WEBVTT - Introducing Business History: The Edison Invention People Don't Talk About 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:21.236 Pushkin. Hey, it's Jacob. Today. We are going to play 0:00:21.276 --> 0:00:23.716 for you an episode of a new show that I'm 0:00:23.756 --> 0:00:26.916 hosting in addition to What's Your Problem. The new show 0:00:26.956 --> 0:00:30.516 is called Business History because it's a show about the 0:00:30.556 --> 0:00:33.716 history of business. I'm hosting it with Robert Smith, who 0:00:33.796 --> 0:00:36.076 some of you might remember I used to work with 0:00:36.076 --> 0:00:38.316 at Planet Money. He was a co host at Planet Money. 0:00:38.756 --> 0:00:40.836 And the episode we're going to play today is about 0:00:40.876 --> 0:00:45.156 Thomas Edison, who is an extremely What's Your Problem kind 0:00:45.156 --> 0:00:48.316 of guy, huge figure in the history of technology, very 0:00:48.356 --> 0:00:51.596 interesting in many ways. This is actually the first of 0:00:51.636 --> 0:00:55.396 a three episode series we're doing about Edison. If you 0:00:55.436 --> 0:00:58.116 happen to subscribe to Pushkin Plus, you can listen to 0:00:58.156 --> 0:01:01.516 the whole series now. Otherwise they'll come out one episode 0:01:01.556 --> 0:01:03.716 a week over the next few weeks in the Business 0:01:03.756 --> 0:01:06.316 History Feed, which you can of course get wherever you 0:01:06.356 --> 0:01:09.636 are listening to this show right now. So if you 0:01:09.676 --> 0:01:11.756 happen to want to see me and Robert in addition 0:01:11.796 --> 0:01:14.916 to hear us, you can watch it on YouTube. I 0:01:14.916 --> 0:01:16.596 hope you like the show. If you like it, of 0:01:16.636 --> 0:01:19.676 course I would love it if you would subscribe. Thanks. 0:01:19.836 --> 0:01:24.516 Here's the show Business History, Episode two Edison Part one. 0:01:25.636 --> 0:01:28.516 What if that's the segment that's sponsored, sponsored by what 0:01:28.836 --> 0:01:32.076 by whoever wants to pay for it. We can talk 0:01:32.076 --> 0:01:45.436 about that afterwards. I suppose Thomas Edison died in nineteen 0:01:45.516 --> 0:01:48.636 thirty one. He was eighty four years old, and when 0:01:48.676 --> 0:01:52.356 he died, the President of the United States, Herbert Hoover, 0:01:52.996 --> 0:01:55.516 decided that Edison was such a big deal that the 0:01:55.516 --> 0:01:59.196 whole country, the entire United States, needed a moment of mourning. 0:01:59.596 --> 0:02:01.996 So Hoover is talking this over with his says, what 0:02:02.036 --> 0:02:05.596 should we do to honor Edison? And somebody says, what 0:02:05.676 --> 0:02:09.356 if the whole country turns off the electricity for one 0:02:09.436 --> 0:02:12.676 minute to honor Thomas Edison, the man who brought electricity 0:02:12.676 --> 0:02:15.876 to the masses. And you're laughing for what I think 0:02:15.956 --> 0:02:17.316 is an obvious reason, right. 0:02:17.596 --> 0:02:21.196 Because if you think about it, who needs electricity all 0:02:21.236 --> 0:02:21.676 the time? 0:02:21.836 --> 0:02:23.036 Right? Everyone? 0:02:23.156 --> 0:02:28.156 Everybody, Fire departments, hospital, sanitation systems, They all needed every 0:02:28.236 --> 0:02:33.636 minute they need this thing that Edison helped create, electric power, this. 0:02:33.596 --> 0:02:37.276 Thing that nobody had, nobody had, you know a few 0:02:37.316 --> 0:02:42.996 decades before this crucially right, this itself is testament to Edison. Right, 0:02:43.036 --> 0:02:46.196 this fact that if you turn off electricity for one minute, 0:02:46.236 --> 0:02:51.596 people will die. And Hoover actually puts out this official 0:02:51.636 --> 0:02:54.516 statement where he walks through this thought process that he 0:02:54.556 --> 0:02:58.076 and his aides have gone through. He writes, quote, this 0:02:58.156 --> 0:03:01.876 demonstration of the dependence of the country upon electrical current 0:03:01.996 --> 0:03:05.796 for its life and health is in itself a monument 0:03:05.796 --> 0:03:09.396 to mister Edison's genius. And so Hoover decides, Okay, we'll 0:03:09.436 --> 0:03:12.556 do this more modest thing where it's like, if you 0:03:12.596 --> 0:03:15.796 want to turn off the lights for one minute at 0:03:15.836 --> 0:03:18.476 ten PM, and a lot of the country does it, so. 0:03:18.436 --> 0:03:20.876 I can imagine the nation city in the dark for 0:03:20.956 --> 0:03:24.476 sixty seconds, just waiting to turn the lights back on. 0:03:24.916 --> 0:03:27.796 You can hear a fridge whirring in the background. Did 0:03:27.796 --> 0:03:30.636 not exist when Edison was born. Maybe the radio's playing 0:03:30.676 --> 0:03:33.836 softly that wasn't around. And when the light comes back on, 0:03:34.396 --> 0:03:37.076 people could see cars in the streets, planes in the 0:03:37.116 --> 0:03:39.996 sky that didn't exist fifty years earlier. You could see 0:03:40.076 --> 0:03:42.636 the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building. 0:03:42.676 --> 0:03:46.916 Both brand new at the time, as were skyscrapers in general, 0:03:47.036 --> 0:03:50.556 because you couldn't build a skyscraper if you didn't have electricity, 0:03:50.596 --> 0:03:52.676 because nobody's going to walk. What is it one hundred 0:03:52.716 --> 0:03:55.356 stories up right, buildings were like ten stories tall max. 0:03:55.476 --> 0:03:57.036 Before electric grids. 0:03:57.276 --> 0:04:00.276 When we look back, Edison's life was probably this moment 0:04:00.516 --> 0:04:03.756 in US history where the most progress was made between 0:04:03.756 --> 0:04:05.196 the time he was born and the time he died 0:04:05.396 --> 0:04:09.036 technological progress, and if you look in such a compressed 0:04:09.236 --> 0:04:13.676 period of time, it is unimaginable how much life changed 0:04:13.676 --> 0:04:14.076 for people. 0:04:14.076 --> 0:04:15.716 Certainly if you were eighty years old, but even if 0:04:15.716 --> 0:04:20.996 you were sixty years old, your life was entirely different 0:04:21.076 --> 0:04:23.956 by nineteen thirty than it had been when you were 0:04:23.956 --> 0:04:27.396 a small child. And you know, to be clear, Edison 0:04:27.516 --> 0:04:29.476 wasn't the cause of all of that. He didn't have 0:04:29.516 --> 0:04:32.836 anything to do with cars and planes. He didn't really 0:04:32.876 --> 0:04:35.076 invent the light bulb, in fact, though people thought he did. 0:04:35.116 --> 0:04:36.996 And there was this myth of Edison that was part 0:04:37.036 --> 0:04:41.116 of the story. But I think Edison really did do 0:04:41.796 --> 0:04:45.556 as much as anybody. He certainly did an incredible amount 0:04:45.876 --> 0:04:50.156 to use technology and business to bring about this incredible 0:04:50.236 --> 0:04:53.516 change in daily life for hundreds of millions of people. 0:04:54.196 --> 0:04:57.316 I'm Jacob Goldstein and I'm Robert Smith. And this is 0:04:57.436 --> 0:05:00.796 Business History, a show about the history of business. 0:05:00.996 --> 0:05:03.236 So why would call it business history? Because it's about 0:05:03.236 --> 0:05:06.436 the history of business. And today we are starting on 0:05:06.476 --> 0:05:08.916 a three part series big pretty sure it's going to 0:05:08.916 --> 0:05:13.956 be three about Thomas Edison. Edison was this incredible figure 0:05:14.036 --> 0:05:17.756 in a lot of ways. He was an inventor, a tinker. 0:05:17.796 --> 0:05:21.436 He was like a grinder, you know, workaholic, huge self promoter, 0:05:21.676 --> 0:05:25.476 great entrepreneur. Invented the photograph, built the first electric grid 0:05:25.556 --> 0:05:28.836 of any size to light up Lower Manhattan, controlled essentially 0:05:28.876 --> 0:05:33.276 the entire American movie business. But today, in the first 0:05:33.356 --> 0:05:36.596 episode about Edison, I'm going to argue that the most 0:05:36.636 --> 0:05:40.676 important thing he did came before any of that, and 0:05:40.716 --> 0:05:45.076 it wasn't even any particular thing or system that he invented. 0:05:45.476 --> 0:05:49.236 It was this kind of meta breakthrough. It was this 0:05:49.996 --> 0:05:53.076 new way of inventing, and it happened early in Edison's life. 0:05:53.076 --> 0:05:55.116 It happened before he was thirty years old. So he 0:05:55.196 --> 0:05:59.796 came up with a new way of inventing that industrialized invention, 0:05:59.956 --> 0:06:04.316 and that really created the template for the modern twentieth 0:06:04.356 --> 0:06:08.396 century style of progress. That was his great break. 0:06:08.156 --> 0:06:15.836 Which we see even to Internet AI everything. Thomas Alva Edison, 0:06:16.156 --> 0:06:17.836 it's one of those people you love saying is middle 0:06:17.916 --> 0:06:20.836 name Alva He was born in what was already an 0:06:20.876 --> 0:06:23.516 age of miracles. There was the railroad, and there was 0:06:23.556 --> 0:06:27.276 the telegraph, and they were shrinking this very notion of distance, 0:06:27.316 --> 0:06:31.236 of time and space. It felt like an age that 0:06:31.356 --> 0:06:34.196 was on the move, and the spirit of invention, of 0:06:34.236 --> 0:06:39.956 innovation was everywhere. And Edison had this particular combination of traits, right. 0:06:40.036 --> 0:06:42.436 He was an inventor, that's we learned about in school, 0:06:42.476 --> 0:06:45.436 of course, but he was also a hustler, an entrepreneur. 0:06:45.556 --> 0:06:48.916 He was interested in new things, but he always asked himself, 0:06:49.356 --> 0:06:51.356 what are people willing to pay for? 0:06:51.636 --> 0:06:56.316 Yeah, And it's really striking. You see both of these traits, 0:06:56.356 --> 0:06:59.236 the entrepreneur and the inventor of the tinker. You see 0:06:59.276 --> 0:07:01.556 them from very early in his life. You see him 0:07:01.556 --> 0:07:03.636 from when he's a kid, a little kid. So he's 0:07:03.676 --> 0:07:08.196 born in eighteen forty seven in a town called Port Huron, Michigan. 0:07:08.716 --> 0:07:12.036 On the show of Lake Huron, I'll be honest with you, 0:07:12.436 --> 0:07:14.356 I did not remember as one of the great lakes. 0:07:14.436 --> 0:07:15.756 It's one of the greatest of the lakes. You have 0:07:15.796 --> 0:07:16.476 got it, have you been. 0:07:16.916 --> 0:07:21.956 I was born between Lake Huron and Lake Erie in London, Ontario, Canada. 0:07:22.076 --> 0:07:24.236 Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't have got it. Yeah. So he's 0:07:24.276 --> 0:07:26.836 born on the shore of Lake Huron, this little town 0:07:26.956 --> 0:07:30.396 out in the middle of nowhere. He barely goes to school, 0:07:30.476 --> 0:07:32.396 goes to school for like a few months here and there. 0:07:32.556 --> 0:07:36.196 It was a bad distracted student and he's working from 0:07:36.236 --> 0:07:39.396 a young age. When he's twelve, he gets a job 0:07:39.596 --> 0:07:43.036 selling like candy and newspapers on the train that goes 0:07:43.076 --> 0:07:46.436 back and forth from Port Huron to Detroit. He's working 0:07:46.516 --> 0:07:49.596 the angles, he's hustling. There's this detail that I love, 0:07:49.636 --> 0:07:52.396 which is, you know, when the train gets to Detroit, 0:07:52.436 --> 0:07:54.356 he gets a bunch of newspapers to sell on the 0:07:54.356 --> 0:07:57.116 way back to Port Huron. And if he has some 0:07:57.356 --> 0:07:59.916 unsold papers, when he's almost back to the end of 0:07:59.956 --> 0:08:02.956 the line, while the train is still moving at the 0:08:03.076 --> 0:08:06.196 edge of town in Port Huron, there's this like sandbank 0:08:06.316 --> 0:08:09.276 or something. He throws the bundle of papers off the 0:08:09.316 --> 0:08:11.676 train into the sandbank. Then he jumps off the moving 0:08:11.756 --> 0:08:15.116 train after him and walks home, selling the papers one 0:08:15.156 --> 0:08:15.556 by one. 0:08:15.756 --> 0:08:18.036 These days, we don't let twelve year olds out by themselves, 0:08:18.076 --> 0:08:21.116 you know, in the modern era, these guy's jumping off trains. 0:08:21.316 --> 0:08:25.036 Yeah, and like obviously a bad idea, but in my heart, 0:08:25.076 --> 0:08:27.076 I kind of love it, like in my twelve year 0:08:27.076 --> 0:08:30.276 old boy heart's seat on the log Yeah yeah, yeah. 0:08:30.316 --> 0:08:34.196 So you know he's out there selling newspapers on the train, 0:08:34.276 --> 0:08:37.596 off the train, and after a little while he thinks, wait, 0:08:37.716 --> 0:08:39.916 I'm just like a chump. I'm out here working for 0:08:39.956 --> 0:08:43.676 the man. I could be selling my own papers. And 0:08:43.756 --> 0:08:47.916 so he buys a used printing press, puts it into 0:08:47.916 --> 0:08:50.796 some space on a baggage car on the train, and 0:08:50.876 --> 0:08:53.836 starts printing his own newspaper on the train. 0:08:54.396 --> 0:08:56.516 What is he reporting on? Like the guy in seat 0:08:56.556 --> 0:08:58.796 thirteen B. You know he's got a hot tip. 0:08:59.196 --> 0:09:01.636 It's it's not a lot of news. It's that news heavy. 0:09:01.636 --> 0:09:05.236 You might call it a newsletter. Yeah, okay, the Weekly Herald, 0:09:05.276 --> 0:09:09.716 Thomas A. Edison publisher. It's like one page, but selling 0:09:09.796 --> 0:09:11.996 it and making all the profits and keeping all the 0:09:11.996 --> 0:09:15.876 profits right, cutting out the middle man. So there's entrepreneur Edison, 0:09:16.396 --> 0:09:20.036 and like right next to entrepreneur Edison in that same 0:09:20.076 --> 0:09:24.836 baggage car, you see Edison the inventor, because next to 0:09:24.876 --> 0:09:28.076 the printing press, he sets up this little chemistry lab. 0:09:28.276 --> 0:09:31.236 So he's got like magnesium and potassium. He's like making 0:09:31.636 --> 0:09:32.516 things turn purple. 0:09:33.356 --> 0:09:35.916 I'm imagining like things bubbling. I don't I don't know. 0:09:36.276 --> 0:09:38.876 There's one thing I do know, which is he has 0:09:38.956 --> 0:09:43.596 some phosphorus. And the reason I know he has fosporus, right, oh, 0:09:44.076 --> 0:09:47.196 is at some point the phosphorus like spills or whatever 0:09:47.596 --> 0:09:50.476 and starts a fire on the train bag, on the train, 0:09:50.556 --> 0:09:53.156 on the train car. Yeah, which is like, obviously that's 0:09:53.156 --> 0:09:55.836 gonna happen. You have a teenage boy with like dangerous 0:09:55.876 --> 0:09:57.716 chemicals out to trade. Of course you're gonna start a fire. 0:09:58.156 --> 0:10:00.876 And of course if you do that, you're gonna get fired, 0:10:00.996 --> 0:10:02.956 which is what happens to Edison. So he gets fired 0:10:04.036 --> 0:10:08.956 and now comes this very Horatio Alger turn and that 0:10:09.276 --> 0:10:12.796 is this So not long before the fire and the firing, 0:10:13.556 --> 0:10:16.636 Edison has been hanging out at a train station and 0:10:16.676 --> 0:10:19.796 there is this little toddler stay with me, who is 0:10:19.836 --> 0:10:24.156 out playing on the track and a loose car train 0:10:24.236 --> 0:10:27.156 car comes rolling at the toddler and sees it happening, 0:10:27.196 --> 0:10:29.676 and he goes it grabs the toddler and brings him 0:10:29.676 --> 0:10:30.236 to safety. 0:10:30.436 --> 0:10:33.916 And this story is almost too perfect, right. A runaway 0:10:33.956 --> 0:10:36.636 box car toddler on the tracks is Steven Spielberg writ 0:10:36.716 --> 0:10:38.876 this apocryphull the word you're looking for. The history he 0:10:38.916 --> 0:10:40.716 gave is apocryphal, too good to be true. 0:10:40.996 --> 0:10:44.196 Although I looked at this and thought about it, and 0:10:44.956 --> 0:10:46.996 I think it is true. You know, there is one 0:10:47.036 --> 0:10:50.076 recent biographer of this guy, Randall Strauss, who is like 0:10:50.116 --> 0:10:54.356 particularly skeptical of Edison's self mythologizing, and he thinks it's true. 0:10:54.396 --> 0:10:57.716 And you can see letters between Edison and the kids dad. 0:10:57.796 --> 0:11:00.756 So I think the world used to just be more wild, right, 0:11:00.916 --> 0:11:05.196 like more dangerous. So yes, I think it's true. But 0:11:05.276 --> 0:11:07.796 at this moment it is in fact helpful for Edison 0:11:07.996 --> 0:11:12.436 because because the father of the child that Edison rescues 0:11:12.596 --> 0:11:17.276 runs the station but also is a telegraph operator, and 0:11:17.396 --> 0:11:22.756 so when Edison gets fired, this grateful father teaches Edison 0:11:23.076 --> 0:11:27.916 to be a telegraph operator. This is the next phase 0:11:28.036 --> 0:11:31.396 of Edison's life, right, Being a telegraph operator proves to 0:11:31.436 --> 0:11:34.076 be a huge opportunity for him. But I want to 0:11:34.076 --> 0:11:36.236 say one thing first, because it's another big moment, and 0:11:36.276 --> 0:11:40.836 that is Edison, by the time he's twelve years old, 0:11:41.636 --> 0:11:45.636 is mostly deaf, like not entirely deaf. People can shout 0:11:45.836 --> 0:11:48.556 to him and he can hear but the key quote 0:11:48.596 --> 0:11:50.756 he has later is I haven't heard a bird sing 0:11:50.796 --> 0:11:53.196 since I was twelve years old, which is poignant, especially 0:11:53.196 --> 0:11:55.996 for like I was gonna spoiler alert invent the phonograph, 0:11:56.196 --> 0:11:59.156 but he said Edison said he didn't mind it. It 0:11:59.236 --> 0:12:02.396 helped him focus, helped him like tune out distractions. He 0:12:02.476 --> 0:12:05.196 was a very focused man. And there is this actually 0:12:05.276 --> 0:12:07.236 lovely detail which is later in his life when he's 0:12:07.276 --> 0:12:10.316 like famous and going to lectures, you know in big halls, 0:12:10.676 --> 0:12:12.396 when you can't hear what the guy is saying, his 0:12:12.476 --> 0:12:15.156 assistant will tap on Edison's leg. We'll tap with the 0:12:15.156 --> 0:12:17.156 person is saying in morse code. 0:12:17.636 --> 0:12:22.116 So this is an opportunity for Edison because at this point, 0:12:22.156 --> 0:12:26.036 like the telegraph is the cutting edge communication tool, like 0:12:26.076 --> 0:12:29.476 it's just exploding at this time. They've just around this 0:12:29.516 --> 0:12:34.796 time laid the first transatlantic cable. Suddenly you could communicate instantaneously. 0:12:34.956 --> 0:12:35.716 Right, You're in the. 0:12:35.596 --> 0:12:38.476 Midst of a civil war. People want to know the news, 0:12:38.596 --> 0:12:40.956 and suddenly they can know it. They can move troops, 0:12:40.956 --> 0:12:43.636 they can know what's happening, and people are just sort 0:12:43.676 --> 0:12:47.876 of getting used to this idea of information is not 0:12:47.956 --> 0:12:51.036 this rare thing that you print on the newspaper and 0:12:51.036 --> 0:12:54.956 deliver the next day. Like information is power, it's instantaneous. Yeah, 0:12:55.076 --> 0:12:56.316 Edison learning. 0:12:55.996 --> 0:12:58.716 To be a telegraph operator is him walking into this 0:12:58.836 --> 0:13:02.676 great technological moment of his time. And there is this 0:13:02.796 --> 0:13:08.716 one particular story that I love about how transformation all 0:13:08.756 --> 0:13:14.076 the tele is. It's about a pickpocket gang in London 0:13:14.476 --> 0:13:20.436 run by a guy named Fiddler Dick. Govnor watch out 0:13:20.436 --> 0:13:25.436 for Fiddler Dick. Uh very good. What Fiddler Dick's gang 0:13:25.556 --> 0:13:29.836 does is this, They loiter on a train platform and 0:13:29.876 --> 0:13:32.036 then the train pulls in, and you know, it's chaos. 0:13:32.076 --> 0:13:34.316 People are getting off the train, people are getting on, 0:13:34.356 --> 0:13:36.716 they're moving around, they've got all their stuff out, and 0:13:36.796 --> 0:13:38.796 Fiddler Dick and his boys pick the pockets to the 0:13:38.836 --> 0:13:41.036 people in the crowd, and then just as the train's 0:13:41.036 --> 0:13:43.436 about to pull out, they hop on the train and 0:13:43.516 --> 0:13:47.796 head to the next station. And this is an incredible strategy, right, 0:13:47.876 --> 0:13:51.156 because if you are on a moving train in say 0:13:51.756 --> 0:13:57.316 eighteen forty, there is literally no way to send information 0:13:57.716 --> 0:13:59.756 faster than you are traveling. You might as well be 0:13:59.836 --> 0:14:03.476 going at the speed of light, because no message is 0:14:03.516 --> 0:14:06.076 going to get to your destination before you do, right, 0:14:06.636 --> 0:14:08.516 So then you just get off the train at the 0:14:08.556 --> 0:14:12.356 next station, and nobody knows anything is a miss. And 0:14:12.396 --> 0:14:15.716 then one day in eighteen forty four, a cop in 0:14:16.076 --> 0:14:20.156 London sees the Fiddler Dick gang strike right, somebody the 0:14:20.196 --> 0:14:22.716 platform's like, whatever, my wallet, whatever, I don't know. Somebot 0:14:22.716 --> 0:14:24.956 to stop that boy, and they're on the train and 0:14:24.996 --> 0:14:27.196 they're gone. But then the cup is like, oh wait 0:14:27.236 --> 0:14:31.276 a minute, we got a telegraph now, and you're just telegraphs. 0:14:31.276 --> 0:14:35.156 They head to the next station. Fiddler Dick out of 0:14:35.156 --> 0:14:38.876 the boys get arrested. Thank you Telegraph. Here's Fiddler Dick. 0:14:38.956 --> 0:14:42.756 You got Fiddler Dick by the telegraph. So this is 0:14:42.836 --> 0:14:47.836 the world that Edison is going into. And it means 0:14:48.276 --> 0:14:51.956 that if you know how to send and receive Morse code, 0:14:52.076 --> 0:14:54.036 you can write your ticket. It's like being a coder 0:14:54.076 --> 0:14:56.076 in whatever twenty twenty. What it was the best year 0:14:56.116 --> 0:14:57.996 to be a coder? Twenty twenty? Probably right. 0:14:58.156 --> 0:15:00.716 I feel like we should just say here, if Netflix 0:15:00.796 --> 0:15:04.316 is listening in, we could write the Adventures of Young Edison, 0:15:04.556 --> 0:15:09.316 telegraph operator, traveling the nation, solving crime, wading inventions. I 0:15:09.316 --> 0:15:12.436 love it, actually, yes, next time on the Adventures of 0:15:12.476 --> 0:15:13.596 Young Thomas Edison. 0:15:14.116 --> 0:15:16.716 Very good it's basically this episode, but with a little 0:15:16.756 --> 0:15:19.836 more like murder. Well, sure, that's here's a murder. 0:15:20.036 --> 0:15:43.276 We'll be back in just a minute. 0:15:43.316 --> 0:15:46.036 Thomas Edison, he's going from town to town, you know, 0:15:47.236 --> 0:15:51.796 he's in Indianapolis, Memphis, Louisville, and he'll roll into town, 0:15:52.236 --> 0:15:54.796 get a room with some other telegraph operators, and go 0:15:54.836 --> 0:15:56.916 to work and make money. And he's spending all his 0:15:56.996 --> 0:16:01.436 money still experimenting, buying chemicals and stuff to build batteries. 0:16:01.476 --> 0:16:04.076 And there's this moment in Louisville. Actually his room is 0:16:04.076 --> 0:16:06.676 above the telegraph office and he spills some acid on 0:16:06.756 --> 0:16:09.396 the floor and it eats a hole through the floor 0:16:09.436 --> 0:16:12.036 and drips down into like the boss's office below. So 0:16:12.076 --> 0:16:14.396 he gets fired, but who cares, right, he's like a 0:16:14.436 --> 0:16:17.316 teenager and he has this valuable skill. So he winds 0:16:17.356 --> 0:16:21.716 up eventually in Boston as a telegraph operator. And this 0:16:21.876 --> 0:16:24.516 is where there's kind of a big turn, the next 0:16:24.516 --> 0:16:25.956 big turn in his life. 0:16:26.436 --> 0:16:30.356 So in the classic story of an entrepreneur, right, you 0:16:30.396 --> 0:16:32.796 need to have the basic skills, you need to have 0:16:32.836 --> 0:16:35.236 a bunch of ideas, but you also have to sort 0:16:35.236 --> 0:16:37.716 of take a risk. You have to have that moment 0:16:37.756 --> 0:16:40.796 of failure before you pivot, and I feel like we're 0:16:40.836 --> 0:16:41.596 about to get to that. 0:16:41.996 --> 0:16:44.636 Yes, that's right, both the failure and the pivot. Right. 0:16:44.716 --> 0:16:48.636 So yeah, So it's eighteen sixty nine. Edison is twenty 0:16:48.636 --> 0:16:51.676 two years old and he gets his first patent ever, 0:16:52.036 --> 0:16:54.956 first of one thousand and ninety three patents he will 0:16:54.956 --> 0:16:58.476 get legend in his lifetime legend and this one for him, 0:16:58.556 --> 0:17:02.356 it's for an electric vote recorder, right. And so the 0:17:02.436 --> 0:17:05.196 idea is he's in Boston, which is the state capital 0:17:05.236 --> 0:17:10.596 of Massachusetts, right, and you know the voting is super inefficient, right, 0:17:11.076 --> 0:17:15.836 I whatever. The gentleman from whatever, I don't know what, wherever. 0:17:15.556 --> 0:17:18.396 He sees a he sees a pain point there if 0:17:18.436 --> 0:17:20.636 someone has to write down eyes and knais. 0:17:20.996 --> 0:17:25.436 And so he invents this automatic counting machine and takes 0:17:25.436 --> 0:17:27.476 it to I think it takes it to the state House. 0:17:27.476 --> 0:17:29.516 He takes it to some legislator, takes it to the 0:17:29.636 --> 0:17:33.596 you know, customer, and they're like, look, this is very clever, 0:17:33.756 --> 0:17:37.076 but I'll tell you a little secret. We don't actually 0:17:37.116 --> 0:17:39.876 want our votes counted instantly, right. We need that time 0:17:39.916 --> 0:17:42.756 to go talk to the other legislators see if we 0:17:42.756 --> 0:17:44.876 can sway them. Maybe go out in the lobby and 0:17:44.876 --> 0:17:47.636 see if any the lobbyists out there want to discuss 0:17:47.676 --> 0:17:51.116 our campaign contributions or whatever they called them back then. Right, 0:17:51.636 --> 0:17:54.276 So in fact, this is not a problem. It would 0:17:54.316 --> 0:17:57.196 it would create a problem for the legislators. They don't 0:17:57.236 --> 0:17:59.956 want it, nobody buys it. He has built a thing 0:18:00.396 --> 0:18:01.316 that nobody wants. 0:18:01.436 --> 0:18:04.036 And this is a classic lesson for entrepreneurs. I mean 0:18:04.076 --> 0:18:06.876 even today in business school, people will come up with 0:18:06.956 --> 0:18:11.396 ideas and even make a prototype of it and be like, 0:18:11.396 --> 0:18:14.076 look at how amazing this idea is. And you'll be like, well, 0:18:14.516 --> 0:18:17.356 does anyone want it? Did you talk to your customers 0:18:17.676 --> 0:18:23.876 and like, oh, not yet. But it's clearly genius, so Engavier, right, 0:18:23.876 --> 0:18:29.476 it's having genius. Yeah, having a genius idea without a 0:18:29.636 --> 0:18:32.356 need for it is nothing. It's like not having it 0:18:32.396 --> 0:18:32.716 at all. 0:18:32.796 --> 0:18:36.076 Yeah. It reminded me of you know why Combinator, the 0:18:36.196 --> 0:18:40.236 famous startup incubator in Silicon Valley. I think their motto 0:18:40.436 --> 0:18:44.756 is something like make something people want. And I seem 0:18:44.756 --> 0:18:46.516 to recall, although I could not find evidence of this 0:18:46.556 --> 0:18:47.916 when I went to look for it, but I seem 0:18:47.956 --> 0:18:50.916 to recall that they give entrepreneurs a T shirt if 0:18:50.956 --> 0:18:55.356 their business gets to some level of success that says, congratulations, 0:18:55.516 --> 0:18:59.836 you made something people want. It's a very simple, elegant lesson, 0:19:00.476 --> 0:19:05.396 and it's a lesson that Edison really learns, really internalizes 0:19:05.636 --> 0:19:06.876 at this point in his life. 0:19:06.996 --> 0:19:08.596 And we'll see this for the rest of his life 0:19:08.676 --> 0:19:11.356 when he he interacts with other inventors, right, you know, 0:19:11.396 --> 0:19:13.636 he's the king inventor, So he's often brought in to. 0:19:13.556 --> 0:19:14.836 Be like, what do you think about this? 0:19:15.476 --> 0:19:18.196 And you know, they're showing it off to Edison being like, oh, 0:19:18.276 --> 0:19:21.436 isn't this amazing? And he's thinking, all right, how much 0:19:21.476 --> 0:19:23.076 can I get for it? Who will pay a nickel 0:19:23.316 --> 0:19:25.876 to use this thing? How I get into stores? Like 0:19:25.956 --> 0:19:29.836 what's the revenue model? Essentially, and this is one of 0:19:29.916 --> 0:19:33.276 the things that makes him a great inventor and a 0:19:33.276 --> 0:19:33.916 great businessman. 0:19:34.196 --> 0:19:37.396 So Edison takes this lesson and he turns to the 0:19:37.436 --> 0:19:41.916 finance industry smart smart, because finance is just literally the 0:19:41.956 --> 0:19:44.676 business of money, right, and if you can help people 0:19:44.956 --> 0:19:47.796 make more money, they will pay you for that. And 0:19:47.916 --> 0:19:50.716 right around this time, people have started using the telegraph 0:19:50.756 --> 0:19:54.996 to send real time information about stock prices. This is 0:19:55.036 --> 0:19:57.516 basically the invention of the stock ticker is a thing 0:19:57.516 --> 0:19:58.596 that has happened. 0:19:58.476 --> 0:20:00.756 Which is powerful because if stocks are trading for a 0:20:00.756 --> 0:20:04.796 different price, let's just say in London, New York, New York, Chicago, 0:20:05.276 --> 0:20:09.076 then that's this huge opportunity to buy cheap and want 0:20:09.316 --> 0:20:13.316 place and sell expensive in another place. This arbitrage opportunity. 0:20:13.636 --> 0:20:18.636 And having that information means you can spot those opportunities exactly. 0:20:18.676 --> 0:20:21.036 And if you can improve that a little bit, if 0:20:21.036 --> 0:20:24.396 you can make it faster or clearer, whatever, people will 0:20:24.396 --> 0:20:26.116 make more money. We saw this even into the twenty 0:20:26.156 --> 0:20:29.276 first century when people were building crazy, you know, dedicated 0:20:29.316 --> 0:20:32.116 fiber optic lines and satellite towers and wild things to 0:20:32.236 --> 0:20:36.956 move price information faster. So Edison moves to New York, 0:20:37.276 --> 0:20:41.236 of course finance Wall Street and gets a contract from 0:20:41.276 --> 0:20:44.836 the Golden Stock Telegraph Company of New York City. Really, 0:20:44.836 --> 0:20:47.556 what does that company do? I love old company names, right, 0:20:47.836 --> 0:20:51.676 What does the National Biscuit Company make? They make biscuits. 0:20:51.796 --> 0:20:54.556 I feel like the Golden Stock Telegraph Company became like 0:20:54.836 --> 0:20:57.636 go Telcom in the eighties and and now is known 0:20:57.636 --> 0:20:58.236 as Spritzel. 0:20:58.476 --> 0:21:02.236 Yes, Fritzel, but no I for some reason. And so 0:21:02.676 --> 0:21:06.116 now Edison is in New York and he is able 0:21:06.156 --> 0:21:09.156 to stop being a telegraph operator, he's able to do 0:21:09.236 --> 0:21:13.876 with his job. Start his first company, straightforward name Newark 0:21:13.996 --> 0:21:18.756 Telegraph Works. Ask me why why was it located in Newark? 0:21:18.916 --> 0:21:22.476 And what did they work on? Telegraph? He's hiring workers, 0:21:22.836 --> 0:21:26.076 he delivers that first stock ticker. And he's also he's 0:21:26.116 --> 0:21:31.676 working on all these incremental improvements, right, like not crazy 0:21:31.796 --> 0:21:33.916 things that are going to make him famous, but he's 0:21:33.996 --> 0:21:38.476 just making all these tweaks that give little efficiency gains, 0:21:38.516 --> 0:21:42.796 you know, little better batteries and weird electrical things. Right. 0:21:43.356 --> 0:21:46.636 His company's growing. He gets married, married to a Jersey 0:21:46.716 --> 0:21:49.956 girl named Mary Stillwell, they buy a house. But Edison 0:21:50.076 --> 0:21:53.236 is definitely not a family man. He's working. He's always 0:21:53.236 --> 0:21:55.796 working all the time. In fact, in his first year 0:21:55.836 --> 0:21:58.636 of marriage he gets thirty nine patents, but I'm sure 0:21:58.636 --> 0:22:02.876 he made it home for dinner never probably zero times. 0:22:03.556 --> 0:22:07.156 And then in eighteen seventy four he comes up with 0:22:07.996 --> 0:22:11.876 a big idea. Doesn't sound like a big idea to us, 0:22:11.876 --> 0:22:15.396 but it is a big idea. It's a system that 0:22:15.516 --> 0:22:19.156 lets you send four messages at once on a single 0:22:19.236 --> 0:22:22.796 telegraph line. Calls it the quadruplex. 0:22:22.996 --> 0:22:27.996 Now, at this point, telegraph was essentially one wire and 0:22:28.156 --> 0:22:32.276 you basically tap into one side of the wirepp peep 0:22:32.676 --> 0:22:34.716 person listens on the other end, taps. 0:22:34.396 --> 0:22:38.356