard of

562
00:31:01,356 --> 00:31:03,556
Speaker 1: Thomas Edison. He's just some guy moving out to the

563
00:31:03,596 --> 00:31:04,356
Speaker 1: middle of nowhere.

564
00:31:04,636 --> 00:31:08,636
Speaker 2: I've seen a replica of this lab in Michigan outside Detroit,

565
00:31:08,716 --> 00:31:13,516
Speaker 2: in Ford's Museum. He so admired Thomas Edison that he

566
00:31:13,676 --> 00:31:17,556
Speaker 2: rebuilt the laboratory down to like the test tubes and

567
00:31:17,596 --> 00:31:20,396
Speaker 2: the little bits of wire on the wall. Apparently so

568
00:31:20,516 --> 00:31:23,316
Speaker 2: my tour guy told me. When Edison saw it, he's like,

569
00:31:23,356 --> 00:31:26,036
Speaker 2: it's an exact replica. I accept it so clean, you know,

570
00:31:26,156 --> 00:31:29,996
Speaker 2: it was like perfectly clean. But there's a million little

571
00:31:30,316 --> 00:31:35,276
Speaker 2: things and screws and connectors and all sorts of fabrics

572
00:31:35,276 --> 00:31:38,436
Speaker 2: and that sort of thing. In case Thomas Edison or

573
00:31:38,556 --> 00:31:41,436
Speaker 2: his people at this point had an idea, they didn't

574
00:31:41,436 --> 00:31:43,196
Speaker 2: have to go to Manhattan to pick up.

575
00:31:43,156 --> 00:31:46,676
Speaker 1: A button or a part or anything. Right, the core

576
00:31:46,836 --> 00:31:53,556
Speaker 1: thing this place does is it makes Edison's inventing process frictionless. Right,

577
00:31:53,676 --> 00:31:57,116
Speaker 1: anytime he thinks of something, he has right there standing

578
00:31:57,156 --> 00:32:01,276
Speaker 1: next to him, you know, skilled machinists and electricians and

579
00:32:01,356 --> 00:32:04,436
Speaker 1: like all the parts and machines and chemicals and whatever

580
00:32:04,516 --> 00:32:09,076
Speaker 1: you can think of. This is the breakthrough. There's this

581
00:32:09,156 --> 00:32:11,756
Speaker 1: great quote about this from this guy, Paul Israel. He

582
00:32:11,796 --> 00:32:16,076
Speaker 1: wrote a biography about Edison. He spent decades editing the

583
00:32:16,196 --> 00:32:19,636
Speaker 1: Edison papers at records. He's like a deep Edison scholar.

584
00:32:20,516 --> 00:32:22,996
Speaker 1: And the quote is that the lab in Menlo Park

585
00:32:23,196 --> 00:32:28,756
Speaker 1: showed that invention itself could be an industrial process. So

586
00:32:28,796 --> 00:32:31,556
Speaker 1: like this is the great era of industrialization in America

587
00:32:31,676 --> 00:32:34,316
Speaker 1: and Edison is industrializing invention.

588
00:32:35,196 --> 00:32:39,756
Speaker 2: He's gone from Thomas Edison Young Morse code operator to

589
00:32:39,956 --> 00:32:43,836
Speaker 2: Thomas Edison inventor, to Thomas Edison Incorporated. He's the guy

590
00:32:43,876 --> 00:32:47,796
Speaker 2: who runs the factory that makes inventions. And in just

591
00:32:47,836 --> 00:32:51,196
Speaker 2: a minute we will hear how the invention factory comes out.

592
00:32:51,116 --> 00:33:11,276
Speaker 4: Of the gate with a big one.

593
00:33:16,276 --> 00:33:18,636
Speaker 2: Jacob, I feel like the pieces are in place. Edison

594
00:33:18,716 --> 00:33:22,596
Speaker 2: has his invention side, his business side, he's got money,

595
00:33:22,676 --> 00:33:26,716
Speaker 2: he's got the industrialization of invention itself, he has the

596
00:33:26,756 --> 00:33:30,956
Speaker 2: manifestation of his own mind on a hilltop in New Jersey.

597
00:33:31,956 --> 00:33:34,236
Speaker 2: And yet no mention of the light bulb or are

598
00:33:34,236 --> 00:33:37,076
Speaker 2: these things that like every elementary school student knows about

599
00:33:37,116 --> 00:33:37,796
Speaker 2: Thomas Edison.

600
00:33:37,876 --> 00:33:41,236
Speaker 1: It's coming, Okay, it's coming, though it comes in an

601
00:33:41,236 --> 00:33:43,556
Speaker 1: indirect way. It comes in a really interesting way. And

602
00:33:43,596 --> 00:33:46,876
Speaker 1: that is this. So right around the time Edison moves

603
00:33:46,916 --> 00:33:49,876
Speaker 1: to Memo Park, there is in fact this historic breakthrough,

604
00:33:50,356 --> 00:33:53,476
Speaker 1: but it doesn't come from Edison, doesn't come from his

605
00:33:53,556 --> 00:33:56,836
Speaker 1: lab on the hill. It comes from another inventor who's

606
00:33:56,876 --> 00:34:00,596
Speaker 1: based in Boston, and this invention is granted as patent

607
00:34:01,196 --> 00:34:05,516
Speaker 1: one seven four four sixty five, and it's called improvement

608
00:34:05,636 --> 00:34:10,276
Speaker 1: in telegraphy Yon wait for it. The inventor says, my

609
00:34:10,356 --> 00:34:13,636
Speaker 1: present invention consists of a vibratory or undulatory current of

610
00:34:13,716 --> 00:34:17,836
Speaker 1: electricity in contradistinction to a merely intermittent or postulator current.

611
00:34:18,236 --> 00:34:21,596
Speaker 1: And essentially, this inventor says, this is a breakthrough because

612
00:34:21,676 --> 00:34:24,316
Speaker 1: you can send more telegraph messages down the same wire,

613
00:34:24,516 --> 00:34:29,716
Speaker 1: so it's like quadruplex plus. But then at the very

614
00:34:29,876 --> 00:34:32,716
Speaker 1: end of the application, literally second to last paragraph, the

615
00:34:32,796 --> 00:34:35,916
Speaker 1: inventor writes that the patent covers quote the method of

616
00:34:36,196 --> 00:34:41,836
Speaker 1: and apparatus four transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically as

617
00:34:41,876 --> 00:34:46,116
Speaker 1: herein described by causing electrical undulations similar in forms of

618
00:34:46,156 --> 00:34:49,596
Speaker 1: the vibrations of air accompanying the said vocal or other

619
00:34:49,716 --> 00:34:54,916
Speaker 1: sound substantially as set forth. And then last paragraph in testimony,

620
00:34:54,916 --> 00:34:58,956
Speaker 1: whereof I have here unto signed my name this twentieth

621
00:34:58,996 --> 00:35:01,436
Speaker 1: day of January eighty, eighteen seventy six.

622
00:35:02,716 --> 00:35:07,236
Speaker 2: Alex Graham Bell Alexander Graham Bell, I love it. I

623
00:35:07,276 --> 00:35:09,996
Speaker 2: love it when you're in reading the famous biography and

624
00:35:10,076 --> 00:35:11,556
Speaker 2: another famous guy comes in.

625
00:35:11,916 --> 00:35:14,836
Speaker 1: Yeah, came up, Alexander graand Belt Watson come here. I

626
00:35:14,876 --> 00:35:18,476
Speaker 1: want you. Alexander Grambell. He is inventing the telephone right here,

627
00:35:19,076 --> 00:35:22,036
Speaker 1: and he doesn't know it, right, amazing. He just thinks

628
00:35:22,076 --> 00:35:24,756
Speaker 1: he's like coming up with a better way to send telegraphs.

629
00:35:24,796 --> 00:35:27,516
Speaker 2: And does Edison see this in like Telegraph Weekly or

630
00:35:27,556 --> 00:35:28,476
Speaker 2: something like that.

631
00:35:28,356 --> 00:35:30,876
Speaker 1: And so Edison at tracks new patents. That's like one

632
00:35:30,916 --> 00:35:32,796
Speaker 1: of the things he does is he just sees all

633
00:35:32,796 --> 00:35:35,116
Speaker 1: the new patents that come out. He reads them and

634
00:35:35,156 --> 00:35:39,076
Speaker 1: he sees this, and he thinks, I'm gonna tweak it

635
00:35:39,076 --> 00:35:44,276
Speaker 1: so I can send even better telegraph messages. And you know,

636
00:35:44,356 --> 00:35:46,676
Speaker 1: he's all set up to do this, right, He's got

637
00:35:46,716 --> 00:35:49,516
Speaker 1: his muckers, he's got his lab, he's staying up all night.

638
00:35:50,236 --> 00:35:54,156
Speaker 1: And there's this one piece of this new thing that

639
00:35:54,516 --> 00:35:58,916
Speaker 1: Alexander Grambell has invented called the diaphragm. It's the thing

640
00:35:58,996 --> 00:36:02,436
Speaker 1: that turns sound into vibrations, right, So it vibrates when

641
00:36:02,596 --> 00:36:04,436
Speaker 1: sound waves hit that's a thin membrane.

642
00:36:04,436 --> 00:36:07,556
Speaker 2: It vibrates and it creates an electrical current that is

643
00:36:07,556 --> 00:36:10,556
Speaker 2: not dots or dashes, but is variable electric current.

644
00:36:10,636 --> 00:36:12,916
Speaker 1: Yes, and going the other way, it turns the electric

645
00:36:12,956 --> 00:36:17,076
Speaker 1: current into vibrations that you can hear. And so one

646
00:36:17,156 --> 00:36:19,236
Speaker 1: day Edison is playing with one of these and just

647
00:36:19,316 --> 00:36:22,876
Speaker 1: like talking into it, and he feels that it's vibrating

648
00:36:23,156 --> 00:36:24,556
Speaker 1: on his hand. As he talks to it, he can

649
00:36:24,556 --> 00:36:27,636
Speaker 1: feel the vibrations. It's the middle of the night. He's

650
00:36:27,676 --> 00:36:31,116
Speaker 1: having dinner with his boys, with his muckers, probably eating

651
00:36:31,116 --> 00:36:35,476
Speaker 1: apple pie. And as he feels this thing vibrating on

652
00:36:35,556 --> 00:36:39,996
Speaker 1: his hand, he turns to his chief engineer, this assistant

653
00:36:40,076 --> 00:36:43,436
Speaker 1: named Charles Bachelor guy, he calls Batch, and he says,

654
00:36:43,436 --> 00:36:46,196
Speaker 1: you know, Batch, if we took one of these diaphragms

655
00:36:46,236 --> 00:36:48,876
Speaker 1: and we put something pointy, put like a needle or

656
00:36:48,916 --> 00:36:52,036
Speaker 1: something on the bottom of it, and put it on

657
00:36:52,076 --> 00:36:54,636
Speaker 1: a piece of paper and talked into it, it would

658
00:36:54,716 --> 00:36:57,916
Speaker 1: scratch the paper. It would leave scratch marks on the paper.

659
00:36:58,756 --> 00:37:01,836
Speaker 1: And then maybe if we took that paper with the

660
00:37:01,876 --> 00:37:05,956
Speaker 1: scratch marks and pulled it back under the needle, would

661
00:37:05,956 --> 00:37:09,116
Speaker 1: it make the diaphragm vibrate and send sound back out?

662
00:37:09,156 --> 00:37:10,676
Speaker 1: Would it recreate the sound?

663
00:37:10,796 --> 00:37:13,116
Speaker 2: And because they have a factory with needles and paper

664
00:37:13,196 --> 00:37:15,996
Speaker 2: and diaphragms and all this stuff, they don't need to

665
00:37:15,996 --> 00:37:17,796
Speaker 2: wait long to know the answer to this question.

666
00:37:17,796 --> 00:37:19,476
Speaker 1: They don't need to wait at all. Right, all the

667
00:37:19,556 --> 00:37:21,396
Speaker 1: dudes in the middle of the night, in the middle

668
00:37:21,436 --> 00:37:24,236
Speaker 1: of nowhere in New Jersey are sitting there ready to go,

669
00:37:24,356 --> 00:37:27,076
Speaker 1: and so they just do it, right, this whole team

670
00:37:27,156 --> 00:37:29,876
Speaker 1: of people. There's a machinist who's sitting there, who walks

671
00:37:29,916 --> 00:37:33,316
Speaker 1: over to his whatever machine and like, solder is a

672
00:37:33,356 --> 00:37:35,436
Speaker 1: needle onto the bottom of a diaphragm, or however you

673
00:37:35,436 --> 00:37:37,436
Speaker 1: get a needle onto the bottom of a diaphragm, and

674
00:37:37,516 --> 00:37:40,636
Speaker 1: Bach Bachelor gets some wax paper and cuts it up,

675
00:37:40,636 --> 00:37:42,676
Speaker 1: and they build a little wheel, a little system just

676
00:37:42,876 --> 00:37:46,436
Speaker 1: right then, right that night, and you know, presumably this

677
00:37:46,596 --> 00:37:50,276
Speaker 1: is every night, right, presumably it's always like Edison's like,

678
00:37:50,316 --> 00:37:52,196
Speaker 1: how about this? How about that? And most of them

679
00:37:52,236 --> 00:37:55,316
Speaker 1: are not very good ideas, but this one, this one

680
00:37:55,356 --> 00:37:56,956
Speaker 1: is a good idea. Right. So they hook up the

681
00:37:56,996 --> 00:37:59,636
Speaker 1: diaphragm with the needle, so it's touching the wax paper,

682
00:38:00,116 --> 00:38:03,076
Speaker 1: and there's this wheel that the paper's on, and so

683
00:38:03,516 --> 00:38:08,076
Speaker 1: Bachelor slowly pulls the paper along the wheel under the needle,

684
00:38:08,476 --> 00:38:14,676
Speaker 1: and Edison says, into the diaphragm, Mary had a little lamb,

685
00:38:16,076 --> 00:38:18,516
Speaker 1: And they take the paper out and they look at

686
00:38:18,556 --> 00:38:21,916
Speaker 1: it and it has these little scratch marks on it, grooves,

687
00:38:21,956 --> 00:38:25,196
Speaker 1: if you will. And then bachelor puts the paper back

688
00:38:25,236 --> 00:38:27,756
Speaker 1: on the wheel with the little scratches, you know, pulls

689
00:38:27,796 --> 00:38:31,596
Speaker 1: the paper under the needle past the diaphragm, and as

690
00:38:31,636 --> 00:38:39,996
Speaker 1: it's going past the diaphragm, they hear like, er uh damn, eureka.

691
00:38:40,236 --> 00:38:43,476
Speaker 1: This is a real eureka. Yeah, this is a real eureka. Right,

692
00:38:43,556 --> 00:38:46,236
Speaker 1: Like it's not perfect, right, it doesn't quite work, but

693
00:38:46,396 --> 00:38:51,556
Speaker 1: it works. It works. Edison writes in his notebook that day. Basically,

694
00:38:52,676 --> 00:38:54,676
Speaker 1: this is an invention that will make it easier for

695
00:38:54,676 --> 00:38:57,116
Speaker 1: people at the telegraph office to transcribe messages.

696
00:38:57,076 --> 00:39:01,236
Speaker 2: Oh no, oh no, he's still thinking telegraph. His mind's

697
00:39:01,236 --> 00:39:03,796
Speaker 2: in the telegraph. He's thinking, oh, yeah, someone in a

698
00:39:03,836 --> 00:39:05,956
Speaker 2: telegraph office has to use a pencil and paper to

699
00:39:05,956 --> 00:39:10,916
Speaker 2: write things down. We could use this new transcription device

700
00:39:11,076 --> 00:39:12,356
Speaker 2: essentially for dots and dashes.

701
00:39:12,476 --> 00:39:15,356
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, huh. He is still he is still in

702
00:39:15,516 --> 00:39:18,036
Speaker 1: the world that he's living in, right, Surprisingly, he is

703
00:39:18,036 --> 00:39:20,796
Speaker 1: still in his world. But he gets he gets that

704
00:39:20,876 --> 00:39:24,036
Speaker 1: this thing is gonna be big, not to the exclusion

705
00:39:24,076 --> 00:39:26,396
Speaker 1: of everything else. He keeps puttering on other things, but

706
00:39:26,516 --> 00:39:28,916
Speaker 1: he does have somebody over the next few months make

707
00:39:28,956 --> 00:39:31,876
Speaker 1: a list of possible names for his new invention. I

708
00:39:31,916 --> 00:39:33,436
Speaker 1: know you love a list. You want to take this one,

709
00:39:33,596 --> 00:39:33,956
Speaker 1: all right?

710
00:39:34,676 --> 00:39:39,156
Speaker 2: Possible names for this new invention. Autophone, cosmophone, I do

711
00:39:39,276 --> 00:39:46,476
Speaker 2: like that one. Acoustaphone, nice and tipophone, liquophone, chronophone, glottophone,

712
00:39:46,916 --> 00:39:51,676
Speaker 2: that's nice, clangophone, who laghamophone, aerophone. I feel like they

713
00:39:51,676 --> 00:39:54,596
Speaker 2: have a Latin dictionary there in the Park laboratory.

714
00:39:54,636 --> 00:39:59,516
Speaker 1: There's like going through it. Epigraph They don't choose any

715
00:39:59,556 --> 00:40:02,916
Speaker 1: of those. Nope, as we know, they choose phonograph, which

716
00:40:02,916 --> 00:40:06,956
Speaker 1: I think is Edison's and means something like sound writer.

717
00:40:07,156 --> 00:40:10,356
Speaker 1: Right the graph the graph is right there in the name,

718
00:40:10,676 --> 00:40:13,476
Speaker 1: which is telling they're really still focused on this kind

719
00:40:13,516 --> 00:40:17,476
Speaker 1: of automatic transcription part. They're not thinking music.

720
00:40:17,596 --> 00:40:20,396
Speaker 2: They're not thinking orchestras that someone's going to buy this

721
00:40:20,516 --> 00:40:21,716
Speaker 2: at home. No.

722
00:40:21,916 --> 00:40:24,516
Speaker 1: I mean, if anything, they're thinking like when they think

723
00:40:24,556 --> 00:40:26,996
Speaker 1: beyond telegraph, they think of like, oh, this is like

724
00:40:27,036 --> 00:40:31,276
Speaker 1: a something that business people can dictate letters into. It's

725
00:40:31,396 --> 00:40:34,556
Speaker 1: very much like a recording device as opposed to a

726
00:40:34,636 --> 00:40:37,436
Speaker 1: playing device at some level. So they're working on it

727
00:40:37,836 --> 00:40:40,476
Speaker 1: they're you know, iterating, they're making it a little better.

728
00:40:40,676 --> 00:40:44,596
Speaker 1: And a few months later, in December, they decide they're

729
00:40:44,636 --> 00:40:47,556
Speaker 1: ready to go public with this idea, and it comes

730
00:40:47,556 --> 00:40:50,356
Speaker 1: out in Scientific American, which was a big, big deal

731
00:40:50,356 --> 00:40:51,916
Speaker 1: at the time in that sort of technology.

732
00:40:52,156 --> 00:40:55,676
Speaker 2: Sure, and the story is called the Talking Phonograph, and

733
00:40:55,716 --> 00:40:58,076
Speaker 2: I'll read a little bit of it. Mister Thomas A.

734
00:40:58,196 --> 00:41:00,996
Speaker 2: Edison recently came into this office, placed a little machine

735
00:41:01,036 --> 00:41:04,036
Speaker 2: on our desk and turned to crank, and the machine

736
00:41:04,116 --> 00:41:08,836
Speaker 2: inquired as to our health, asked how we liked the phonograph,

737
00:41:09,236 --> 00:41:11,236
Speaker 2: informed us that he was very well, and but us

738
00:41:11,276 --> 00:41:12,356
Speaker 2: a cordial good night.

739
00:41:12,996 --> 00:41:19,156
Speaker 1: People now went bananas. People could not believe that this

740
00:41:19,356 --> 00:41:20,276
Speaker 1: was a thing.

741
00:41:20,436 --> 00:41:23,196
Speaker 2: It's hard to imagine how big it is that a

742
00:41:23,316 --> 00:41:25,876
Speaker 2: mechanical machine is doing.

743
00:41:27,556 --> 00:41:30,716
Speaker 1: What a human does. Yeah, that it talks to use

744
00:41:30,796 --> 00:41:33,676
Speaker 1: to you like a person. In fact, a professor who

745
00:41:33,716 --> 00:41:36,716
Speaker 1: reads this article writes to Edison and basically says, like,

746
00:41:36,796 --> 00:41:39,876
Speaker 1: mister Edison, I'm sure you're an honorable man. You need

747
00:41:39,916 --> 00:41:42,196
Speaker 1: to correct this article because it makes it sound like

748
00:41:42,236 --> 00:41:44,956
Speaker 1: you have a machine that can record sound and play

749
00:41:44,956 --> 00:41:46,876
Speaker 1: it back, and surely, as we all know, that is

750
00:41:46,916 --> 00:41:47,516
Speaker 1: not possible.

751
00:41:47,516 --> 00:41:49,356
Speaker 2: It's the kind of thing you'd see at a carnival

752
00:41:49,476 --> 00:41:52,076
Speaker 2: in the day, right, the box that streaks, and it's

753
00:41:52,076 --> 00:41:55,596
Speaker 2: a small child or something inside the box put you know,

754
00:41:56,156 --> 00:41:57,156
Speaker 2: a bunch of hocum.

755
00:41:57,436 --> 00:42:00,156
Speaker 1: But you know it was magic. I mean it was magic.

756
00:42:00,156 --> 00:42:02,316
Speaker 1: It was magic. It was magic. He takes it down

757
00:42:02,396 --> 00:42:06,036
Speaker 1: to Washington, d C. At this big like scientific meeting,

758
00:42:06,396 --> 00:42:07,836
Speaker 1: and so many people want to hear it that they

759
00:42:07,876 --> 00:42:10,116
Speaker 1: actually have to take the door off the hinges of

760
00:42:10,156 --> 00:42:13,436
Speaker 1: the room where he's displaying it. While he's down there

761
00:42:14,156 --> 00:42:16,996
Speaker 1: the White House, he hears that the president wants to

762
00:42:17,396 --> 00:42:20,076
Speaker 1: see his new machine. Pop quiz Robert who is the

763
00:42:20,116 --> 00:42:27,476
Speaker 1: president in eighteen seventy seven seventy eight Garfield Rutherford behays, oh, class,

764
00:42:27,476 --> 00:42:29,196
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have got it, Classic Lake, you're on.

765
00:42:30,076 --> 00:42:31,796
Speaker 2: Rutherford behays the things you don't know?

766
00:42:31,876 --> 00:42:35,276
Speaker 1: Things I didn't know. And Rutherford behayes loves the phonograph.

767
00:42:35,316 --> 00:42:37,956
Speaker 1: He keeps Edison at the White House like till after

768
00:42:38,036 --> 00:42:41,716
Speaker 1: midnight playing with this incredible thing. And this is the

769
00:42:41,716 --> 00:42:47,036
Speaker 1: moment when Edison goes from being you know, inventor known

770
00:42:47,076 --> 00:42:51,476
Speaker 1: in the telegraph business to being a celebrity. This is

771
00:42:51,516 --> 00:42:53,676
Speaker 1: the moment when he becomes known as the Wizard of

772
00:42:53,756 --> 00:42:54,436
Speaker 1: Memo Park.

773
00:42:54,996 --> 00:42:57,876
Speaker 2: Because this is a leap in technology. It's not just

774
00:42:58,116 --> 00:43:01,316
Speaker 2: a little extra something to make telegraph operators more money.

775
00:43:01,396 --> 00:43:04,676
Speaker 2: This wasn't just the front page of Telegraph weekly. This

776
00:43:04,756 --> 00:43:06,476
Speaker 2: is the front page of the New York World.

777
00:43:06,756 --> 00:43:11,116
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, I think there's something something about

778
00:43:11,116 --> 00:43:14,356
Speaker 1: the human voice is important here. Like you know, obviously

779
00:43:14,436 --> 00:43:16,916
Speaker 1: there had been portraits and people had had their writings,

780
00:43:17,316 --> 00:43:19,916
Speaker 1: but the voice is connected to the breath, right, It

781
00:43:19,996 --> 00:43:23,876
Speaker 1: is ephemeral, It dies with you. And like immediately when

782
00:43:23,916 --> 00:43:26,796
Speaker 1: this comes out, people are thinking about like, oh, this

783
00:43:26,876 --> 00:43:29,796
Speaker 1: machine is going to let people talk to us after

784
00:43:29,876 --> 00:43:33,116
Speaker 1: they die, as if they're talking to us from beyond

785
00:43:33,196 --> 00:43:35,636
Speaker 1: the grave. This is it's almost supernatural.

786
00:43:36,316 --> 00:43:39,156
Speaker 2: So how does he take something that is magic and

787
00:43:39,276 --> 00:43:40,116
Speaker 2: make money off of it?

788
00:43:40,276 --> 00:43:43,036
Speaker 1: This is a great question. So he is not yet

789
00:43:43,076 --> 00:43:47,556
Speaker 1: to the point where they can manufacture these at any

790
00:43:47,636 --> 00:43:49,476
Speaker 1: kind of scale and sell them for a profit. That's

791
00:43:49,476 --> 00:43:51,756
Speaker 1: the obvious thing you would do. Yeah, but the sort

792
00:43:51,756 --> 00:43:56,556
Speaker 1: of minimum viable product version of it. They just got

793
00:43:56,556 --> 00:44:00,236
Speaker 1: a couple of phonographs. They rent out rooms, sell tickets

794
00:44:00,636 --> 00:44:04,236
Speaker 1: and people pay to come and hear somebody like record

795
00:44:04,316 --> 00:44:06,316
Speaker 1: themselves singing and then play it back.

796
00:44:06,836 --> 00:44:09,556
Speaker 2: I would totally pay that nickel you would pay it today?

797
00:44:09,836 --> 00:44:16,036
Speaker 1: I would probably we probably did so. Obviously, this is

798
00:44:16,116 --> 00:44:18,396
Speaker 1: just kind of a stalling maneuver, right, This is just

799
00:44:18,436 --> 00:44:21,036
Speaker 1: what they're doing until the business gets up and running

800
00:44:21,076 --> 00:44:24,196
Speaker 1: and there are investors in the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company

801
00:44:24,236 --> 00:44:28,196
Speaker 1: and they're like, Okay, Edison, let's let's get to scale here,

802
00:44:28,276 --> 00:44:32,396
Speaker 1: let's figure out how to manufacture this. And it turns

803
00:44:32,396 --> 00:44:36,476
Speaker 1: out this is not Edison's thing. Edison's thing is not

804
00:44:37,076 --> 00:44:41,236
Speaker 1: taking his genius invention and operationalizing and building the factory

805
00:44:41,276 --> 00:44:44,516
Speaker 1: to build it. You know, he has his invention factory.

806
00:44:44,956 --> 00:44:48,476
Speaker 1: He starts working on the telescope of phone, his big

807
00:44:48,516 --> 00:44:50,916
Speaker 1: idea for how people I'm like, whatever, hilltops a mile

808
00:44:50,956 --> 00:44:51,916
Speaker 1: apart can talk.

809
00:44:51,756 --> 00:44:52,276
Speaker 3: To each other.

810
00:44:52,356 --> 00:44:53,316
Speaker 1: It's amazing. Right.

811
00:44:53,396 --> 00:44:55,076
Speaker 2: He doesn't want to be in the business of like

812
00:44:55,156 --> 00:44:59,876
Speaker 2: hiring orchestras and pressing like music and distributing this through

813
00:45:00,156 --> 00:45:02,756
Speaker 2: music stores. I mean, that's just like being a businessman

814
00:45:03,356 --> 00:45:05,076
Speaker 2: that's not coming up with cool stuff.

815
00:45:05,076 --> 00:45:07,636
Speaker 1: All. Yeah, that's not his thing, but it does mean

816
00:45:07,676 --> 00:45:10,436
Speaker 1: he leaves the phonograph by the way side for years

817
00:45:10,796 --> 00:45:16,196
Speaker 1: and several years later, Alexander Graham Bell him again actually

818
00:45:16,236 --> 00:45:19,676
Speaker 1: improves on Edison's idea for the phonograph, brings it to market,

819
00:45:20,196 --> 00:45:23,516
Speaker 1: and this is the wax cylinder. Yeah. He eventually Alexander

820
00:45:23,556 --> 00:45:25,076
Speaker 1: Grahm Bell is eventually the one who comes up with

821
00:45:25,076 --> 00:45:28,756
Speaker 1: the wax cylinder. Yes, and that does inspire Edison many

822
00:45:28,796 --> 00:45:32,116
Speaker 1: years later to sort of follow right to chase Alexander

823
00:45:32,116 --> 00:45:35,516
Speaker 1: Graham Bell. And Edison does wind up in the phonograph business,

824
00:45:36,036 --> 00:45:39,836
Speaker 1: but he's always behind, ironically, given that he invented it.

825
00:45:39,956 --> 00:45:42,476
Speaker 1: Like his other inventions, he's much less clearly the inventor

826
00:45:42,516 --> 00:45:45,756
Speaker 1: the ones they're coming, but this one is him unambiguously

827
00:45:45,876 --> 00:45:50,956
Speaker 1: and yet and yet he never dominates the industry as

828
00:45:51,116 --> 00:45:54,956
Speaker 1: arguably he should have. And then finally, in nineteen twenty nine,

829
00:45:55,236 --> 00:45:57,436
Speaker 1: two years before he dies, he just gets out of

830
00:45:57,436 --> 00:46:00,636
Speaker 1: the phonograph business altogether, gives up. He's got bigger things.

831
00:46:01,276 --> 00:46:03,236
Speaker 1: So what do we make of this story? Jacob?

832
00:46:03,396 --> 00:46:07,156
Speaker 2: At the very beginning, we promised that Edison wasn't just

833
00:46:07,196 --> 00:46:09,636
Speaker 2: an inventor, He's an entrepreneur's business man.

834
00:46:09,916 --> 00:46:11,476
Speaker 1: And yet, so far.

835
00:46:11,676 --> 00:46:14,236
Speaker 2: I have been in front of our actual episode. But

836
00:46:14,476 --> 00:46:19,156
Speaker 2: so far he doesn't seem to be squeezing every last time.

837
00:46:19,236 --> 00:46:21,996
Speaker 2: He doesn't seem to have that ruthless businessman in him.

838
00:46:22,596 --> 00:46:25,476
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's true. You definitely would not call him

839
00:46:25,476 --> 00:46:29,956
Speaker 1: a profit maximizer, right. He sort of reminds me of

840
00:46:29,956 --> 00:46:32,316
Speaker 1: of this type of founder you see with startups now,

841
00:46:32,316 --> 00:46:36,196
Speaker 1: where they're like brilliant and driven and they create this

842
00:46:36,636 --> 00:46:39,516
Speaker 1: very innovative company and get it going and then like

843
00:46:40,276 --> 00:46:42,556
Speaker 1: a year or two in, somebody from the you know,

844
00:46:43,236 --> 00:46:45,236
Speaker 1: venture capital firm, takes him into a back room and

845
00:46:45,316 --> 00:46:48,796
Speaker 1: gray hairs. Yeah, the gray hair comes in. Listen, we

846
00:46:48,956 --> 00:46:51,436
Speaker 1: love you. You've got a great job getting this company

847
00:46:51,476 --> 00:46:53,276
Speaker 1: off the ground. But now it's time to bring in

848
00:46:53,876 --> 00:46:55,916
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna call it a grown up, but let's

849
00:46:55,916 --> 00:46:58,876
Speaker 1: bring in somebody who's more into operations. Right. Edison is

850
00:46:58,916 --> 00:47:00,236
Speaker 1: kind of like that founder.

851
00:47:00,396 --> 00:47:03,116
Speaker 2: He could have been the greatest telegraph operator in the world.

852
00:47:03,156 --> 00:47:06,996
Speaker 2: He could have been the greatest telegraph maximizer in the world.

853
00:47:07,036 --> 00:47:10,876
Speaker 2: He could have been the phonograph nant and run orchestras

854
00:47:10,876 --> 00:47:12,996
Speaker 2: around the country and recorded them and sold them all

855
00:47:13,236 --> 00:47:15,796
Speaker 2: the first David Geffen And maybe he knows himself well

856
00:47:15,876 --> 00:47:19,836
Speaker 2: enough to know that he has a lot of different interests, right,

857
00:47:19,876 --> 00:47:23,156
Speaker 2: He's almost like, I wouldn't say scatterbrain because that seems

858
00:47:23,156 --> 00:47:26,956
Speaker 2: like an insult. It's like things are just coming constantly

859
00:47:27,036 --> 00:47:29,156
Speaker 2: into his head. You know, at one moment, he's showing

860
00:47:29,196 --> 00:47:31,556
Speaker 2: a phonograph to the President of the United States, But

861
00:47:31,676 --> 00:47:33,956
Speaker 2: as he's showing the photograph, he's probably thinking, you know

862
00:47:33,996 --> 00:47:37,476
Speaker 2: what if you had a giant tube on top of

863
00:47:37,516 --> 00:47:41,276
Speaker 2: a mountain that you could yell at other mountains with

864
00:47:41,356 --> 00:47:42,676
Speaker 2: other twoes.

865
00:47:42,196 --> 00:47:44,516
Speaker 1: And Retherford behazes's like, what what are you talking about?

866
00:47:44,516 --> 00:47:48,116
Speaker 2: I just want you've already done the thing, right, But

867
00:47:48,196 --> 00:47:50,596
Speaker 2: that was an actual thing he wanted to do right.

868
00:47:51,116 --> 00:47:54,076
Speaker 1: Yeah, if he had been this sort of more narrow

869
00:47:54,116 --> 00:47:59,156
Speaker 1: minded prophet maximizer, he probably would have got stuck at

870
00:47:59,156 --> 00:48:01,796
Speaker 1: like a sort of local maximum right, Like, maybe he

871
00:48:01,796 --> 00:48:04,116
Speaker 1: would have stopped at the photograph and be like, I'm famous,

872
00:48:04,196 --> 00:48:07,996
Speaker 1: I'm the phonograph guy. I'm gonna be the phonograph king now.

873
00:48:08,116 --> 00:48:11,916
Speaker 1: But this is clearly not what Edison had set out

874
00:48:11,956 --> 00:48:14,356
Speaker 1: to do, right. He had set out to create an

875
00:48:14,356 --> 00:48:18,276
Speaker 1: invention factory, a place where he can chase his curiosity,

876
00:48:18,516 --> 00:48:20,516
Speaker 1: a place where he has all the equipment he needs,

877
00:48:20,516 --> 00:48:22,996
Speaker 1: and he has this team and a place crucially where

878
00:48:23,036 --> 00:48:26,596
Speaker 1: he can keep coming up with big ideas one after another,

879
00:48:26,676 --> 00:48:28,036
Speaker 1: and he is gonna succeed at that.

880
00:48:28,156 --> 00:48:30,956
Speaker 2: Yeah, inventing the photograph from most people would have been

881
00:48:31,116 --> 00:48:38,396
Speaker 2: the big thing, but one great product is fine. But

882
00:48:38,596 --> 00:48:42,996
Speaker 2: transforming a whole system, right, transformative technology, the kind of

883
00:48:43,076 --> 00:48:50,196
Speaker 2: technology that makes everything change. That's what's about to come.

884
00:48:50,396 --> 00:48:54,996
Speaker 2: We should thank Thomas Edison for his scatterbrain nature. Yeah,

885
00:48:54,996 --> 00:48:57,916
Speaker 2: and for his ambition, right. His ambition was not to

886
00:48:57,956 --> 00:49:00,596
Speaker 2: be the phonograph king. It was to invent greater and

887
00:49:00,596 --> 00:49:03,676
Speaker 2: greater things. And really, interestingly, like his whole life, he

888
00:49:03,756 --> 00:49:07,396
Speaker 2: keeps thinking, the next thing I invent is gonna be

889
00:49:07,596 --> 00:49:10,276
Speaker 2: even bigger. He keeps saying that, even to the point

890
00:49:10,356 --> 00:49:13,836
Speaker 2: where he's wrong, right, because that's just who he is.

891
00:49:13,916 --> 00:49:17,876
Speaker 1: He keeps trying to invent bigger and better things.

892
00:49:18,356 --> 00:49:22,196
Speaker 2: Next time on Business History, Thomas Alva Edison, age thirty

893
00:49:22,316 --> 00:49:24,756
Speaker 2: or so, he's still so young, gets bored with the

894
00:49:24,796 --> 00:49:28,756
Speaker 2: phonograph and builds the first big electric grid in the

895
00:49:28,796 --> 00:49:32,476
Speaker 2: history of the world and reveals that the great inventor

896
00:49:32,876 --> 00:49:36,236
Speaker 2: has a fatal flaw. He falls to in love with

897
00:49:36,356 --> 00:49:40,396
Speaker 2: his products. Our showrunner is Ryan Dilly, Our producer is

898
00:49:40,436 --> 00:49:41,716
Speaker 2: Gabriel Hunter Chang.

899
00:49:41,636 --> 00:49:44,956
Speaker 1: And our engineer is Sarah Bruguer. I'm Jacob Goldstein.

900
00:49:44,996 --> 00:49:46,956
Speaker 2: I'm Robert Smith. We'll be back next week with another

901
00:49:46,996 --> 00:49:50,316
Speaker 2: episode of Business History, a show about the history of business.