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Speaker 1: Pushkin too quick. No, it's perfect push kit.

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Speaker 2: Stop you got it.

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Speaker 1: Business History Episode two, Edison, Part one.

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Speaker 2: What if that's the segment that's sponsored, sponsored by what by?

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Speaker 2: Whoever wants to pay for it.

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Speaker 1: We can talk about that afterwards. I suppose.

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Speaker 2: Thomas Edison died in nineteen thirty one. He was eighty

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Speaker 2: four years old, and when he died, the President of

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Speaker 2: the United States, Herbert Hoover, decided that Edison was such

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Speaker 2: a big deal that the whole country, the entire United States,

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Speaker 2: needed a moment of mourning. So Hoover is talking this

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Speaker 2: over with his aides, what should we do to honor Edison?

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Speaker 2: And somebody says, what if the whole country turns off

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Speaker 2: the electricity for one minute to honor Thomas Edison, the

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Speaker 2: man who brought electricity to the masses. And you're laughing

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Speaker 2: for what I think is an obvious reason, right.

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Speaker 1: Because if you think about it, who needs electricity all

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Speaker 1: the time?

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Speaker 2: Right?

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Speaker 1: Everyone? Everybody, fire departments, hospital, sanitation systems, they all needed

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Speaker 1: every minute. They need this thing that Edison helped create,

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Speaker 1: electric power.

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Speaker 2: This thing that nobody had, nobody had, you know a

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Speaker 2: few decades before this crucially right, this itself is testament

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Speaker 2: to Edison, right, this fact that if you turn off

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Speaker 2: electricity for one minute, people will die. And Hoover actually

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Speaker 2: puts out this official statement where he walks through this

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Speaker 2: thought process that he and his aides.

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Speaker 1: Have gone through.

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Speaker 2: He writes, quote, this demonstration of the dependence of the

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Speaker 2: country upon electrical current for its life and health is

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Speaker 2: in itself a monument to mister Edison's genius. And so

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Speaker 2: Hoover decides, Okay, we'll do this more modest thing where

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Speaker 2: it's like, if you want to turn off the lights

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Speaker 2: for one minute at ten PM, and a lot of

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Speaker 2: the country does it.

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Speaker 1: So I can imagine the nation city in the dark

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Speaker 1: for sixty seconds, just waiting to turn the lights back on.

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Speaker 1: You can hear a fridge whirring in the background. Did

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Speaker 1: not exist when Edison was born. Maybe the radio's playing

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Speaker 1: softly that wasn't around. And when the light comes back on,

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Speaker 1: people could see cars in the streets, planes in the

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Speaker 1: sky that didn't exist fifty years earlier. You could see

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Speaker 1: the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building.

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Speaker 2: Both brand new at the time, as were skyscrapers in general.

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Speaker 2: Because you couldn't build a skyscraper if you didn't have electricity,

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Speaker 2: because nobody's gonna walk.

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Speaker 1: What is it one hundred stories up? Right?

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Speaker 2: Buildings were like ten stories tall max. Before electric grids.

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Speaker 1: When we look back, Edison's life was probably this moment

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Speaker 1: in US history where the most progress was made between

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Speaker 1: the time he was born and the time he died

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Speaker 1: technological progress, and if you look in such a compression

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Speaker 1: period of time, it is unimaginable how much life changed

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Speaker 1: for people. Certainly if you.

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Speaker 2: Were eighty years old, but even if you were sixty

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Speaker 2: years old, your life was entirely different by nineteen thirty

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Speaker 2: than it had been when you were a small child.

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Speaker 2: And you know, to be clear, Edison wasn't the cause

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Speaker 2: of all of that. He didn't have anything to do

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Speaker 2: with cars and planes. He didn't really invent the light bulb,

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Speaker 2: in fact, though people thought he did. And there was

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Speaker 2: this myth of Edison that was part of the story.

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Speaker 2: But I think Edison really did do as much as anybody.

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Speaker 2: He certainly did an incredible amount to use technology and

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Speaker 2: business to bring about this incredible change in daily life

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Speaker 2: for hundreds of millions of people.

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Speaker 1: I'm Jacob Goldstein and I'm Robert Smith, and this is

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Speaker 1: Business History, a show about the history of business.

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Speaker 2: That's why would call it business History because it's about

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Speaker 2: the history of business. And today we are starting on

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Speaker 2: a three part series Big pretty sure, it's going to

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Speaker 2: be about Thomas Edison. Edison was this incredible figure in

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Speaker 2: a lot of ways. He was an inventor, a tinkerer.

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Speaker 2: He was like a grinder, you know, workaholic, huge self promoter,

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Speaker 2: great entrepreneur, invented the photograph, built the first electric grid

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Speaker 2: of any size to light up Lower Manhattan, controlled essentially

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Speaker 2: the entire American movie business. But today, in the first

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Speaker 2: episode about Edison, I'm going to argue that the most

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Speaker 2: important thing he did came before any of that, and

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Speaker 2: it wasn't even any particular thing or system that he invented.

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Speaker 2: It was this kind of meta breakthrough. It was this

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Speaker 2: new way of inventing, and it happened early in Edison's life.

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Speaker 2: It happened before he was thirty years old. So he

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Speaker 2: came up with a new way of inventing that industrialized invention,

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Speaker 2: and that really created the template for the modern twentieth

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Speaker 2: century style of progress.

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Speaker 1: That was his great break which we see even today Internet, AI,

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Speaker 1: everything Thomas Alva Edison. It's one of those people you

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Speaker 1: love saying is middle name Alva. He was born in

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Speaker 1: what was already an age of miracles. There was the railroad,

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Speaker 1: and there was the telegraph, and they were shrinking this

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Speaker 1: very notion of distance, of time and space. It felt

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Speaker 1: like an age that was on the move, and the

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Speaker 1: spirit of invention, of innovation was everywhere. And Edison had

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Speaker 1: this particular combination of traits, right. He was an inventor,

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Speaker 1: that's we learned about in school, of course, but he

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Speaker 1: was also a hustler, an entrepreneur. He was interested in

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Speaker 1: new things, but he always asked himself, what are people

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Speaker 1: willing to pay for? Yeah, And it's really striking.

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Speaker 2: You see both of these traits, the entrepreneur and the

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Speaker 2: inventor of the tinker. You see them from very early

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Speaker 2: in his life. You see him from when he's a kid,

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Speaker 2: a little kid. So he's born in eighteen forty seven

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Speaker 2: in a town called Port Huron, Michigan, on the show

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Speaker 2: shore of Lake Huron. I'll be honest with you, I

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Speaker 2: 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. I was born between Lake

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Speaker 1: Huron and Lake Erie in London, Ontario, Canada. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't have got it. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So he's born on the shore of Lake Huron, this

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Speaker 2: little town out in the middle of nowhere. He barely

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Speaker 2: goes to school, goes to school for like a few

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Speaker 2: months here and there. It was a bad distracted student

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Speaker 2: and he's working from a young age. When he's twelve,

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Speaker 2: he gets a job selling like candy and newspapers on

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Speaker 2: the train that goes back and forth from Port Huron

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Speaker 2: to Detroit. He's working the angles, he's hustling. There's this

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Speaker 2: detail that I love, which is, you know, when the

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Speaker 2: train gets to Detroit, he gets a bunch of newspapers

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Speaker 2: to sell on the way back to Port Huron, and

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Speaker 2: if he has some unsold papers, when he's almost back

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Speaker 2: to the end of the line, while the train is

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Speaker 2: still moving at the edge of town in Port Huron,

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Speaker 2: there's this like sandbank or something. He throws the bundle

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Speaker 2: of papers off off the train into the sandbank. Then

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Speaker 2: he jumps off the moving train after him and walks home,

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Speaker 2: selling the papers one by one.

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Speaker 1: These days, we don't let twelve year olds out by themselves,

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Speaker 1: you know in the modern era, these guy's jumping off trains.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and like obviously a bad idea, but in my heart,

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Speaker 2: I kind of love it, Like in my twelve year

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Speaker 2: old boy heart's seat on the log Yeah yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 2: So you know he's out there selling newspapers on the train,

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Speaker 2: off the train, and after a little while he thinks, wait,

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Speaker 2: I'm just like a chump.

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Speaker 1: I'm out here working for the man.

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Speaker 2: I could be selling my own papers, And so he

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Speaker 2: buys a used printing press, puts it into some space

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Speaker 2: on a baggage car on the train, and starts printing

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Speaker 2: his own newspaper on the train.

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Speaker 1: What is he reporting on? Like the guy in seat

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Speaker 1: thirteen B. You know he's got a hot tip. It's

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

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Speaker 2: You might call it a newsletter, yeah, okay, the Weekly Herald,

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Speaker 2: Thomas A. Edison publisher. It's like one page, but selling it.

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Speaker 1: And making all the profits and keeping all.

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Speaker 2: The profits right cutting out the middle man. So there's

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Speaker 2: entrepreneur Edison, and like right next to entrepreneur Edison in

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Speaker 2: that same baggage car, you see Edison the inventor. Because

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Speaker 2: next to the printing press. He sets up this little

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

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Speaker 2: like making things turn purple. I'm imagining like things bubbling.

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Speaker 1: I don't I don't know.

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Speaker 2: There's one thing I do know, which is he has

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Speaker 2: some phosphorus.

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Speaker 1: And the reason I know he has fosters, right, oh.

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Speaker 2: Is at some point the phosphorus like spills or whatever

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Speaker 2: and starts a fire on the train on the train,

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Speaker 2: on the train car, yeah, which is like, obviously that's

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Speaker 2: gonna happen. You have a teenage boy with like dangerous

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Speaker 2: chemicals out the trade, of course they're gonna start a fire.

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Speaker 2: And of course if you do that, you're gonna get fired,

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Speaker 2: which is what happens to Edison. So he gets fired,

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Speaker 2: and now comes this very Horatio Alger turn and that

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Speaker 2: is this. So not long before the fire and the firing,

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Speaker 2: Edison has been hanging out at a train station and

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Speaker 2: there is this little toddler stay with me, who is

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Speaker 2: out playing on the track, and a loose car train

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Speaker 2: car comes rolling at the toddler and sees it happening,

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Speaker 2: and he goes it, grabs the toddler and brings him to.

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Speaker 1: Safety and This story is almost too perfect, right, A

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Speaker 1: runaway box car toddler on the tracks is Steven Spielberg

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Speaker 1: writ this.

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Speaker 2: Apocryphull the word you're looking for. The history gave is apocryphal,

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Speaker 2: too good to be true. Although I looked at this

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Speaker 2: and thought about it, and I think it is true.

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Speaker 2: You know, there is one recent biographer, this guy Randall Strass,

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Speaker 2: who is like particularly skeptical of Edison's self mythologizing, and

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Speaker 2: he thinks it's true. And you can see letters between

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Speaker 2: Edison and the kids dand so I think the world

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Speaker 2: used to just be more wild, right, like more dangerous.

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Speaker 2: So yes, I think it's true. But at this moment

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Speaker 2: it is in fact helpful for Edison because because the

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Speaker 2: father of the child that Edison rescues runs the station

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Speaker 2: but also is a telegraph operator, and so when Edison

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Speaker 2: gets fired, this grateful father teaches Edison to be a

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Speaker 2: telegraph operator. This is the next phase of Edison's life, right,

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Speaker 2: Being a telegraph operator proves to be.

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Speaker 1: A huge opportunity for him.

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Speaker 2: But I want to say one thing first, because it's

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Speaker 2: another big moment, and that is Edison, by the time

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Speaker 2: he's twelve years old, is mostly deaf, like not entirely deaf.

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Speaker 2: People can shout to him and he can hear. But

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Speaker 2: the key quote he has later is I haven't heard

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Speaker 2: a bird sing since I was twelve years old, which

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Speaker 2: is poignant, especially for like I was going to spoiler

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Speaker 2: alert invent the phonograph, but he said Edison said he

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Speaker 2: didn't mind it. It helped him focus, helped him like

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Speaker 2: tune out distractions. He was a very focused man. And

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Speaker 2: there is this actually lovely detail which is later in

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Speaker 2: his life when he's like famous and going to lectures,

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Speaker 2: you know in big halls, when you can't hear what

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Speaker 2: the guy is saying, his assistant will tap on Edison's leg,

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Speaker 2: well tap with the person is saying in morse code.

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Speaker 1: So this is an opportunity for Edison because at this point,

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Speaker 1: like the telegraph is the cutting edge communication tool, like

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Speaker 1: it's just exploding at this time. They've just around this

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Speaker 1: time laid the first transatlantic cable. Suddenly you could communicate instantaneously. Right,

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Speaker 1: You're in the midst of a civil war. People want

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Speaker 1: to know the news, and suddenly they can know it.

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Speaker 1: They can move troops, they can know what's happening, and

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Speaker 1: people are just sort of getting used to this idea

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Speaker 1: of information is not this rare thing that you print

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Speaker 1: on the newspaper and deliver the next day, Like information

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Speaker 1: is power. It's instantaneous.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Edison learning to be a telegraph operator is him

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Speaker 2: walking into this great technological moment of his time. And

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Speaker 2: there is this one particular story that I love about

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Speaker 2: how transformation all the tee is.

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Speaker 1: It's about a pickpocket.

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Speaker 2: Gang in London run by a guy named Fiddler Dick.

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Speaker 1: Govnor watch out for Fiddler Dick. Uh very good. What

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Speaker 1: Fiddler Dick's gang does is.

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Speaker 2: This, They loiter on a train platform and then the

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Speaker 2: train pulls in, and you know, it's chaos. People are

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Speaker 2: getting off the train, people are getting on, they're moving around,

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Speaker 2: they've got all their stuff out, and Fiddler Dick and

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Speaker 2: his boys pick the pockets to the people in the crowd.

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Speaker 2: And then just as the train's about to pull out,

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Speaker 2: they hop on the train and head to the next station.

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Speaker 2: And this is an incredible strategy, right because if you

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Speaker 2: are on a moving train in say eighteen forty, there

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Speaker 2: is literally no way to send information faster than you

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Speaker 2: are traveling. You might as well be going at the

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Speaker 2: speed of light because no message is going to get

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Speaker 2: to your destination before you do, right, So then you

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Speaker 2: just get off the train at the next station and

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Speaker 2: nobody knows anything is a miss. And then one day

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Speaker 2: in eighteen forty four, a cop in London sees the

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Speaker 2: Fiddler Dick gang strike right, somebody the platform's like, whatever,

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Speaker 2: my wallet, whatever, I don't know. Somebody stop that boy

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Speaker 2: and they're on the train and they're gone. But then

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Speaker 2: the cup is like, oh wait a minute, we got

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Speaker 2: a telegraph now, and you're just telegraphs a head to

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Speaker 2: the next station. Fiddler Dick out. The boys get arrested.

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Speaker 2: Thanks you telegraph.

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Speaker 1: Here's Fiddler Dick.

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Speaker 2: You got Fiddler Dick by the telegraph. So this is

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Speaker 2: the world that Edison is going into. And it means

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Speaker 2: that if you know how to send and receive Morse code,

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Speaker 2: you can write your ticket. It's like being a coder

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Speaker 2: in whatever. Twenty twenty. What was the best year to

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Speaker 2: be a coder? Twenty twenty?

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Speaker 1: Probably right. I feel like we should just say here,

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Speaker 1: if Netflix is listening in, we could write the adventures

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Speaker 1: of Young Edison, telegraph operator, traveling the nation, solving crime,

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Speaker 1: reading inventions.

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Speaker 2: I love it, actually yes, next.

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Speaker 1: Time on the Adventures of Young Thomas Edison's good.

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Speaker 2: It's basically this episode, but with a little more like murder. Well, sure,

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Speaker 2: 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 2: Thomas Edison, he's going from town to town, you know,

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Speaker 2: he's in Indianapolis, Memphis, Louisville, and he'll roll into town,

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Speaker 2: get a room with some other telegraph operators, and go

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Speaker 2: to work and make money. And he's spending all his

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Speaker 2: 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.

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Speaker 2: Telegraph office and he spills some acid on the floor

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Speaker 2: and it eats a hole through the floor and drips

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Speaker 2: down into like the boss's office below. So he gets fired,

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Speaker 2: but who cares, Right, he's like a teenager and he

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Speaker 2: has this valuable skill. So he winds up eventually in

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Speaker 2: Boston as a telegraph operator. And this is where there's

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Speaker 2: kind of a big turn, the next big turn in

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Speaker 2: his life.

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Speaker 1: So in the classic story of an entrepreneur, right, you

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Speaker 1: need to have the basic skills, you need to have

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Speaker 1: a bunch of ideas, but you also have to sort

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Speaker 1: of take a risk. You have to have that moment

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Speaker 1: of failure before you pivot. And I feel like we're

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Speaker 1: about to get to that. Yes, that's right, both the

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Speaker 1: failure and the pivot. Right.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, So it's eighteen sixty nine. Edison is twenty

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Speaker 2: two years old and he gets his first patent ever,

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Speaker 2: first of one thousand and ninety three patents he will

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Speaker 2: get legend in his lifetime legend and this one for him,

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Speaker 2: it's for an electric vote recorder.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: And so the idea is he's in Boston, which is

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Speaker 2: the state capitol of Massachusetts, right, and you know the

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Speaker 2: voting is super inefficient, right, I whatever, The gentleman from whatever,

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Speaker 2: I don't know what, wherever.

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Speaker 1: He sees a he sees a pain point there if

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Speaker 1: someone has to write down eyes and knais. And so he.

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Speaker 2: Invents this automatic counting machine and takes it to I

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Speaker 2: think it takes it to the state House. He takes

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Speaker 2: it to some legislator, takes it to the you know, customer,

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Speaker 2: and they're like, look, this is very clever, but I'll

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Speaker 2: tell you a little secret. We don't actually want our

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Speaker 2: votes counted instantly, right, We need that time to go

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Speaker 2: talk to the other legislators, see if we can sway them.

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Speaker 2: Maybe go out in the lobby and see if any

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Speaker 2: the lobbyists out there want to discuss our campaign contributions

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Speaker 2: or whatever they called them back then. Right, So, in fact,

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Speaker 2: this is not a problem. It would it would create

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Speaker 2: a problem for the legislators. They don't want it, nobody

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Speaker 2: buys it. He has built a thing that nobody wants.

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Speaker 1: And this is a classic lesson for entrepreneurs. I mean

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Speaker 1: even today in.

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Speaker 2: Business school, people will come up with ideas and even

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Speaker 2: make a prototype of it and be like, look at

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Speaker 2: how amazing this idea is.

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Speaker 1: And you'll be like, well, does anyone want it? Did

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Speaker 1: you talk to your customers and like, oh, not yet.

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Speaker 1: But it's clearly genius, so engineer, right, It's yeah, having

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Speaker 1: a genius idea without a need for it is nothing.

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Speaker 1: It's like not having it at all. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: It reminded me of you know why Combinator, the famous

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Speaker 2: startup incubator in Silicon Valley. I think their motto is

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Speaker 2: something like make something people want. And I seem to recall,

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Speaker 2: although I could not find evidence of this when I

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Speaker 2: went to look for it, but I seem to recall

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Speaker 2: that they give entrepreneurs a T shirt if their business

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Speaker 2: gets to some level of success that says, congratulations, you made.

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Speaker 1: Something people want.

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Speaker 2: It's a very simple, elegant lesson, and it's a lesson

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Speaker 2: that Edison really learns, really internalizes at this point in

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Speaker 2: his life.

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Speaker 1: And will see this for the rest of his life

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Speaker 1: when he interacts with other inventors, right, you know, he's

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Speaker 1: the king inventor, so he's often brought in to be like,

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Speaker 1: what do you think about this? And you know, they're

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Speaker 1: showing it off to Edison being like, oh, isn't this amazing?

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Speaker 1: And he's thinking, all right, how much can I get

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Speaker 1: for it? Who will pay a nickel to use this thing?

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Speaker 1: How I get into stores? Like what's the revenue model? Essentially?

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Speaker 2: And this is one of the things that makes him

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Speaker 2: a great inventor and a great businessman. So Edison takes

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Speaker 2: this lesson and he turns to the finance industry smart smart,

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Speaker 2: because finance is just literally the business of money, right,

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Speaker 2: and if you can help people make more money, they

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Speaker 2: will pay you for that.

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Speaker 1: And right around this time, people have.

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Speaker 2: Started using the telegraph to send real time information about

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Speaker 2: stock prices. This is Basically, the invention of the stock

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Speaker 2: ticker is a thing that has happened.

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Speaker 1: Which is powerful because if stocks are trading for a

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Speaker 1: different price, let's just say in London, New York, New York, Chicago,

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Speaker 1: then that's this huge opportunity to buy cheap and in

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Speaker 1: one place and sell expensive in another place. This arbitrage opportunity.

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Speaker 1: And having that information means you can spot those opportunities.

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Speaker 2: Exactly, and if you can improve that a little bit,

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Speaker 2: if you can make it faster or clearer, whatever, people

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Speaker 2: will make more money. We saw this even into the

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Speaker 2: twenty first century when people were building crazy, you know,

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Speaker 2: dedicated fiber optic lines and satellite towers and wild things

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Speaker 2: to move price information faster. So Edison moves to New York,

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Speaker 2: of course, finance Wall Street and gets a contract from

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Speaker 2: the Golden Stock Telegraph Company of New York City.

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Speaker 1: Really, what does that company do?

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Speaker 2: I love old company names, right, What does the National

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Speaker 2: Biscuit Company make?

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Speaker 1: They make biscuits. I feel like the Golden Stock Telegraph

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Speaker 1: Company became like go Telcom in the eighties and and

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Speaker 1: now is known as Spritzel.

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Speaker 2: Yes, Fritzel, but no I for some reason. And so

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Speaker 2: now Edison is in New York and he is able

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Speaker 2: to stop being a telegraph operator. He's able to quit

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Speaker 2: his job start his first company, straightforward name Newark Telegraph Works.

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Speaker 2: Ask me why.

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Speaker 1: Why was it located in Newark? And what did they

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Speaker 1: work on? Telegraph?

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Speaker 2: He's hiring workers. He delivers that first stock ticker. And

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Speaker 2: he's also he's working on all these incremental improvements, right,

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Speaker 2: like not crazy things that are going to make him famous,

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Speaker 2: but he's just making all these tweaks that give little

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Speaker 2: efficiency gains, you know, little better batteries and weird electrical things.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: His company's growing. He gets married, married to a Jersey

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Speaker 2: girl named Mary Stillwell, they buy a house. But Edison

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Speaker 2: is definitely not a family man. He's working. He's always

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Speaker 2: working all the time. In fact, in his first year

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Speaker 2: of marriage he gets thirty nine patents.

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Speaker 1: But I'm sure he made it home for dinner never

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Speaker 1: probably zero times.

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Speaker 2: And then in eighteen seventy four he comes up with

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Speaker 2: a big idea. Doesn't sound like a big idea US,

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Speaker 2: but it is a big idea. It's a system that

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Speaker 2: lets you send four messages at once on a single

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Speaker 2: telegraph line. Calls it the quadruplex.

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Speaker 1: Now, at this point, telegraph was essentially one wire and

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Speaker 1: you basically tap into one side of the wirepppppeep. A

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Speaker 1: person listens on the other end tapsack and the wire

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Speaker 1: is made of copper.

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Speaker 2: Right, it's copper wire, So it's expensive. It's expensive, right,

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Speaker 2: And they're running the copper wire all over the country,

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Speaker 2: you know, across the Atlantic Ocean. Costs a lot of

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Speaker 2: money to run all that copper wire, right, And so

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Speaker 2: if you can get more messages on the same amount

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Speaker 2: of wire, that is a huge efficiency gain, right, That

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Speaker 2: makes things cheaper.

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

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Speaker 1: would 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.

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Speaker 2: And I want to just like zoom out from this

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Speaker 2: moment because you know, we talk about technology now, we

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Speaker 2: talk about like amazing things, and maybe it's scary like

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Speaker 2: AI or whatever, but it's it's kind of exciting and dramatic.

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Speaker 1: But in the long run.

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Speaker 2: Maybe the most important thing that technology does is make

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Speaker 2: stuff cheaper. Makes it cheaper to communicate, makes it cheaper

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Speaker 2: to grow food, makes it cheaper to make clothes. And

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Speaker 2: when everything gets cheaper, everybody gets richer.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: The way we have had material progress is by technology

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Speaker 2: effectively making things cheaper. So shout out to that. And

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Speaker 2: that is what Addison is doing here. He is making

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Speaker 2: the most important communications technology of its stay cheaper.

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Speaker 1: So he's on a roll. He's got dozens of inventions

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Speaker 1: at this point, he's been tweaking. He's finally got something

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Speaker 1: that people are going to pay money for. He's got

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Speaker 1: a family, right, but he's not yet this world changing inventor.

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Speaker 1: Because there's one last piece of the puzzle any entrepreneur needs,

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Speaker 1: and that is scale. He needs money. He needs so

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Speaker 1: much money. There's a special name for it. Capital. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he needs capital.

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Speaker 2: Like, I don't know at what point does money become capital.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I know you could say it's like the

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Speaker 2: structure of it is it. But I feel like nobody

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Speaker 2: calls one hundred thousand dollars money, right, that's.

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Speaker 1: Not that is investment capital.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, he in fact, at one point writes to

437
00:23:35,160 --> 00:23:37,040
Speaker 2: the head of Western Union. Western Union is the big

438
00:23:37,080 --> 00:23:39,520
Speaker 2: telegraph company. He's doing a lot of work for them.

439
00:23:39,920 --> 00:23:42,440
Speaker 2: He writes to the head of Western Union, I need

440
00:23:42,520 --> 00:23:45,720
Speaker 2: ten nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three or two

441
00:23:45,760 --> 00:23:50,119
Speaker 2: thousand dollars anyone you would like to advance. He's actually

442
00:23:50,119 --> 00:23:53,560
Speaker 2: writing this today. Funny, it's good, it's charming. He had

443
00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:56,399
Speaker 2: this kind of homespun charm people talked about like he

444
00:23:56,480 --> 00:23:59,040
Speaker 2: was from the Midwest. He had that midwestern charm.

445
00:23:59,080 --> 00:23:59,640
Speaker 1: Is that a thing?

446
00:23:59,760 --> 00:24:01,680
Speaker 2: I think it is for Edison? It is dressed in

447
00:24:01,760 --> 00:24:04,119
Speaker 2: kind of country clothes, even when he was famous. So

448
00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:06,159
Speaker 2: he's writing this to the head of Western Union, this

449
00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:09,800
Speaker 2: big executive, William Morton, and in fact Orton advances Edison

450
00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:13,800
Speaker 2: five thousand dollars and then they start to properly negotiate

451
00:24:13,880 --> 00:24:17,440
Speaker 2: over Edison's big idea over the quadruplex. Edison wants twenty

452
00:24:17,480 --> 00:24:21,640
Speaker 2: five thousand plus royalties. Orton, you know, controls Western Union

453
00:24:21,680 --> 00:24:23,520
Speaker 2: can kind of do whatever he wants. So he's sort

454
00:24:23,520 --> 00:24:26,600
Speaker 2: of I think, playing games with Edison, stalling. He goes

455
00:24:26,600 --> 00:24:29,879
Speaker 2: off to the Midwest for Christmas break, and Edison is

456
00:24:29,920 --> 00:24:31,879
Speaker 2: just has to kind of wait around, right, has to

457
00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:35,480
Speaker 2: wait for his big capital infusion. One day, as this

458
00:24:35,520 --> 00:24:41,600
Speaker 2: is happening, into Edison's little Newark, New Jersey, workshop, walks

459
00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:43,360
Speaker 2: Jay Gould.

460
00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:49,760
Speaker 1: Jay Gould legendary. He was a railroad magnet, a big

461
00:24:49,800 --> 00:24:53,000
Speaker 1: financial speculator. O't call him investor. I'm calling him a speculator.

462
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:55,919
Speaker 1: He was a classic robber baron. But more than that,

463
00:24:55,960 --> 00:24:58,560
Speaker 1: you know, there was this whole robber barons they called him, right,

464
00:24:58,960 --> 00:25:01,520
Speaker 1: everybody you know thought, oh, they're stealing all our money,

465
00:25:01,560 --> 00:25:04,959
Speaker 1: they're manipulating the markets. But even the robber barons hated

466
00:25:05,240 --> 00:25:08,480
Speaker 1: Jay Gould. He was a robber Barons robber baron. Now

467
00:25:08,600 --> 00:25:11,800
Speaker 1: I will say I've toured his mansion recently up on

468
00:25:11,840 --> 00:25:14,960
Speaker 1: the Hudson River, and the tour guiys say he was misunderstood.

469
00:25:15,480 --> 00:25:17,280
Speaker 2: He was actually a really great guy. But we'll do

470
00:25:17,280 --> 00:25:20,800
Speaker 2: a future episode mansion. It's a very nice manchion.

471
00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:21,160
Speaker 1: Yeah.

472
00:25:21,359 --> 00:25:23,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, even at the time, right, even at the time,

473
00:25:23,560 --> 00:25:24,160
Speaker 2: people was.

474
00:25:24,119 --> 00:25:26,520
Speaker 1: Like the he was always trying to corner the market,

475
00:25:26,640 --> 00:25:29,399
Speaker 1: like like take all the gold contract. I tried to

476
00:25:29,440 --> 00:25:33,720
Speaker 1: corner gold stuff stuff like that. Some economists have argued

477
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:39,000
Speaker 1: that he was hated because he went against big company

478
00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:41,960
Speaker 1: interests and in fact things got cheaper because of him.

479
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:44,080
Speaker 1: But we all look at this in a future show.

480
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:45,520
Speaker 2: Robert bart who is in it for the little guy?

481
00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:47,800
Speaker 2: He was going to give that mansion to the poor someday,

482
00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:51,680
Speaker 2: you know, to be continued, he walks in. This guy,

483
00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:55,439
Speaker 2: this famous guy walks into Edison's little shop, and Gold actually,

484
00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:59,719
Speaker 2: among other things, controls the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company

485
00:25:59,960 --> 00:26:03,760
Speaker 2: arrival to Western Union. Jay Gold has heard about the quadruplex.

486
00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:08,480
Speaker 2: And if you're Edison, it is great news when Jay

487
00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:09,720
Speaker 2: Gold walks in the door.

488
00:26:09,800 --> 00:26:09,919
Speaker 1: Right.

489
00:26:09,960 --> 00:26:12,760
Speaker 2: It's like that Seven Bugs Bunny, when Bunny looks at

490
00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:14,640
Speaker 2: a guy and the whole guy is just a big

491
00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:17,719
Speaker 2: bag with a dollar sign on it. Right, Because if

492
00:26:17,760 --> 00:26:20,600
Speaker 2: Western Union is all you have, if the head of

493
00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:23,520
Speaker 2: Western Union is jerking around and going off for Christmas

494
00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:25,199
Speaker 2: break and not giving you any money, you don't have

495
00:26:25,240 --> 00:26:27,320
Speaker 2: any leverage. Right, You basically have to just take what

496
00:26:27,359 --> 00:26:31,560
Speaker 2: they offer. But now now there are multiple buyers for

497
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:34,440
Speaker 2: what you're selling. Now there are multiple buyers for your quadruplex,

498
00:26:34,840 --> 00:26:38,800
Speaker 2: and you have leverage. And so the very next day

499
00:26:39,560 --> 00:26:43,159
Speaker 2: Edison goes to Gould's mansion on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan,

500
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:47,359
Speaker 2: goes down to Gould's office in the basement, and Edison

501
00:26:47,359 --> 00:26:51,040
Speaker 2: actually wrote about this exchange later. Edison wrote, Here's what

502
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:53,720
Speaker 2: he wrote. Gould started in at once and asked me

503
00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:56,159
Speaker 2: how much I wanted. I said, make me an offer.

504
00:26:56,720 --> 00:26:59,760
Speaker 2: Then he said, I'll give you thirty thousand dollars, and

505
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:02,000
Speaker 2: I said, I'll sell any interest I may have for

506
00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:04,399
Speaker 2: that money, which was somewhat more than I thought I

507
00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:04,840
Speaker 2: could get.

508
00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 1: Great negotiating lesson, always let the other guy say the

509
00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:13,000
Speaker 1: number first, because right, if it's more than you want.

510
00:27:12,800 --> 00:27:15,520
Speaker 2: It, you just say yes, You just say yes, thank you,

511
00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:18,480
Speaker 2: pleasure doing business with you. So then of course Edison

512
00:27:18,520 --> 00:27:21,480
Speaker 2: gets the money. Gold actually sells a yacht and gives

513
00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:24,720
Speaker 2: Edison the money from the yacht. Lovely Robert Baron detail,

514
00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:28,280
Speaker 2: and then of course Western Union sues Gould over ownership

515
00:27:28,280 --> 00:27:29,080
Speaker 2: of the Quadrupleags.

516
00:27:29,119 --> 00:27:30,480
Speaker 1: The lawsuit goes on forever.

517
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:32,879
Speaker 2: Edison's inventions are going to end up tied up in

518
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:35,960
Speaker 2: lawsuits again and again, right, intellectual property story. But Edison

519
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:38,520
Speaker 2: doesn't care this time, because he's got his money.

520
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:39,520
Speaker 1: What does he do with it?

521
00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:43,680
Speaker 2: He does the most important thing he's ever going to

522
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:44,320
Speaker 2: do in his life.

523
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:45,439
Speaker 1: He knew it.

524
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:48,119
Speaker 2: He does the thing that is going to transform the

525
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:52,359
Speaker 2: very nature of invention itself itself in the world. And

526
00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:55,680
Speaker 2: what that thing is is he moves to the country.

527
00:27:56,800 --> 00:27:59,960
Speaker 2: He moves to this little failed housing development out in

528
00:27:59,960 --> 00:28:03,720
Speaker 2: the middle of nowhere, in New Jersey called Menlo Park,

529
00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:07,600
Speaker 2: next to the railroad between New Jersey and Philadelphia. So

530
00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:10,639
Speaker 2: it's early eighteen seventy six. By this point, Edison is

531
00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:13,600
Speaker 2: twenty nine years old. He's got two kids who he

532
00:28:13,640 --> 00:28:18,080
Speaker 2: calls Dot and Dash. Oh yeah, very sweet, although it's

533
00:28:18,119 --> 00:28:19,760
Speaker 2: not like he hangs out with them. What he actually

534
00:28:19,800 --> 00:28:22,800
Speaker 2: loves is the telegraph. His family moves into this big

535
00:28:22,840 --> 00:28:25,439
Speaker 2: house that used to be the sales office for this

536
00:28:25,480 --> 00:28:28,560
Speaker 2: failed housing development in Mello Park, some of his workers

537
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:31,960
Speaker 2: move into some of the other empty houses, and then.

538
00:28:32,040 --> 00:28:35,040
Speaker 1: On top of this little hill not far.

539
00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:37,400
Speaker 2: From the train station. I think you can see Manhattan

540
00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:39,320
Speaker 2: from the top of the hill, not sure. On top

541
00:28:39,360 --> 00:28:42,600
Speaker 2: of this little hill, he builds the thing, the main

542
00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:46,600
Speaker 2: thing that is like the manifestation of his big idea.

543
00:28:47,160 --> 00:28:49,280
Speaker 2: It's a lab. It's a lab for him and his

544
00:28:49,320 --> 00:28:51,560
Speaker 2: employees where they're going to work. And he says, in

545
00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:54,200
Speaker 2: this building he is going to come up with quote

546
00:28:54,840 --> 00:28:58,080
Speaker 2: a minor invention every ten days and a big thing

547
00:28:58,160 --> 00:28:59,280
Speaker 2: every six months or so.

548
00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:02,120
Speaker 1: It's amazing because if you would ask most people at

549
00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:04,240
Speaker 1: this time, if you ask most people today, they would

550
00:29:04,280 --> 00:29:06,360
Speaker 1: say invention is one of those things that you know

551
00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:09,520
Speaker 1: comes from God or the greater spirit, you know, the

552
00:29:09,520 --> 00:29:12,800
Speaker 1: Eureka moment, you know, And everyone's story is like, oh,

553
00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:14,880
Speaker 1: it was out walking when it suddenly came to me

554
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:18,720
Speaker 1: fully formed, Like this is the myth of invention, and

555
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:21,880
Speaker 1: maybe it happens sometimes this way. But for Thomas Edison

556
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:24,320
Speaker 1: to say, yeah, we got a schedule here, we got

557
00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:27,240
Speaker 1: a calendar like invent, invent, invent, it's.

558
00:29:27,120 --> 00:29:29,320
Speaker 2: Taking away the magic, right, it's taking it from this

559
00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:32,280
Speaker 2: kind of romantic world to the industrial world.

560
00:29:32,480 --> 00:29:34,840
Speaker 1: And you didn't maybe know if it was possible, but

561
00:29:34,840 --> 00:29:36,000
Speaker 1: it ended up being possible.

562
00:29:36,160 --> 00:29:36,600
Speaker 3: So what he.

563
00:29:36,640 --> 00:29:41,160
Speaker 2: Builds there is a long, two story wood building one

564
00:29:41,240 --> 00:29:45,640
Speaker 2: hundred feet long twenty five feet wide, painted white. People

565
00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:48,240
Speaker 2: say it looks like a schoolhouse or a church without

566
00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:51,640
Speaker 2: a steeple. And on the ground floor there's a machine shop.

567
00:29:52,040 --> 00:29:55,600
Speaker 2: Upstairs there's a lab. Eventually people will call this the

568
00:29:55,840 --> 00:29:58,600
Speaker 2: invention Factory, which is a perfect name for it, but

569
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:02,280
Speaker 2: right now nobody calls it anything, right, because nobody outside

570
00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:05,240
Speaker 2: the telegraph industry has even heard of Thomas Edison. He's

571
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:07,320
Speaker 2: just some guy moving out to the middle of nowhere.

572
00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:11,160
Speaker 1: I've seen a replica of this lab in Michigan outside

573
00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:16,120
Speaker 1: Detroit in Refords Museum. He he so admired Thomas Edison

574
00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:20,000
Speaker 1: that he rebuilt the laboratory down to like the test

575
00:30:20,040 --> 00:30:22,880
Speaker 1: tubes and the little bits of wire on the wall. Apparently,

576
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:25,800
Speaker 1: so my tour guy told me. When Edison saw it,

577
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:28,320
Speaker 1: He's like, it's an exact replica. I accept it so clean,

578
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:31,719
Speaker 1: you know, it was like perfectly clean. But there's a

579
00:30:31,960 --> 00:30:36,800
Speaker 1: million little things and screws and connectors and and and

580
00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:39,520
Speaker 1: all sorts of fabrics and that sort of thing. In

581
00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 1: case Thomas Edison or his people at this point had

582
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:45,720
Speaker 1: an idea, they didn't have to go to Manhattan to

583
00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:46,160
Speaker 1: pick up.

584
00:30:46,120 --> 00:30:48,520
Speaker 2: A button or a part or anything.

585
00:30:48,600 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 1: Right.

586
00:30:48,760 --> 00:30:52,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, The core thing this place does is it makes

587
00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:58,120
Speaker 2: Edison's inventing process frictionless. Right, anytime he thinks of something,

588
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:01,480
Speaker 2: he has right there standing next to him, you know,

589
00:31:01,640 --> 00:31:05,440
Speaker 2: skilled machinists and electricians and like all the parts and

590
00:31:05,560 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 2: machines and chemicals and whatever.

591
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:11,160
Speaker 1: You can think of. This is the breakthrough.

592
00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:14,520
Speaker 2: There's a great quote about this from this guy, Paul Israel.

593
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:18,880
Speaker 2: He wrote a biography about Edison. He spent decades editing

594
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:22,600
Speaker 2: the Edison papers at records. He's like a deep Edison scholar.

595
00:31:23,480 --> 00:31:25,960
Speaker 2: And the quote is that the lab in Menlo Park

596
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:31,720
Speaker 2: showed that invention itself could be an industrial process. So

597
00:31:31,760 --> 00:31:34,560
Speaker 2: like this is the great era of industrialization in America,

598
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:37,280
Speaker 2: and Edison is industrializing invention.

599
00:31:38,160 --> 00:31:42,720
Speaker 1: He's gone from Thomas Edison Young Morse code operator to

600
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:46,840
Speaker 1: Thomas Edison inventor, to Thomas Edison Incorporated. He's the guy

601
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:50,760
Speaker 1: who runs the factory that makes inventions. And in just

602
00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:53,920
Speaker 1: a minute we will hear how the invention factory comes

603
00:31:53,920 --> 00:31:54,720
Speaker 1: out of the gate.

604
00:31:55,160 --> 00:32:17,800
Speaker 4: With a big one.

605
00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:21,640
Speaker 1: Jacob, I feel like the pieces are in place. Edison

606
00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:25,560
Speaker 1: has his invention side, his business side, he's got money,

607
00:32:25,640 --> 00:32:29,680
Speaker 1: he's got the industrialization of invention itself, he has the

608
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:33,920
Speaker 1: manifestation of his own mind on a hilltop in New Jersey.

609
00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:37,160
Speaker 1: And yet no mention of the light bulb or any

610
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:39,800
Speaker 1: of these things that like every elementary school student knows

611
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:40,760
Speaker 1: about Thomas Edison.

612
00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:44,200
Speaker 2: It's coming, Okay, it's coming, though it comes in an

613
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:44,880
Speaker 2: indirect way.

614
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:46,960
Speaker 1: It comes in a really interesting way. And that is this.

615
00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:50,720
Speaker 2: So right around the time Edison moves to Memo Park,

616
00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:54,080
Speaker 2: there is in fact this historic breakthrough, but it doesn't

617
00:32:54,080 --> 00:32:57,200
Speaker 2: come from Edison, doesn't come from his lab on the hill.

618
00:32:57,760 --> 00:33:01,560
Speaker 2: It comes from another inventor who's based in Boston, and

619
00:33:01,600 --> 00:33:05,440
Speaker 2: this invention is granted as patent one seven four four

620
00:33:05,520 --> 00:33:09,720
Speaker 2: sixty five, and it's called improvement in telegraphy.

621
00:33:10,040 --> 00:33:11,680
Speaker 1: Yhon, wait for it.

622
00:33:12,280 --> 00:33:15,240
Speaker 2: The inventor says, my present invention consists of a vibratory

623
00:33:15,280 --> 00:33:18,960
Speaker 2: or undulatory current of electricity in contradistinction to a merely

624
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:23,400
Speaker 2: intermittent or postulator current. And essentially, this inventor says, this

625
00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:26,480
Speaker 2: is a breakthrough because you can send more telegraph messages

626
00:33:26,520 --> 00:33:30,640
Speaker 2: down the same wi so it's like quadruplex plus. But

627
00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:34,480
Speaker 2: then at the very end of the application, literally second

628
00:33:34,520 --> 00:33:37,400
Speaker 2: to last paragraph, the inventor writes that the patent covers

629
00:33:37,520 --> 00:33:42,239
Speaker 2: quote the method of and apparatus four transmitting vocal or

630
00:33:42,280 --> 00:33:47,920
Speaker 2: other sounds telegraphically as herein described by causing electrical undulations

631
00:33:47,960 --> 00:33:51,360
Speaker 2: similar in forms of the vibrations of air accompanying the

632
00:33:51,440 --> 00:33:55,360
Speaker 2: said vocal or other sound substantially as set forth. And

633
00:33:55,400 --> 00:33:59,840
Speaker 2: then last paragraph in testimony, whereof I have here unto

634
00:33:59,960 --> 00:34:03,640
Speaker 2: signed my name this twentieth day of January eighty, eighteen

635
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:07,680
Speaker 2: seventy six. Alex Graham Bell.

636
00:34:07,880 --> 00:34:10,759
Speaker 1: Alexander Graham Bell, I love it I love it when

637
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:13,840
Speaker 1: you're in a reading famous guy's biography and another famous

638
00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:17,200
Speaker 1: guy comes in. Yeah, came up. Alexander graandve Belt Watson,

639
00:34:17,279 --> 00:34:19,520
Speaker 1: come here. I want you Alexander Graandbell.

640
00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:22,880
Speaker 2: He is inventing the telephone right here, and he doesn't

641
00:34:23,080 --> 00:34:26,240
Speaker 2: know it, right, amazing. He just thinks he's like coming

642
00:34:26,280 --> 00:34:27,759
Speaker 2: up with a better way to send telegraphs.

643
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:30,480
Speaker 1: And does Edison see this in like Telegraph Weekly or

644
00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:32,560
Speaker 1: something like that. So Edison at.

645
00:34:32,480 --> 00:34:34,400
Speaker 2: Tracks new patents. That's like one of the things he

646
00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:36,440
Speaker 2: does is he just sees all the new patents that

647
00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:39,719
Speaker 2: come out. He reads them, and he sees this, and

648
00:34:39,800 --> 00:34:42,920
Speaker 2: he thinks, I'm gonna tweak it so I can send

649
00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:47,879
Speaker 2: even better telegraph messages. And you know, he's all set

650
00:34:47,920 --> 00:34:50,600
Speaker 2: up to do this, right, He's got his muckers, he's

651
00:34:50,600 --> 00:34:52,480
Speaker 2: got his lab, he's staying up all night.

652
00:34:53,200 --> 00:34:54,839
Speaker 1: And there's this one.

653
00:34:54,560 --> 00:34:59,320
Speaker 2: Piece of this new thing that Alexander Grambell has invented

654
00:34:59,800 --> 00:35:04,279
Speaker 2: called the diaphragm. It's the thing that turns sound into vibrations, right,

655
00:35:04,320 --> 00:35:06,360
Speaker 2: So it vibrates when sound waves.

656
00:35:06,120 --> 00:35:08,760
Speaker 1: Hit It's a thin membrane. It vibrates and it creates

657
00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:11,840
Speaker 1: an electrical current that is not dots or dashes, but

658
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:13,520
Speaker 1: a variable electric current.

659
00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:15,920
Speaker 2: Yes, and going the other way, it turns the electric

660
00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:20,080
Speaker 2: current into vibrations that you can hear. And so one

661
00:35:20,120 --> 00:35:22,239
Speaker 2: day Edison is playing with one of these and just

662
00:35:22,280 --> 00:35:25,879
Speaker 2: like talking into it, and he feels that it's vibrating

663
00:35:26,120 --> 00:35:27,520
Speaker 2: on his hand. As he talks to it, he can

664
00:35:27,560 --> 00:35:30,640
Speaker 2: feel the vibrations. It's the middle of the night. He's

665
00:35:30,640 --> 00:35:34,080
Speaker 2: having dinner with his boys, with his muckers, probably eating

666
00:35:34,120 --> 00:35:38,440
Speaker 2: apple pie. And as he feels this thing vibrating on

667
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:42,960
Speaker 2: his hand, he turns to his chief engineer, this assistant

668
00:35:43,040 --> 00:35:46,399
Speaker 2: named Charles, bachelor guy he calls Batch, and he says,

669
00:35:46,400 --> 00:35:49,200
Speaker 2: you know, Batch, if we took one of these diaphragms

670
00:35:49,239 --> 00:35:51,880
Speaker 2: and we put something pointy, put like a needle or

671
00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:55,040
Speaker 2: something on the bottom of it, and put it on

672
00:35:55,040 --> 00:35:57,680
Speaker 2: a piece of paper and talked into it, it would

673
00:35:57,719 --> 00:36:00,880
Speaker 2: scratch the paper. It would leave scratch marks on the paper.

674
00:36:01,719 --> 00:36:04,200
Speaker 1: And then maybe if we took.

675
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:06,800
Speaker 2: That paper with the scratch marks and pulled it back

676
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:10,879
Speaker 2: under the needle, would it make the diaphragm vibrate and

677
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:13,640
Speaker 2: send sound back out. Would it recreate the sound?

678
00:36:13,760 --> 00:36:16,080
Speaker 1: And because they have a factory with needles, and paper

679
00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:18,920
Speaker 1: and diaphragms and all this stuff. They don't need to

680
00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:20,840
Speaker 1: wait long to know the answer to this question. They

681
00:36:20,840 --> 00:36:21,839
Speaker 1: don't need to wait at all.

682
00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:23,640
Speaker 2: Right, all the dudes in the middle of the night,

683
00:36:23,960 --> 00:36:25,840
Speaker 2: in the middle of nowhere in New Jersey are sitting

684
00:36:25,840 --> 00:36:29,239
Speaker 2: there ready to go, and so they just do it, right,

685
00:36:29,320 --> 00:36:32,120
Speaker 2: this whole team of people. There's a machinist who's sitting there,

686
00:36:32,120 --> 00:36:36,040
Speaker 2: who walks over to his whatever machine and like, solder

687
00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:38,080
Speaker 2: is a needle onto the bottom of a diaphragm, or

688
00:36:38,120 --> 00:36:40,160
Speaker 2: however you get a needle onto the bottom of a diaphragm,

689
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:43,600
Speaker 2: and batch Bachelor gets some wax paper and cuts it up,

690
00:36:43,600 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 2: and they build a little wheel, a little system just

691
00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:49,400
Speaker 2: right then, right that night, and you know, presumably this

692
00:36:49,560 --> 00:36:53,279
Speaker 2: is every night, right, presumably it's always like Edison's like.

693
00:36:53,280 --> 00:36:54,359
Speaker 1: How about this? How about that?

694
00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:56,560
Speaker 2: And most of them are not very good ideas, but

695
00:36:56,680 --> 00:36:59,239
Speaker 2: this one, this one is a good idea. Right, So

696
00:36:59,280 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 2: they hook up the diaphragm with the needle, so it's

697
00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:04,600
Speaker 2: touching the wax paper, and there's this wheel that the

698
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:09,560
Speaker 2: paper's on, and so Bachelor slowly pulls the paper along

699
00:37:09,600 --> 00:37:13,640
Speaker 2: the wheel under the needle and says into the diaphragm.

700
00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:20,520
Speaker 2: Mary had a little lamb. And they take the paper

701
00:37:20,560 --> 00:37:22,680
Speaker 2: out and they look at it and it has these

702
00:37:22,719 --> 00:37:24,160
Speaker 2: little scratch marks on.

703
00:37:24,080 --> 00:37:25,439
Speaker 1: It, grooves, if you will.

704
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:28,760
Speaker 2: And then Bachelor puts the paper back on the wheel

705
00:37:28,840 --> 00:37:32,239
Speaker 2: with the little scratches, you know, pulls the paper under

706
00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:35,279
Speaker 2: the needle past the diaphragm, and as it's going past

707
00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:43,000
Speaker 2: the diaphragm, they hear like, er uh damn, Eureka.

708
00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:46,240
Speaker 1: This is a real eureka. Yeah, this is a real eureka.

709
00:37:46,320 --> 00:37:49,080
Speaker 2: Right, Like it's not perfect, right, it doesn't quite work,

710
00:37:49,160 --> 00:37:50,000
Speaker 2: but it works.

711
00:37:50,719 --> 00:37:52,399
Speaker 1: It works. Edison writes in.

712
00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:56,560
Speaker 2: His notebook that day, Basically, this is an invention that

713
00:37:56,640 --> 00:37:58,960
Speaker 2: will make it easier for people at the telegraph office

714
00:37:59,040 --> 00:38:00,080
Speaker 2: to transcribe messages.

715
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:04,200
Speaker 1: Oh no, oh no, he's still thinking telegraph. His mind's

716
00:38:04,200 --> 00:38:06,799
Speaker 1: in the telegraph. He's thinking, oh, yeah, someone in a

717
00:38:06,800 --> 00:38:08,920
Speaker 1: telegraph office has to use a pencil and paper to

718
00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:13,880
Speaker 1: write things down. We could use this new transcription device

719
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:16,880
Speaker 1: essentially for dots and dashes. Yes, yes, huh. He is

720
00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:17,560
Speaker 1: still he.

721
00:38:17,640 --> 00:38:20,759
Speaker 2: Is still in the world that he's living in, right, Surprisingly,

722
00:38:20,800 --> 00:38:23,239
Speaker 2: he is still in his world. But he gets he

723
00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:26,360
Speaker 2: gets that this thing is gonna be big, not to

724
00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:29,080
Speaker 2: the exclusion of everything else. He keeps puttering on other things,

725
00:38:29,280 --> 00:38:31,720
Speaker 2: but he does have somebody over the next few months

726
00:38:31,760 --> 00:38:34,200
Speaker 2: make a list of possible names for his new invention.

727
00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:35,560
Speaker 2: I know you leve a list.

728
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:38,279
Speaker 1: You want to take this one, all right? Possible names

729
00:38:38,280 --> 00:38:43,880
Speaker 1: for this new invention. Autophone, cosmophone, I do like that one. Acoustaphone,

730
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:54,160
Speaker 1: nice antipophone, liquophone, chronophone, glottophone, that's nice, clangophone, who laghamophone, aerophone.

731
00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:56,520
Speaker 1: I feel like they have a Latin dictionary there in

732
00:38:56,560 --> 00:38:58,799
Speaker 1: the Park laboratory. There's like going through it.

733
00:38:59,160 --> 00:39:03,560
Speaker 2: Epigraph they don't choose any of those. Nope, as we know,

734
00:39:03,640 --> 00:39:07,680
Speaker 2: they choose phonograph, which I think is Edison's and means

735
00:39:07,800 --> 00:39:12,239
Speaker 2: something like sound writer. Right the graph the graph is

736
00:39:12,320 --> 00:39:15,239
Speaker 2: right there in the name, which is telling they're really

737
00:39:15,280 --> 00:39:18,719
Speaker 2: still focused on this kind of automatic transcription part.

738
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:22,880
Speaker 1: They're not thinking music. They're not thinking orchestras that someone's

739
00:39:22,880 --> 00:39:23,920
Speaker 1: going to buy this at home.

740
00:39:24,600 --> 00:39:27,279
Speaker 2: No. I mean, if anything, they're thinking like when they

741
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:29,840
Speaker 2: think beyond telegraph, they think of like, oh, this is

742
00:39:29,880 --> 00:39:33,960
Speaker 2: like a something that business people can dictate letters into.

743
00:39:34,080 --> 00:39:37,080
Speaker 2: It's very much like a recording device as opposed to

744
00:39:37,320 --> 00:39:39,120
Speaker 2: a playing device at some level.

745
00:39:39,360 --> 00:39:40,399
Speaker 1: So they're working on it.

746
00:39:40,800 --> 00:39:43,440
Speaker 2: They're you know, iterating, they're making it a little better.

747
00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:47,560
Speaker 2: And a few months later, in December, they decide they're

748
00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:50,480
Speaker 2: ready to go public with this idea, and it comes

749
00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:53,319
Speaker 2: out in Scientific American, which was a big, big deal

750
00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:54,880
Speaker 2: at the time in that sort of technology.

751
00:39:55,120 --> 00:39:58,640
Speaker 1: Sure, and the story is called the Talking Phonograph, And

752
00:39:58,680 --> 00:40:01,040
Speaker 1: I'll read a little bit of it. Mister Thomas A.

753
00:40:01,200 --> 00:40:04,000
Speaker 1: Edison recently came into this office, placed a little machine

754
00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:07,000
Speaker 1: on our desk and turned a crank, and the machine

755
00:40:07,080 --> 00:40:11,800
Speaker 1: inquired as to our health, asked how we liked the phonograph,

756
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:14,200
Speaker 1: informed us that he was very well, and but it's

757
00:40:14,239 --> 00:40:15,359
Speaker 1: a cordial good night.

758
00:40:15,960 --> 00:40:22,120
Speaker 2: People now went bananas. People could not believe that this

759
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:23,239
Speaker 2: was a thing.

760
00:40:23,400 --> 00:40:26,160
Speaker 1: It's hard to imagine how big it is that a

761
00:40:26,280 --> 00:40:31,560
Speaker 1: mechanical machine is doing what a human does.

762
00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:34,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, that it talks to use to you like a person.

763
00:40:34,880 --> 00:40:38,040
Speaker 2: In fact, a professor who reads this article writes to

764
00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:41,560
Speaker 2: Edison and basically says, like, mister Edison, I'm sure you're

765
00:40:41,560 --> 00:40:44,319
Speaker 2: an honorable man. You need to correct this article because

766
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:46,399
Speaker 2: it makes it sound like you have a machine that

767
00:40:46,440 --> 00:40:49,080
Speaker 2: can record sound and play it back, and surely, as

768
00:40:49,080 --> 00:40:49,799
Speaker 2: we all know, that.

769
00:40:49,760 --> 00:40:50,480
Speaker 1: Is not possible.

770
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:52,320
Speaker 2: It's the kind of thing you'd see at a carnival

771
00:40:52,440 --> 00:40:55,040
Speaker 2: in the day, right the box that streaks, and it's

772
00:40:55,080 --> 00:40:58,560
Speaker 2: a small child or something inside the box put you know,

773
00:40:59,160 --> 00:41:00,160
Speaker 2: a bunch of hokum.

774
00:41:00,400 --> 00:41:03,080
Speaker 1: But you know it was magic. I mean it was magic.

775
00:41:03,120 --> 00:41:04,320
Speaker 1: It was magic. It was magic.

776
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:07,239
Speaker 2: He takes it down to Washington, d C. At this

777
00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:10,400
Speaker 2: big like scientific meeting, and so many people want to

778
00:41:10,400 --> 00:41:11,960
Speaker 2: hear it that they actually have to take the door

779
00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:14,920
Speaker 2: off the hinges of the room where he's displaying it.

780
00:41:15,480 --> 00:41:18,239
Speaker 2: While he's down there the White House, he hears that

781
00:41:18,840 --> 00:41:22,080
Speaker 2: the president wants to see his new machine. Pop quiz

782
00:41:22,160 --> 00:41:25,440
Speaker 2: Robert who is the president in eighteen seventy seven seventy

783
00:41:25,480 --> 00:41:31,160
Speaker 2: eight Garfield Rutherford behaves, oh, class, I wouldn't have got it.

784
00:41:31,200 --> 00:41:32,160
Speaker 1: Classic Lake you're on.

785
00:41:33,040 --> 00:41:35,560
Speaker 2: Rutherford behays, the things you don't know, things I didn't know.

786
00:41:36,160 --> 00:41:39,680
Speaker 2: And Rutherford behayes loves the phonograph. He keeps Edison at

787
00:41:39,680 --> 00:41:42,080
Speaker 2: the White House like till after midnight playing with this

788
00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:46,760
Speaker 2: incredible thing. And this is the moment when Edison goes

789
00:41:46,920 --> 00:41:51,240
Speaker 2: from being you know, inventor known in the telegraph business

790
00:41:51,320 --> 00:41:55,160
Speaker 2: to being a celebrity. This is the moment when he

791
00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:57,399
Speaker 2: becomes known as the Wizard of Memo Park.

792
00:41:57,960 --> 00:42:00,840
Speaker 1: Because this is a leap in technology. It's not just

793
00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:04,280
Speaker 1: a little extra something to make telegraph operators more money.

794
00:42:04,360 --> 00:42:07,640
Speaker 1: This wasn't just the front page of Telegraph weekly. This

795
00:42:07,719 --> 00:42:09,440
Speaker 1: is the front page of the New York World.

796
00:42:09,719 --> 00:42:14,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, I think there's something something about

797
00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:17,400
Speaker 2: the human voice is important here. Like, you know, obviously

798
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:19,920
Speaker 2: there had been portraits and people had had their writings,

799
00:42:20,280 --> 00:42:22,920
Speaker 2: but the voice is connected to the breath, right, It

800
00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:26,879
Speaker 2: is ephemeral, It dies with you. And like immediately when

801
00:42:26,880 --> 00:42:29,759
Speaker 2: this comes out, people are thinking about like, oh, this

802
00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:32,760
Speaker 2: machine is going to let people talk to us after

803
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:36,080
Speaker 2: they die, as if they're talking to us from beyond

804
00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:36,640
Speaker 2: the grave.

805
00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:40,200
Speaker 1: This is it's almost supernatural. So how does he take

806
00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:43,080
Speaker 1: something that is magic and make money off of it?

807
00:42:43,239 --> 00:42:44,200
Speaker 1: This is a great question.

808
00:42:44,360 --> 00:42:48,520
Speaker 2: So he is not yet to the point where they

809
00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:51,600
Speaker 2: can manufacture these at any kind of scale and sell

810
00:42:51,640 --> 00:42:52,280
Speaker 2: them for a profit.

811
00:42:52,280 --> 00:42:53,799
Speaker 1: That's the obvious thing you would do.

812
00:42:53,960 --> 00:42:58,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the sort of minimum viable product version of it.

813
00:42:59,040 --> 00:43:01,359
Speaker 2: They just got a couple of phonographs they rent out

814
00:43:01,440 --> 00:43:05,480
Speaker 2: rooms sell tickets and people pay to come and hear

815
00:43:05,960 --> 00:43:09,319
Speaker 2: somebody like record themselves singing and then play it back.

816
00:43:09,800 --> 00:43:12,520
Speaker 1: I would totally pay that nickel, you would say today

817
00:43:12,840 --> 00:43:15,399
Speaker 1: it would probably be it probably did.

818
00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:20,839
Speaker 2: So. Obviously, this is just kind of a stalling maneuver, right,

819
00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:23,359
Speaker 2: This is just what they're doing until the business gets

820
00:43:23,440 --> 00:43:25,920
Speaker 2: up and running and there are investors in the Edison

821
00:43:25,960 --> 00:43:30,040
Speaker 2: Speaking Phonograph Company and they're like, Okay, Edison, let's let's

822
00:43:30,360 --> 00:43:32,799
Speaker 2: get to scale here, let's figure out how to manufacture this.

823
00:43:33,680 --> 00:43:38,960
Speaker 2: And it turns out this is not Edison's thing. Edison's

824
00:43:38,960 --> 00:43:43,319
Speaker 2: thing is not taking his genius invention and operationalizing and

825
00:43:43,320 --> 00:43:46,279
Speaker 2: building the factory to build it. You know, he has

826
00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:51,040
Speaker 2: his invention factory. He starts working on the telescope of phone,

827
00:43:51,120 --> 00:43:53,600
Speaker 2: his big idea for how people I'm like, whatever, hilltops

828
00:43:53,600 --> 00:43:54,880
Speaker 2: a mile apart can talk.

829
00:43:54,719 --> 00:43:55,239
Speaker 3: To each other.

830
00:43:55,360 --> 00:43:57,400
Speaker 1: It's amazing. Right. He doesn't want to be in the

831
00:43:57,400 --> 00:44:01,719
Speaker 1: business of like hiring orchestras and pressing like music and

832
00:44:01,760 --> 00:44:04,640
Speaker 1: distributing this through music stores. I mean, that's just like

833
00:44:04,719 --> 00:44:08,080
Speaker 1: being a businessman that's not coming up with cool stuff.

834
00:44:08,080 --> 00:44:08,160
Speaker 3: All.

835
00:44:08,400 --> 00:44:10,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not his thing, but it does mean, he

836
00:44:10,840 --> 00:44:13,960
Speaker 2: leaves the phonograph by the way side for years, and

837
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:19,600
Speaker 2: several years later Alexander Graham Bell him again, actually improves

838
00:44:19,640 --> 00:44:22,640
Speaker 2: on Edison's idea for the phonograph, brings it to market.

839
00:44:23,160 --> 00:44:25,279
Speaker 1: And this is the wax cylinder. Yeah.

840
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:27,680
Speaker 2: He eventually Alexander Grahm Bell is eventually the one who

841
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:30,560
Speaker 2: comes up with the wax cylinder. Yes, and that does

842
00:44:30,640 --> 00:44:33,560
Speaker 2: inspire Edison many years later to sort of follow right

843
00:44:33,640 --> 00:44:37,360
Speaker 2: to chase Alexander Grahmbell. And Edison does wind up in

844
00:44:37,400 --> 00:44:41,880
Speaker 2: the phonograph business, but he's always behind, ironically, given that

845
00:44:41,960 --> 00:44:44,560
Speaker 2: he invented it. Like his other inventions, he's much less

846
00:44:44,560 --> 00:44:46,719
Speaker 2: clearly the inventor the ones that are coming, but this

847
00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:51,920
Speaker 2: one is him unambiguously and yet, and yet he never

848
00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:56,560
Speaker 2: dominates the industry as arguably he should have. And then finally,

849
00:44:56,640 --> 00:44:59,640
Speaker 2: in nineteen twenty nine, two years before he dies, he

850
00:44:59,760 --> 00:45:02,319
Speaker 2: just gets out of the phonograph business altogether, gives up.

851
00:45:02,680 --> 00:45:05,239
Speaker 1: He's got bigger things. So what do we make of

852
00:45:05,280 --> 00:45:08,960
Speaker 1: this story? Jacob? At the very beginning, we promised that

853
00:45:09,160 --> 00:45:12,960
Speaker 1: Edison wasn't just an inventor, He's an entrepreneur, businessman, And

854
00:45:13,040 --> 00:45:15,640
Speaker 1: yet so far I have been in front of our

855
00:45:15,760 --> 00:45:20,319
Speaker 1: actual episode, but so far he doesn't seem to be

856
00:45:20,440 --> 00:45:23,040
Speaker 1: squeezing every last dime. He doesn't seem to have that

857
00:45:23,239 --> 00:45:27,080
Speaker 1: ruthless businessman in him. Yeah, no, that's true.

858
00:45:27,160 --> 00:45:30,000
Speaker 2: You definitely would not call him a profit maximizer, right.

859
00:45:30,640 --> 00:45:33,600
Speaker 2: He sort of reminds me of of this type of

860
00:45:33,680 --> 00:45:36,719
Speaker 2: founder you see with startups now, where they're like brilliant

861
00:45:36,800 --> 00:45:40,719
Speaker 2: and driven and they create this very innovative company and

862
00:45:40,760 --> 00:45:43,960
Speaker 2: get it going and then like a year or two in,

863
00:45:44,200 --> 00:45:47,440
Speaker 2: somebody from the you know, venture capital firm takes him

864
00:45:47,480 --> 00:45:48,320
Speaker 2: into a back room.

865
00:45:48,160 --> 00:45:51,799
Speaker 1: And Gray Hairs. Yeah, Gray Hair comes in. Listen, we

866
00:45:51,920 --> 00:45:52,279
Speaker 1: love you.

867
00:45:52,640 --> 00:45:55,000
Speaker 2: He's got a great job getting this company off the ground.

868
00:45:55,000 --> 00:45:57,400
Speaker 2: But now it's time to bring in I'm not gonna

869
00:45:57,400 --> 00:45:59,520
Speaker 2: call it a grown up, but let's bring in somebody

870
00:45:59,560 --> 00:46:01,080
Speaker 2: who's more into operations.

871
00:46:01,200 --> 00:46:01,319
Speaker 1: Right.

872
00:46:01,400 --> 00:46:03,200
Speaker 2: Edison is kind of like that founder.

873
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:06,080
Speaker 1: He could have been the greatest telegraph operator in the world.

874
00:46:06,120 --> 00:46:09,960
Speaker 1: He could have been the greatest telegraph maximizer in the world.

875
00:46:10,040 --> 00:46:14,120
Speaker 1: He could have been the phonograph and run orchestras around

876
00:46:14,160 --> 00:46:16,279
Speaker 1: the country and recorded them and sold them all. The

877
00:46:16,320 --> 00:46:19,080
Speaker 1: first David Geffen and maybe he knows himself well enough

878
00:46:19,080 --> 00:46:22,799
Speaker 1: to know that he has a lot of different interests. Right,

879
00:46:22,840 --> 00:46:26,120
Speaker 1: He's almost like, I wouldn't say scatterbrain because that seems

880
00:46:26,160 --> 00:46:29,960
Speaker 1: like an insult. It's like things are just coming constantly

881
00:46:30,000 --> 00:46:32,120
Speaker 1: into his head. You know, at one moment, he's showing

882
00:46:32,160 --> 00:46:34,560
Speaker 1: a phonograph to the President of the United States, But

883
00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:36,920
Speaker 1: as he's showing the photograph, he's probably thinking, you know

884
00:46:36,960 --> 00:46:40,440
Speaker 1: what if you had a giant tube on top of

885
00:46:40,480 --> 00:46:44,239
Speaker 1: a mountain that you could yell at other mountains with

886
00:46:44,320 --> 00:46:46,960
Speaker 1: other twoes, and Retherford Behazes' is like, what what are

887
00:46:46,960 --> 00:46:49,680
Speaker 1: you talking about? I just want to photograph. You've already

888
00:46:49,719 --> 00:46:52,480
Speaker 1: done the thing, right, But that was an actual thing

889
00:46:52,520 --> 00:46:55,880
Speaker 1: he wanted to do. Right. Yeah, if he had been.

890
00:46:55,800 --> 00:47:01,200
Speaker 2: This sort of more narrow minded prophet maximizer, he probably

891
00:47:01,239 --> 00:47:03,000
Speaker 2: would have got stuck at like a sort of local

892
00:47:03,040 --> 00:47:05,520
Speaker 2: maximum right, Like maybe he would have stopped at the

893
00:47:05,520 --> 00:47:08,359
Speaker 2: phonograph and be like, I'm famous, I'm the phonograph guy.

894
00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:10,960
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be the phonograph king now.

895
00:47:11,080 --> 00:47:14,879
Speaker 2: But this is clearly not what Edison had set out

896
00:47:14,920 --> 00:47:17,319
Speaker 2: to do, right. He had set out to create an

897
00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:21,239
Speaker 2: invention factory, a place where he can chase his curiosity,

898
00:47:21,480 --> 00:47:23,480
Speaker 2: a place where he has all the equipment he needs,

899
00:47:23,520 --> 00:47:26,000
Speaker 2: and he has this team, and a place crucially where

900
00:47:26,000 --> 00:47:29,560
Speaker 2: he can keep coming up with big ideas one after another,

901
00:47:29,640 --> 00:47:31,040
Speaker 2: and he is gonna succeed at that.

902
00:47:31,120 --> 00:47:33,919
Speaker 1: Yeah, inventing the photograph from most people would have been

903
00:47:34,080 --> 00:47:41,360
Speaker 1: the big thing. But one great product is fine. But

904
00:47:41,560 --> 00:47:46,040
Speaker 1: transforming a whole system, right, transformative technology, the kind of

905
00:47:46,040 --> 00:47:53,160
Speaker 1: technology that makes everything change. That's what's about to come.

906
00:47:53,360 --> 00:47:57,960
Speaker 1: We should thank Thomas Edison for his scatterbrain nature. Yeah,

907
00:47:57,960 --> 00:47:59,759
Speaker 1: and for his ambition. Right.

908
00:47:59,800 --> 00:48:02,000
Speaker 2: His ambition was not to be the phonograph king. It

909
00:48:02,120 --> 00:48:05,319
Speaker 2: was to invent greater and greater things. And really, interestingly,

910
00:48:05,440 --> 00:48:08,960
Speaker 2: like his whole life, he keeps thinking, the next thing

911
00:48:09,160 --> 00:48:12,440
Speaker 2: I invent is gonna be even bigger. He keeps saying that,

912
00:48:12,480 --> 00:48:15,759
Speaker 2: even to the point where he's wrong, right, because that's

913
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:19,840
Speaker 2: just who he is. He keeps trying to invent bigger

914
00:48:19,920 --> 00:48:20,840
Speaker 2: and better things.

915
00:48:21,320 --> 00:48:25,200
Speaker 1: Next time on Business History, Thomas Alva Edison, age thirty

916
00:48:25,280 --> 00:48:27,759
Speaker 1: or so, he's still so young, gets bored with the

917
00:48:27,760 --> 00:48:31,719
Speaker 1: phonograph and builds the first big electric grid in the

918
00:48:31,760 --> 00:48:35,440
Speaker 1: history of the world and reveals that the great inventor

919
00:48:35,880 --> 00:48:39,239
Speaker 1: has a fatal flaw he falls to in love with

920
00:48:39,320 --> 00:48:43,360
Speaker 1: his products. Our showrunner is Ryan Dilly, our producer is

921
00:48:43,400 --> 00:48:44,759
Speaker 1: Gabriel Hunter Chang.

922
00:48:44,640 --> 00:48:48,120
Speaker 2: And our engineer is Sarah Bruguer. I'm Jacob Goldstein. I'm

923
00:48:48,160 --> 00:48:50,440
Speaker 2: Robert Smith. We'll be back next week with another episode

924
00:48:50,440 --> 00:48:53,280
Speaker 2: of Business History, a show about the history of business

925
00:48:54,719 --> 00:48:57,600
Speaker 2: Robert Smith. As you know, there is nowhere in Pushkin's

926
00:48:57,600 --> 00:49:01,520
Speaker 2: office to make a video to make a video podcast,

927
00:49:01,520 --> 00:49:02,360
Speaker 2: which is unfortunate.

928
00:49:02,560 --> 00:49:05,160
Speaker 1: We tried and it was described as two gray men

929
00:49:05,200 --> 00:49:09,040
Speaker 1: in a gray box, and reasonably so fortunately for us.

930
00:49:09,080 --> 00:49:12,880
Speaker 2: In an amazing coincidence, literally down the hall from Pushkin's office,

931
00:49:13,160 --> 00:49:15,880
Speaker 2: there is the showroom of a company called Buzzy Space.

932
00:49:17,080 --> 00:49:19,160
Speaker 2: This is a company is where we're sitting right now,

933
00:49:19,520 --> 00:49:22,080
Speaker 2: and what they do is they design furniture and acoustic

934
00:49:22,160 --> 00:49:26,120
Speaker 2: solutions that make I'm reading here workplace is more comfortable,

935
00:49:26,200 --> 00:49:27,600
Speaker 2: more creative, and more fun.

936
00:49:28,400 --> 00:49:32,479
Speaker 1: I would even say cozy. Their furniture is like sort

937
00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:37,280
Speaker 1: of curved and interesting colors, and I guess keeps things quiet.

938
00:49:37,400 --> 00:49:41,120
Speaker 2: Yes, honestly, I wish our office was this showroom. You

939
00:49:41,160 --> 00:49:45,400
Speaker 2: can find more at Buzzy dot Space. That's buzz I

940
00:49:46,440 --> 00:49:47,120
Speaker 2: dot Space.