WEBVTT - Rerun: The Founding of G&E 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio. 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:15.280 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:18.720 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:23.040 and I love all things tech and I am currently 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:27.320 on vacation. If you are in the Disney World area, 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:31.920 you might see me. Um. By the way, it was 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:34.959 a big decision to actually go through with this vacation 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:37.320 and to go to Disney World, one that I'm still 0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:41.000 conflicted over. But I am fully vaccinated, as is my 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:45.760 entire family, and we're all going to be super precautious, 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:49.479 you know, making sure that we wash our hands thoroughly, 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:51.920 and we were wearing masks and all that kind of stuff. 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:54.240 But I'd be lying to you if I said I 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:58.800 was comfortable with this, but hopefully we have a fun 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:02.320 time and I were turn home healthy and happy, and 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:04.640 um yeah, that's that's the best we can hope for. 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:08.160 But I didn't want to leave you without any episodes 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:12.280 while I'm away, and so I thought something that would 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:15.600 be interesting to do. What to be revisit a series 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:19.440 of episodes I did in September of two thousand nineteen, 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:23.120 and it was a deep dive into the history of 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:27.440 General Electric a k a. G And the reason I 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:31.319 wanted to bring these back for this week is that 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:34.360 we recently heard that g E is going to split 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:40.200 into three separate companies, one that will focus on healthcare, 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:43.280 one that will focus on energy, and one that will 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:47.320 focus on aviation. It will be the aviation one that 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:50.760 retains the name GE, by the way, so it's kind 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:52.680 of the end of an era, and I thought it 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:55.840 would be interesting to go back and listen to this 0:01:56.200 --> 0:01:59.560 series of episodes where we do a deep dive on 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:03.280 the history of g E. So sit back and relax 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:07.440 and listen to The Founding of GE, originally published on 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:14.240 September second, two thousand nineteen. In mid August two thousand nineteen, 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:19.480 a financial analyst named Harry Marcopolis released a one hundred 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:23.720 seventy five page report alleging that g E, that is, 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:27.720 General Electric, the venerable company that is more than a 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:32.680 century old, was secretly on the verge of insolvency. He 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:36.359 claimed the company was using accounting tricks to hide an 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:40.480 enormous threat to its very existence, something akin to the 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:44.760 Shenanigan's in Ron polled years ago, and giving Marcopolis some 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:48.760 credibility was his own history. He had raised warning flags 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:52.639 about Bernie Madeoff before the world found out about Madeoff's 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:56.200 Ponzi scheme. And to learn more about Ponzi schemes, you 0:02:56.240 --> 0:02:59.320 should look up the classic stuff you should know episode 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:03.160 all about It. It's great, particularly with the way Chuck 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:08.559 adopted It's a Ponzi scheme into that and subsequent episodes. 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:12.840 Now as I record these episodes, the report and the 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:15.960 responses to it are still part of the news cycle. 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:20.680 GE and some third party analysts have disputed Marcopolis's findings, 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:24.359 claiming that Marcopolis himself actually stands to earn a lot 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:27.960 of money by taking down GE. And Marcopolis has said 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:30.440 he was hired by a Hedge fund to look into 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:34.639 GES practices, but he refuses to name the fund as 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:37.920 of the recording of this podcast. Meanwhile, some other third 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:42.200 parties seem to agree with at least some of Marcopolis's findings, 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:46.160 and GE has been under increased scrutiny for its accounting 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:49.120 practices over the last few years. So there are a 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:52.360 lot of unanswered questions around this, and it's by no 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:56.960 means a settled matter. I don't know if Marcopolis's allegations 0:03:56.960 --> 0:03:59.840 reflect reality, and in fact, if I'm being totally honest, 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:03.800 I don't even understand all of those allegations. And in 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:06.600 the interest of full disclosure, I have not read the 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:10.880 full one report, but I did think it would be 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:13.560 good to do a full rundown on the history of 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:19.880 General Electric. It is an incredibly influential company, and it 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:25.120 spans many industries it has had and and it's heart 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:28.039 to stress how big an impact it has had on 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:31.640 the history of the United States in particular and tech 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:35.960 in general. Now I should also add that back in 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:39.840 two thousand twelve, Chris Palette and I recorded three episodes 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:43.560 about the history of GE. But Tech Stuff was a 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:46.120 different kind of show back in those days, so I 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:48.320 thought it might be good to take a deeper dive 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:51.880 into the history and see how GE shaped technology. And 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:54.560 beyond that being said, if I were to do a 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:59.480 comprehensive history on the company and all its subsidiaries, this 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:03.080 series last a dozen episodes or more. So to avoid 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:07.440 making this episode and this podcast turned into GE Stuff, 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:09.560 I'm going to try and focus on what I think 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:12.280 are some of the most important historical moments of GE, 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:14.720 and a lot of that is in those early years. 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:17.720 So let's go back to where it all began. And 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:22.000 like many corporate histories, this involves going back to older 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:24.920 companies that would form the foundation for the one we 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:28.479 actually want to talk about. So strap in guys and 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:32.920 women and all others. I don't mean to lump everybody 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:36.960 in under the term guys. Anyway, we all know about 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:40.880 Thomas Edison, right. He was an inventor, he was an entrepreneur, 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:44.720 He was a master at self promotion and more. And 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:49.040 some folks might throw in some less complementary labels in there, 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:52.279 perhaps suggesting he was also a thief, or if that's 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:54.719 going too far, someone willing to take credit for the 0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:57.800 work of people who are working beneath him. But whatever 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:02.400 your opinion of the fellow, Edison got stuff done. In 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:05.680 the eighteen seventies, Edison was working on the light bulb, 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:09.560 and no, he didn't invent the light bulb, but that's 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:12.359 a story for another podcast. In fact, my former co 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:15.320 host Chris Poulett and I actually did cover that story 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:18.880 in an episode titled tech Stuff Gets a Bright Idea, 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:22.520 which published on October twenty nine, two thousand twelve. But 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:26.560 Edison did make improvements on the lightbulb, working with his 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:29.960 engineers to discover a material to serve as a suitable 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:34.000 filament too in condess, brightly enough, and long enough to 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:38.040 be a practical use. In eighteen seventy eight, Edison founded 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:41.360 a company to concentrate on that goal. It was the 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:45.520 Edison Electric Light Company. He had some big names in 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:50.960 US history, particularly US financial history, as his investors, folks 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:55.200 like the Vanderbilts and JP Morgan. Now Morgan is going 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:58.800 to become very important to this story. Now. At the time, 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:02.440 he had yet to find a suitable approach. The lightbulbs 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:05.479 he made would burn out in just a few hours. 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:09.240 The following year, in eighteen seventy nine, his company produced 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:13.600 a lightbulb able to last for forty hours. Not superb 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:16.360 by any means, but a real sign of progress, and 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:20.760 Edison boldly stated that his company would make electricity affordable 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:24.440 enough so that only the wealthy would ever burn candles. 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:28.720 That same year, again, eighteen seventy nine, for those who 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:32.400 have forgotten, a couple of teachers created their own company. 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:37.200 Edwin James Houston was a physics teacher, and Alihu Thompson 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:41.240 taught chemistry and mechanics at the Central High School for 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:45.440 Boys in Philadelphia. They created a company called the American 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:48.960 Electric Company in New Britain, Connecticut, with the help of 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:54.160 some local investors. In eighty three, a different group of investors, 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:57.960 this time from Massachusetts, bought out the company from the 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:01.000 original group of investors and the company got a new name, 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:05.480 the Thompson Houston Electric Company. Thompson would head up the 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:09.200 research and development department, which was called the Model Room. 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:13.800 A fellow named Charles A. Coffin, the head of the investors, 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:16.640 would lead the company and act as a sort of 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:21.800 president and chief financial officer, while Elwyn W. Rice led 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:24.880 the manufacturing part of the business. Both of those names 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:28.840 will be important for Ge and Charles Coffin wasn't a 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:32.480 physicist by nature. No, he was a man with a 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:34.960 lot of soul. And by that I meant he was 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:38.880 a shoe manufacturer, as a dad joke for you. So 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:42.880 where many of his fellow investors. They were all from 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:48.360 the shoe manufacturing industry, and they were all located in Lynn, Massachusetts, 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:52.120 and they pulled their money to purchase this burgeoning, this 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:56.800 this blossoming electric utility company, the Thompson Houston Electric Company 0:08:56.840 --> 0:09:00.560 would relocate its headquarters to Lynn, Massachusetts, and get back 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:04.240 to that company in just a second. Edison was not 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:08.160 just working on lamps in the eighteen seventies and eighteen eighties. 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:11.679 He was also creating some of the first generators. These 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:16.720 are devices that would convert mechanical energy into electrical energy. 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:22.400 On December seventeen eighty, he founded the Edison Electric Illuminating Company. 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:25.800 In eighteen eighty two, he was responsible for building and 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:29.920 operating the first steam generated power station in London to 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:33.120 power street lamps and a few private homes that were 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:36.360 not far from the power plant. In New York, he 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:40.120 was responsible for creating an electric power distribution system called 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:45.040 Pearl Street Station, which supplied electricity to fifty nine whole 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:49.480 customers in Lower Manhattan. Now, at the time, not everyone 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:52.760 was sold on the idea of this new fangled electricity 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:57.920 replacing candles and gas lamps, so as an incentive, Edison's 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:02.720 company offered the first three months of service at no charge. 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:06.880 He also began to acquire smaller businesses that were likewise 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:10.959 getting into the electrical power generator game, and by eighteen 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:15.800 ninety this motley group of companies merged to form Voltron, 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:19.960 and by Voltron, I mean they became the Edison General 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:25.280 Electric Company. It was this company that in eight installed 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:29.400 electrical wires and switching equipment in the United States White House, 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:33.080 and that made Benjamin Harrison, the twenty third President of 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:37.240 the United States, the first US president to have electricity 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:41.719 in the White House. Back to the Thompson Houston Electric Company. 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:45.320 Like Edison, Charles Coffin was determined to be a big 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:49.199 player in the electricity generating business. He had led Thompson 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:52.480 Houston to go international and he bought out a British 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:57.720 company called the Brush Company, which did not sell brushes. No, 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:01.880 it was actually founded by a guy named Charles Brush, 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:04.040 and it was a company that had patents for stuff 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:07.600 like dynamos and had been in litigation with Thompson Houston 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:11.040 Electric Company over some technologies. But we all know the 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:15.280 old saying, right, if you can't beat them, by them, 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:19.600 and that's what Thompson Houston Electric Company did. So both 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:24.120 Edison General Electric Company and the Thompson Houston Electric Company 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:29.679 were buying up competitors and more importantly, patent holders. So 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:33.600 they each had dozens of patents to their name, and 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:37.400 they were quickly becoming the dominant players in electricity generation 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:41.120 and distribution in the Northeast United States, and there was 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:44.640 just enough overlap to make business tricky for both companies. 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:47.679 Without stepping on the toes of the other, they could 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:50.840 have become great rivals, and in fact they kind of were. 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:55.240 Henry Villard, who was the president of Edison General Electric 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:58.959 Thomas Edison, wasn't involved in the day to day operations 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:02.560 of the company. Villard had an idea both Edison and 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:06.080 Thompson Houston were in a bit of a cash crunch 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:08.280 as the market was in a bit of a slump. 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:12.280 In addition, because both companies owned dozens of patents, that 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:15.200 made it hard to be the sole provider of any 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:20.560 kind of electrical infrastructure. Business was too expensive. It was 0:12:20.880 --> 0:12:23.160 not just expensive to lay out the infrastructure, but you 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:25.920 had all these legal battles that would come up because 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:29.040 one company would allege that the other company was infringing 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:32.920 on one or more patents. There were several lawsuits pending 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:35.720 around patents, and there would likely be even more in 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:38.920 the future. Villard wanted to solve all these problems by 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:44.560 having the two companies merge. Edison reportedly hated this idea 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:48.920 and advised against it. Villard felt that the Edison Company 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:52.400 was in a dominant position and could effectively define the 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:55.160 terms of the merger, and so he tried to move 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:59.880 on ahead. Then we get back to JP Morgan, the financier. 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:03.800 He had arrived at a similar conclusion regarding the merger, 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:08.400 but he felt that the Thompson Houston Company was actually 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:11.840 the one that was in a stronger position, and because 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:15.920 Morgan was Mr. Money Bags, he went behind Villard's back 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:19.080 and began wheeling and dealing to make the merger happen, 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:22.880 but on very different terms than what Villard was thinking. 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:27.080 Morgan spearheaded the effort to merge these two companies together 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:30.400 to form a new entity, one that would become known 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:34.960 as the General Electric Company and later g E. The 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:37.880 headquarters for the company would be in Schenectady, New York, 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:43.480 and Morrigan effectively removed Thomas Edison and Henry Villard from 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:47.560 any sort of leadership role. Edison didn't even know about 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:51.640 the merger until the day before it actually happened. Yikes, 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:57.000 with their powers and patents combined, the two former competitors 0:13:57.120 --> 0:14:01.400 could rapidly expand throughout the Northeast and beyond and moreover, 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:05.080 the merger meant that the electric utilities industry in the 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:09.880 United States was now split between just two companies because 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:13.920 General Electric companies had been swooped up, you know, all 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:17.240 Thomas Houston and Edison Electric had brought up all these 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:22.000 smaller utilities, as had Westinghouse, the other big competitor in 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:25.960 the US. So now the electric utilities industry in the 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:29.400 United States was a dowopoli. It was either General Electric 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:33.120 or it was Westinghouse and General Electric and Westinghouse had 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:38.160 been part of a patent pool agreement in eight so 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:41.280 this was a big deal. It would also mean the 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:44.840 end of the war of the currents between direct current 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:47.480 and alternating current. I have a little bit more to 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:50.000 say about that in a minute. Now. I'm of two 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:55.960 minds about this merger that JP Morgan initiated. Generally speaking, 0:14:56.400 --> 0:15:00.600 I'm in favor of competition in markets because that's usually 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:03.720 what ends up being best for the consumer. It's way 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:07.360 better if you have options and choices, because companies will 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:11.120 do different things in order to get customers, which usually 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:14.600 means cutting a better deal. But we're also talking about rain, 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:18.160 which most people didn't even have access to electricity. The 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:21.760 infrastructure itself had not been laid out, so there was 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:24.640 a real need to do that, and with competition in 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:28.400 the way, it made laying out the basic infrastructure to 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:32.320 get electricity to people harder to do. The same thing 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.960 would be true of the telecommunications industry, getting telephone lines 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:39.920 out to people. It was tough to do that while 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:43.040 also competing with other companies, and it could mean that 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:49.040 you could have different standards, corporate defined standards that are 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:52.880 incompatible with one another, laying out different regions. It was 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:57.240 just a big mess. So you could argue that the 0:15:57.280 --> 0:16:00.880 monopoly like approach was actually been a official at least 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:06.000 to establish the infrastructure. It just wasn't a good thing 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:10.760 to have as an ongoing thing. The newly formed company 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:14.880 started in eighteen nine two, and Charles Coffin would serve 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:18.040 as the first president. So though you could trace the 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:21.120 history as far back as eighteen seventy eight, I think 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:27.400 is a reasonable reckoning day for g E. S Natal day. 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:29.920 Now we're gonna take a quick break, but when we 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:32.040 come back, we'll talk a little bit more about what 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:36.000 GE was doing during its first few years of existence. 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:48.280 In eighteen nine three, Edison's company developed an electric locomotive 0:16:48.600 --> 0:16:52.000 that could use electricity to reach speeds of around thirty 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:54.920 miles per hour, which the company showed off at the 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:59.680 Chicago Exposition. This was another opportunity to demonstrate how electricity 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:02.320 could be used to a curious audience, and it helped 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:05.760 promote the industry. You gotta remember again in eighteen nine, 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:09.119 electricity is a brand new concept and to show that 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:12.640 it had the power to do something that typically would 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:15.520 be done with a steam engine was a very compelling 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:20.000 use case. In eighteen four, Thomas Edison chose to sell 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:23.520 his shares in General Electric. He would continue to serve 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:26.720 as a consultant for the company, but the Wizard of 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:29.639 Menlo Park would no longer be seen as the driving 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:33.240 force or voice for General Electric, and to be fair, 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:36.200 ever since the formation of the company he had little 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:40.000 say in its direction. While the name and headquarters favored 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:43.960 Edison's old company, the management for General Electric largely came 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:48.840 from the Thompson Houston Electric Company. So Edison out and 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:52.520 at just four years old, General Electric would become part 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:57.320 of financial history. See in eighteen ninety six, there was 0:17:57.320 --> 0:18:01.600 this guy named Charles Dow and he took stocks of 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:06.719 twelve large industrial companies to create a stocks average, and 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:09.240 it was a sort of indicator as to how things 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:12.800 were going in the industrial market overall. You would watch 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:16.440 the averaged performance of these twelve companies and that would 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:19.439 kind of tell you how things were going. As a 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:23.800 broad rule of thumb, one of those twelve original companies 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:28.320 was you guessed it, General Electric. All of the original 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:31.800 dozen companies, GE would be the only one to survive 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:35.520 and remain on the dal Jones Industrial Average for more 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:40.760 than a century, though spoiler alert, GE was removed from 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:43.760 the dal Jones Industrial Average in two thousand and eighteen, 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:47.520 but I'll talk more about that in a later episode. 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:51.520 Also in eighteen ninety six, Eli Hu Thompson, one of 0:18:51.520 --> 0:18:54.600 the founders of the Thompson Houston Electric Company and a 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:59.040 consultant at GE, created an improved X ray tube. So 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:02.720 let's talk about X rays for a second. X rays 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:06.240 are a type of electromagnetic radiation and they have a 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:10.320 very short wavelength, much shorter than visible light. So if 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:13.240 you were to look at a spectrum of electromagnetic radiation 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:18.119 from longer wavelengths to shorter at the longest end would 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:22.159 be radio waves. Those stretch very long, in some cases 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:26.359 more than a kilometer. Then if you move down the spectrum, 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:30.440 you come to microwaves below that are infrared waves. Then 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:33.600 you have visible light, then you have ultra violet light. 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:36.119 Then you have X rays. If you were to go 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:39.160 even smaller on the wavelength scale, you would then reach 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:43.119 gamma rays. X rays form when a charged particle like 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:47.520 an electron, experiences acceleration or deceleration, and you want to 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:50.200 have it be in a very controlled way to generate 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:55.200 specific X rays of a particular wavelength. Wilhelm Conrad Rerunchen 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:59.760 and I always mess up that name. I apologize, but anyway, 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:02.399 this is the fellow who first discovered X rays. In 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:07.480 eight he was working with cathode ray tubes in a lab. 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:10.080 These are crt s. Is the source of stuff you 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:13.359 would find in old television sets. And he had concluded 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:16.160 that there was a type of ray that was invisible 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:19.159 to the eye, and it could pass through lots of 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:22.480 solid stuff like heavy black paper. In fact, he figured 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:24.919 it could passed through lots of different stuff, and it 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:29.040 could cast shadows of solid objects. It could pass through 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:33.359 flesh but not bone. And one of the earliest experiments 0:20:33.359 --> 0:20:36.720 he conducted with this discovery was to use film to 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:40.080 capture an X ray image of his wife's hand so 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:44.040 that she could see the skeletal structure of her hand. 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:49.120 So an X ray tube converts energy. Specifically, it converts 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:52.800 electrical energy into two other types of energy. One of 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:57.240 those is heat and the other is X radiation. Ideally, 0:20:57.440 --> 0:21:00.560 you want to produce specific X radiation and you want 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:05.600 to minimize heat production because really heat represents waste, it's 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:08.119 lost energy in this case, so are the way we 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:11.760 think of heat being waste energy for a car engine 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:15.159 as another example. So, an X ray tube is a 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:19.679 particular type of cathode ray tube. That means inside the tube, 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:22.639 which looks a little bit like a lightbulb, you have 0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:25.760 an element called a cathode and you have another called 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:30.640 an anode. Electrical current flows through the tube and electrons 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:34.960 flow from cathode to anode. The cathode connects to the 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:37.840 negative side of the circuit, the anode connects to the 0:21:37.840 --> 0:21:40.000 positive side. So in other words, you can think of 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:43.840 the cathode as the component that sheds or contributes electrons. 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:48.400 The anode is the component that accepts electrons. As part 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:52.480 of this process, electrons lose energy as they move through 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:56.520 the circuit, and this generates X radiation. The material in 0:21:56.560 --> 0:21:59.760 the anode and the energy of the electrons determines how 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:03.560 the energy gets converted into heat rather than X radiation. 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:08.520 Modern X ray tubes frequently have tungsten anodes, and there's 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:11.680 a lot more we could explore with X rays, but honestly, 0:22:11.720 --> 0:22:13.960 I think that would require its own episode, so we'll 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:16.719 just leave it here. Just know that the X ray 0:22:16.720 --> 0:22:19.200 tubes are pretty similar to the tubes you'd find in 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:24.159 old CRT televisions or monitors, though not modern TVs or 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:27.680 displays because they they don't use cathode ray tubes anymore. 0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:30.760 The important thing for our episode here is that GE 0:22:30.960 --> 0:22:34.320 became a leader in that space, with Thompson creating the 0:22:34.359 --> 0:22:38.000 improved X ray tube just one year after X rays 0:22:38.040 --> 0:22:42.760 had even been discovered. In nineteen hundred, Thomas Edison, still 0:22:42.920 --> 0:22:47.520 working as a consultant for General Electric, partnered with Willis R. 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:52.720 Whitney and Charles Steinmitz to create the first industrial research 0:22:52.880 --> 0:22:56.679 laboratory in the United States. The purpose of the facility 0:22:57.040 --> 0:23:01.240 was to act as an experimental division for GE, where 0:23:01.280 --> 0:23:06.000 engineers and scientists would work on innovating new technologies and 0:23:06.080 --> 0:23:10.400 new applications of existing tech, and even making scientific breakthroughs. 0:23:10.960 --> 0:23:14.360 It was in this facility where GE researchers could conduct 0:23:14.440 --> 0:23:19.200 original research projects. The functions of this facility closely resembled 0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:22.879 a model practiced in German universities. Much of the early 0:23:22.920 --> 0:23:26.080 work in the research lab focused on improving the existing 0:23:26.119 --> 0:23:28.960 technologies that GE was producing at the time. It was 0:23:29.040 --> 0:23:32.240 only after a few years that the engineers were starting 0:23:32.240 --> 0:23:37.400 to look at totally new types of technology, scientific principles 0:23:37.400 --> 0:23:40.240 and applications. Also, this is where we get a little 0:23:40.280 --> 0:23:43.399 Monty Python and the Holy Grail with the lab. The 0:23:43.440 --> 0:23:47.639 original lab was not particularly grandiose. It was a barn 0:23:47.840 --> 0:23:51.119 located behind the house of one of the researchers for GE. But, 0:23:51.920 --> 0:23:56.080 and this will probably come as a surprise to absolutely nobody, 0:23:56.280 --> 0:23:59.720 because they were working with electricity and heating elements, that 0:24:00.000 --> 0:24:04.240 particular lab ended up catching fire and it burned down. 0:24:04.800 --> 0:24:08.880 After that, GE re established the lab in Schenectady, New York. 0:24:09.200 --> 0:24:11.560 The head of the research division was a professor from 0:24:11.680 --> 0:24:14.359 m I. T. And I'm sure there were many more 0:24:14.520 --> 0:24:17.200 fires over the following years, but as far as I know, 0:24:17.800 --> 0:24:20.000 none of them burned The whole lab down to the 0:24:20.040 --> 0:24:23.240 ground again. One early invention to come out of the 0:24:23.320 --> 0:24:27.200 lab was the electric fan in n two. Now, there 0:24:27.240 --> 0:24:30.600 is a small issue with this, and that other inventors 0:24:30.600 --> 0:24:34.800 had already created electric fans years earlier. An inventor with 0:24:34.960 --> 0:24:40.800 the fabulous name Skyler Scott's Wheeler built one in eighteen 0:24:40.960 --> 0:24:45.199 eighty two, twenty years before GE would file patents for 0:24:45.280 --> 0:24:49.960 its electric fan design. Another guy named Philip Deal took 0:24:50.000 --> 0:24:52.480 the electric fan and flipped it a bit, creating the 0:24:52.520 --> 0:24:56.040 first ceiling fan. He essentially took a fan blade, attached 0:24:56.080 --> 0:24:58.840 it to a sewing machine motor, and then bolted that 0:24:58.920 --> 0:25:02.879 motor to the ceiling in seven Now, I'm not sure 0:25:02.920 --> 0:25:06.879 what innovations General Electric contributed to the electric fan, but 0:25:06.960 --> 0:25:09.159 I will tell you I looked at lots of different 0:25:09.240 --> 0:25:12.920 sources when I was creating these these episodes, and many 0:25:13.000 --> 0:25:17.080 of them talk about two G E invents the electric fan, 0:25:17.600 --> 0:25:20.760 which clearly is not the case. Uh. Now, they might 0:25:20.800 --> 0:25:23.000 have come out with an electric fan, and they probably 0:25:23.080 --> 0:25:27.159 did create some interesting innovations with the fan, but they 0:25:27.200 --> 0:25:30.560 didn't truly invent it. It'd been around for two decades already. 0:25:30.720 --> 0:25:36.000 In nineteen o three, GE acquired the Stanley Electric Manufacturing Company, 0:25:36.440 --> 0:25:40.560 which manufactured transformers. In fact, William Stanley, the founder of 0:25:40.560 --> 0:25:43.600