WEBVTT - GE Through World War II 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.240 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:14.080 How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:17.759 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:19.760 How Stuff Works in iHeart Radio and I Love all 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:24.120 Things tech. And in our last episode, I was talking 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:27.200 about General Electric and I was really focusing on the 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:30.800 origin of the company and its first two decades of 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:34.800 its existence. And over the next few episodes, we're going 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:38.080 to start picking up the pace a bit and exploring 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:41.800 the full history of the company and why. In recent months, 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:45.479 that is, as of August twenty nineteen, some analysts have 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:48.839 expressed concern for the integrity of the company. This is 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:53.479 not a new development. Actually, GE has had some struggles 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:57.720 over the last decade or so, but we haven't gotten 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:01.080 there yet. We're still pretty early on in its history, 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:04.480 and there's a lot I could talk about, including advances 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:07.559 in some of the basic technology that GE was built 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:11.360 off of. For example, in nineteen thirteen, of physicists and 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:16.320 chemist named Irving Langmuir proved that by filling lightbulbs with 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:19.520 an inert gas like are gone, it would not only 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:23.440 extend the useful life of the tungsten filaments inside the 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:26.800 light bulb. That's the part that actually lights up in 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:29.479 a light bulb, but it would also prevent the inside 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:32.240 of the light bulb from turning black as it got 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:36.000 an internal coding of what's essentially soot from the tungsten. 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:41.399 Langmuir would make numerous contributions to science and would ultimately 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:44.960 receive a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in nineteen thirty two, 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:48.560 though that wasn't for light bulbs anyway. Another thing that 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:53.120 happened in nineteen thirteen was that Charles Coffin, who had 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:57.080 been president of the company, would become General Electrics first 0:01:57.280 --> 0:02:01.760 chairman of the board of directors. Edwin Wilbur Rice, who 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:04.920 had studied under Allahu Thompson at Central High School in 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:08.280 Philadelphia and who had worked for General Electric since the 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:12.080 very beginning of the company, became the new president of 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:15.760 ge Rice had more than a hundred patents to his 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:18.560 name and had a strong hand in guiding how General 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:22.519 Electrics manufacturing facilities operated. He was one of the founders 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:26.959 for Gees Research Laboratory. Not a bad pick for president 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:30.919 of the company, someone who could direct the operational aspects. 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:37.080 Under Rice, General Electric continued to expand its business, and 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:41.400 it acquired other companies as well as experiencing growth on 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:46.000 its own. In nineteen eighteen, for example, GE acquired the 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:51.519 Pacific Electric Heating Company and the Hues Electric Heating Company, 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:54.760 so GE then formed a new division within the company 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:59.440 itself called Edison Electric Appliance Company. Around that same time, 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:03.600 GE also acquired the Trumbull Electric Company, which created and 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:08.960 supplied parts related to the electric utility industry such as switchboards. 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:13.760 So really still investing in that world, and to be fair, 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:17.760 electricity and infrastructure was still very slowly rolling out across 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:20.120 the United States, and g E had a very large 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:24.720 hand in that. In nineteen nineteen, General Electric became one 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:29.040 of the founding companies to create the Radio Corporation of 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:32.360 America or r c A. And I covered this in 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:36.400 the episodes I did about our CIA. So the super 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:39.880 short version of this is that leading up to World 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:44.160 War One, the United States military pretty much commondered the 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:48.440 radio communications industry in the US. Now, at that time, 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:54.320 radio stations weren't broadcasting entertainment and news and sound over 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:58.920 to radios. There were no consumer radios. This was really 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:04.040 all about sending wireless telegrams, so most transmissions were just 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:06.880 limited to Morse code. Now. There were a few early 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:10.920 radio broadcast pioneers around this time as well, but it 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:14.400 was very limited. Now. The problem was, at least from 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:19.360 the US military perspective, that many of these communications stations, 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:23.880 these radio transmitters were actually owned and operated by companies 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:27.880 that were from outside the United States, and the First 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:31.200 World War was driving home how important it was to 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:35.640 have a secure communications network within your own borders. So 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:39.560 the US military, namely the the U. S. Navy, ultimately 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:44.279 rested control of those transmission stations away from foreign companies 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:50.200 and then used them for wartime communications for official military communications. 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:53.280 But once the war was over, the government needed to 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:56.600 figure out what to do with all these transmission stations, 0:04:56.600 --> 0:05:00.719 so rather than operate them as government owned entities, the 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:05.680 government reached out to several companies US companies including General 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:09.159 Electric and also Westinghouse, A, T and T, and the 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:12.800 United Fruit Company. Yeah, I'll have to do an episode 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:16.160 about the United Fruit Company at some point. It's a 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:21.360 pretty interesting and controversial story. Anyway. It was this group 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:25.640 that would form our c A, with each group partner 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:29.000 in the group holding a certain percentage of the ownership 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:32.480 of our CI, a General Electric held the majority steak. 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:35.040 Didn't hold a fifty percent steak. It was more like 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:40.000 but it held more interest in our cier than any 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:44.760 other party did. In I saw, we saw something pretty 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:47.520 darn cool. Well I didn't, I wasn't born yet, but 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:51.560 the world in general saw something pretty cool. In E 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:55.520 built a supercharger for an airplane. So there was an 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:58.880 engineer named Sanford Moss who came up with this idea. 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:03.360 He had this hypothesis us that fuel would burn better 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:06.880 in a chamber with compressed air. It would actually produce 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:11.640 more energy, would be a greater energy output with compressed 0:06:11.680 --> 0:06:14.440 air inside the chamber. And it turned out that this 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:18.839 hypothesis was correct, and so using that knowledge, he designed 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:22.479 what was called a supercharger to produce a lot more 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:25.400 power in an engine. Now, a plane with one of 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:29.120 those superchargers would set an altitude record at the time, 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:33.760 and it reached a new altitude of forty eight hundred 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:38.120 feet or about twelve thousand fours Obviously we've left that 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:40.520 way behind now, but at the time that was a 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:45.800 significant achievement. In N two G S own radio station 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:49.840 in Schenectady, New York, with the identity of w g 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:53.480 Y would go on the air, the station had a 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:58.520 fifteen hundred what transmitter Now today that station is owned 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:01.640 by the company I work for, my Heart Media. Fun 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:05.680 little fact, though. It has also changed a bit since 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:09.400 nineteen twenty two. For example, the transmitter today is at 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:13.520 fifty thousand watts, so that's a big change, and the 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:18.440 wattage pretty much determines how far the transmissions can go. 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:20.880 Gets a little more complicated than that, but that's a 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:25.040 general rule of thumb. Also, in nineteen twenty two, Rice 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:27.880 would step down as president of the company and a 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:31.480 guy named Gerard Swope became the new president of GE 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:35.680 and pushed the company to produce more consumer appliances. So 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:38.760 this is really the era where g E started to 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:44.240 seriously get into the consumer appliance manufacturing business, stuff like 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:48.120 refrigerators and electric stoves. So while GE had made a 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:51.200 few consumer products over the previous twenty years, it hadn't 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:55.360 really seriously dealt into that market. And then in the 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:58.840 nineteen twenties that all changed. GE branded appliances became more 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:03.200 and more common. So who was this Swope fellow, Well, 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:07.679 unlike Rice, he wasn't at General Electric at the very 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:11.640 start of the company, and technically Rice was actually in 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:15.200 the precursor company. He had worked for the Thompson Houston 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:21.080 Electric Company that preceded General Electric. But Swope wasn't like that. Nope, 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:24.720 Swope was a newcomer. He originally joined g E in 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:29.440 eight three, one whole year after the company was founded. 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:33.800 Johnny come lately, Okay, I'm being a bit cheeky. Swope 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:36.439 had joined the company as a helper while he was 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:39.240 still in school. It's sort of like a gopher, someone 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:42.520 who did whatever it was that needed doing at any 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:46.320 given time. His starting salary back then was an entire 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:51.600 dollar a day of princely sum. Presumably he was making 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:53.360 a bit more than that by the time he took 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:56.640 on the role of company president in nineteen twenty two. 0:08:56.960 --> 0:08:59.360 And I don't mean to suggest his employment and GE 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:02.720 was un oaken from eighteen nine to nineteen twenty two. 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:05.840 That was not the case. He left GE, he was 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:08.400 attending m I T. He graduated from m I T 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:11.400 with a degree in electrical engineering, and then he took 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:14.560 on a job for Western Electric, which is a company 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:18.760 that's even older than GE. Swope had also served on 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:22.920 the United States War Department General Staff. During World War One, 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:27.160 he aided in the procurement and supply operations for the army. 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:30.920 Charles Coffin brought Swope back over to the fold at 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:34.800 g E in nineteen nineteen. Now as the president of GE, 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:38.240 Swope would do more than just pushed the company into 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:43.680 manufacturing more consumer appliances. He was also concerned about employee benefits. 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:48.400 Under his leadership, General Electric began to implement employee benefit 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:53.880 programs such as voluntary unemployment insurance, profit sharing programs, and 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:58.040 a cost of living wage adjustment program. Swope would serve 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:01.679 as the president of the company life in fact, and 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:05.240 his first run that would stretch from nineteen twenty two 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:09.559 to nineteen forty, meaning that Swope also led the company 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:12.880 as the entire world went through the Great Depression, a 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:16.280 challenging time for everybody. And just to stick with this 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:19.880 for a second, I should explain who Swope's successor was 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:22.800 and why Swope would return to serve as president a 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:26.560 second time, because generally when you hear that someone left 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:29.200 as president and then had to come back as president, 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:33.040 it sounds like something really wrong happened in the interim. 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:37.080 That's not exactly the case. So in nineteen forty, Gerard 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:41.560 Swope retired and Charles E. Wilson, who had first started 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:45.640 working for GE UH specifically a g E subsidiary, when 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:48.120 he was twelve years old, and had been with a 0:10:48.160 --> 0:10:51.040 company pretty much ever since. He actually completed his education 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:54.679 by taking night courses. Wilson was promoted to president in 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:57.600 nineteen forty and he led the company for about two 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:01.880 and a half years, but then a different president called 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:07.000 on him. That president was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who wanted 0:11:07.000 --> 0:11:10.640 Wilson to join the War Production Board as vice chairman. 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:13.920 The United States had entered World War Two in December 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:16.600 of nineteen forty one, and there was a pressing need 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:20.920 to devote manufacturing capabilities towards producing equipment and weapons for 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:25.400 American soldiers. Wilson responded to the request and he left 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:29.240 General Electric. So Gerard Swope came out of retirement and 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:32.520 once again led the company until nineteen forty five and 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:36.240 World War Two's end. At that point, Wilson returned to 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:38.959 GE and resumed his role as president of the company 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:42.160 for another five years. Now, the reason I decided to 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:46.160 follow that particular trail and kind of move away from 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:49.120 the timeline for a second was again to illustrate how 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:54.160 important General electrics business had become. It was integral to 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:58.880 the modernization of the United States, and gees manufacturing facilities 0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:03.760 were formidable both for their industrial businesses and consumer appliance businesses. 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:06.760 No wonder the President looked to GE for help in 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:10.959 manufacturing and acquisitions for wartime production. Okay, so let's get 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:13.440 back to the timeline and learn what GE was doing 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:17.640 during all those years. One note I saw pop up 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:21.520 on several sites was that in nineteen twenty four GE 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:25.960 opted to exit the utilities business because of antitrust concerns 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:29.320 from the U. S. Government. But despite my searching, I 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:34.000 couldn't find any other information on that, and I just 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:38.319 saw essentially the same timeline popping up on multiple websites, 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:41.240 So that suggested to me that they were all pulling 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:45.280 from a single common source. Now this does not mean 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:47.680 that the information is wrong. It might be right, and 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:51.240 I just wasn't able to find corroborating evidence of it. 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:55.000 But because I couldn't find any confirmation outside that list, 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:59.200 I got a little leery of it. So I'm including 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:02.520 this whole story in this podcast simply to point out 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:05.560 that it can be important to look for those corroborating 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:11.000 sources that really indicate that you're looking at true information 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:15.600 and you're not just looking at somebody's list that is 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:19.200 unsupported and other people have just copied that exact, exact 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:21.359 same list and put it up on their own websites. 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:24.480 That does happen. It happens a lot, so you'll actually 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:27.800 find a lot of plagiarism out there on the Internet. 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:30.600 You'll be looking at a source for information, You'll be 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:32.640 reading up on a paragraph and you think, all right, 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:34.560 that's interesting, Let's see if I can find any more 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:38.160 data about this, and you'll do a search and a 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:40.840 different website will pop up. You start reading that and 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:42.920 you think, well, this sounds really familiar, and if you 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:45.800 put them side by side, you realize this is exact 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:51.439 exactly the same language and there's no indication that, uh, 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:53.280 that it was done on the up and up. Now, 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:57.160 occasionally someone will write a piece and it will all 0:13:57.280 --> 0:14:00.079 be agreed upon that that piece will be distributed it 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:03.760 to different outlets, but a lot of times people are 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:07.200 just taking whatever they think is cool or interesting or 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:09.120 we'll drive traffic, and they'll just put it up on 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:12.640 their site without asking that's not cool. Anyway, back to GE, 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:16.240 there were a couple of big important events that definitely 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:21.040 happened in nineteen four. Um. Whether GE got the utilities 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:23.840 business because of antitrust issues I can't speak to because 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:27.440 I couldn't find anything about it. But stuff that got 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:31.040 started or happened in nine there were some important things. 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:32.880 One of those was a lawsuit that would go all 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:35.440 the way up to the Supreme Court. Now, let me explain. 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:39.160 In the United States, GE held the patents for pretty 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:42.960 much all the basic components for the light bulb. That is, 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:45.760 they had a patent on the tungsten filament in the 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:49.840 gas filled bulb and all this other stuff. Westinghouse had 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:53.720 entered into a licensing agreement with GE so that Westinghouse 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:58.120 could produce and more importantly, sell light bulbs. In return, 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:01.920 GE said that Westinghouse would have to set its prices 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:05.400 for light bulbs according to GES direction, and that it 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:08.040 would have to follow certain quotas. In other words, G 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:11.040 was using its power to say, you can sell light 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:13.880 bulbs based on our designs, but they have to be 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:16.600 at this price, and you can't make more than x 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:19.880 number of them because that would eat into our own profits, 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:23.720 and Gee said, we can change our our price at 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:26.560 any time for any reason. And that's really the issue 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:29.240 that went to court. Now, what the courts would ultimately 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:31.880 find and the Supreme Court decision would come down in 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:36.440 nine six, is that typically if you license out a patent, 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:39.360 if you've invented something and you've got the patent for 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:44.240 your invention and someone asks to license your invention, typically 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:48.680 you cannot dictate a price for a product made from 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:53.240 your patented invention. However, in this case, GE had not 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:57.120 just licensed out the right to manufacture light bulbs, and 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:01.200 it also licensed out the right to sell light bulbs, 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:04.240 and that meant GE could determine other things like the 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:06.240 selling price of the light bulb. At least, this is 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:08.520 what the court found. And this is one of the 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:12.400 more controversial business related decisions made by the Supreme Court. 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:15.920 It's been challenged several times and upheld a few times, 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:19.000 sometimes with just a split court decision like split right 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:22.440 down the middle. It means that you could potentially patent 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:25.360 and invention and then not only licensed it out to 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:27.680 other entities, but you can dictate at what price those 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:30.600 entities could sell your invention. So you could in theory, 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:33.440 produce your own products and sell them for a lower 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:37.480 cost than your competitors could because of your demands, and 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:41.760 thus you are undercutting them while you're simultaneously licensing your 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:44.440 invention to them. It's pretty cut throat stuff. Now, there 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:48.000 are limitations on this. The Supreme Court essentially said patent 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:51.000 holders can only do this if they themselves are also 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:54.360 manufacturing the product. So you couldn't just come up with 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:57.920 a cool invention, get it patented, and then just sit 0:16:58.000 --> 0:17:00.120 on that patent and wait for people to life it's 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:01.960 your ideas, and then tell them how much they have 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:05.280 to sell the product for. That's off limits. You have 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:08.840 to actually be actively using that patent yourself, So pat 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:11.040 controls would not be able to do this. But again 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:14.040 it shows how GEES business would end up shaping the 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:16.720 world around it. I've got a lot more to say 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:19.840 about General Electric, but before I get to that, let's 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:30.040 take a quick break. Earlier I alluded to the fact 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:34.120 that a couple of big things happened in and they 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:37.080 both had to do with lightbulbs. And that's ironic because 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:41.960 this next big thing was really shady. Executives from g 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:45.720 E attended a meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. That meeting was 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:50.040 also attended by representatives of companies like Phillips and the 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:53.480 company de Lump and as Rum. All of these are 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:57.040 light bulb manufacturers, or were at the time. They signed 0:17:57.119 --> 0:18:00.879 a document that was titled Convention for the Development and 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:06.000 Progress of the International Incandescent Electric Lamp Industry. But the 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:11.800 agreement has a more sinister nickname, the Phoebus Cartel. Now, 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:15.840 Phoebus is another name for Apollo, the god of the Sun, 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:19.520 so that's fun. But what this group was doing was 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:24.160 working out a global agreement about the manufacture and sale 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:27.679 and design of light bulbs, and that agreement divided up 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:31.280 the world into regions assigned to the various members of 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:34.760 the Cartel. Each member would have its own region to 0:18:34.920 --> 0:18:37.600 lord over, and it would have a quota that it 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:41.600 was supposed to stay below in order to meet manufacturing 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:43.919 needs and to meet the needs of all the members 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:47.000 at the cartel. But more than that, the group actually 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:50.280 determined that the useful life of a light bulb should 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:56.439 be one thousand hours. They were collectively agreeing to limit 0:18:56.600 --> 0:19:01.240 a lightbulb's lifespan, and this is called plan obsolescence, and 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:06.080 it's a pretty shifty way to ensure continued success. Essentially, 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:08.960 it's when a company builds a product that is only 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:12.320 supposed to last a certain amount of time, and it 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:15.480 comes along with the expectation that the customer who buys 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:17.920 your product is going to go out and buy a 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:22.840 new version of the thing that just broke. So these 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:26.639 companies could make better light bulbs. In fact, they had 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:31.440 already done that. The average lightbulb lifespan in was already 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:36.240 twenty five hundred hours, so two point five times as long. 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:39.719 Now they were going to work to reduce that lifespan 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:43.200 in order to drum up more business. Light bulbs burn 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:45.560 out faster, people have to go back and buy more 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:48.480 light bulbs. It was making their own business by making 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:52.480 the products worse in a way, and because it would 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:56.119 be an agreement across multiple companies around the globe, there'd 0:19:56.119 --> 0:20:01.520 be nowhere else to go. Insert maniacal laugh here. Interestingly, 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:06.800 though GE was crucial to forming this cartel, it was 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:10.719 part of the meeting that created it. GE itself was 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:14.600 not a member of the cartel. It did, however, own 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:18.440 interests in nearly all of the companies that were members 0:20:18.440 --> 0:20:21.520 of the cartel, and it did have one subsidiary, a 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:25.600 British subsidiary called International General Electric that was part of 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:29.199 the cartel, but the overall company was not. Companies in 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:32.000 the cartel had to send light bulbs to a testing 0:20:32.080 --> 0:20:35.919 facility in Switzerland to make certain they were manufacturing bulbs 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:38.679 with the right lifespan. And like I said, they were 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:41.960 given those strict quotas. If you sold more than your 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:45.280 quota allowed, you would get fined. You would also get 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:48.560 fined if the light bulbs you made didn't last long enough, 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:53.199 or worse, lasted too long. This really did happen, and 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:56.360 the plan was for the agreement to last until nineteen 0:20:56.400 --> 0:20:59.840 fifty five, so it was a thirty year agreement. The 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:02.960 only reason that didn't actually happen was because of a 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:06.080 little thing called World War two. But yeah, that's a 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:08.000 heck of a thing to learn about. And g E 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:11.800 engineers really did work on ways to decrease the useful 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:16.080 life of light bulbs for various products, including flashlights. They 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:20.040 were saying, well, you know, flashlight flash bulbs, they last 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:23.760 three hole changes of batteries, right now, let's reduce that. 0:21:23.840 --> 0:21:25.720 And I got it down so that the light bulbs 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:29.760 would only last two whole sets of batteries and then 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:32.560 eventually got to a point where the light bulbs lifespan 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:35.919 was about the same length as the useful lifespan of 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:40.639 a set of batteries. That's the way progress works, I 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:44.480 guess anyway. Uh, it's a it's a heck of a 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:47.240 thing to read about, and it it does kind of stink. 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:49.560 But I get it from a sales perspective. I mean, 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:53.640 if Willie Wonka had actually made an everlasting gob stopper, 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:56.760 he'd only have to sell one to each kid, and 0:21:56.800 --> 0:21:59.320 then he would have innovated himself out of business. He 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:03.120 would never sell anymore. Why would he. Everyone already has 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:08.000 one and it never gets smaller. That that's that's inventing 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:11.880 yourself out of business. But still, there's something particularly sinister 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:15.800 about a company or group of companies that agree to 0:22:16.320 --> 0:22:19.240 build into their products the intent for those products to 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:22.720 stop working after a certain amount of time, forcing people 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:26.359 to go and buy a new one. It's not super cool. 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:31.159 On a less conspiratorial note, in nineteen seven, g E 0:22:31.440 --> 0:22:34.159 was one of a few companies to demonstrate a live 0:22:34.359 --> 0:22:38.880 TV broadcast. Now earlier in n T and T had 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:42.480 to demonstrated a long distance broadcast of its own. GEES 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:45.840 claim is that their demonstration was the first to broadcast 0:22:45.960 --> 0:22:49.800 to a television in an actual home, as opposed to 0:22:49.840 --> 0:22:53.719 a demonstration theater or a showroom. The broadcast came from 0:22:53.800 --> 0:22:57.720 GES radio station w g Y, and the TV was 0:22:57.840 --> 0:23:01.639 in a home located in Schenectady, New York, and GEES headquarters. 0:23:01.920 --> 0:23:06.320 The television was not an electric electronic television that had 0:23:06.359 --> 0:23:10.120 just recently been pioneered by Philo Farnsworth that same year. 0:23:10.760 --> 0:23:14.080 This was actually a mechanical television, meaning there were actual 0:23:14.200 --> 0:23:17.800 moving parts inside the television. But I've talked about that 0:23:17.880 --> 0:23:21.040 in several earlier episodes of Tech Stuff, so I'm just 0:23:21.080 --> 0:23:25.320 gonna move along here. In nineteen twenty eight, the Radio 0:23:25.400 --> 0:23:29.000 Corporation of America, in which I remember g E owned 0:23:29.080 --> 0:23:34.120 a large steak, created the NBC Networks. Now technically they 0:23:34.119 --> 0:23:38.480 were two networks of affiliates, so you had two NBC networks. 0:23:38.480 --> 0:23:41.800 There was NBC Red and NBC Blue, so you could 0:23:41.840 --> 0:23:45.840 say ge had partial ownership of NBC at this time, 0:23:45.960 --> 0:23:49.359 though that wouldn't last for very long for the time being. 0:23:50.119 --> 0:23:53.480 That's because in nineteen thirty the US government began to 0:23:53.560 --> 0:23:58.199 investigate GE Westinghouse and r c A for monopolistic practices. 0:23:58.680 --> 0:24:02.840 The antitrust investor stigation was followed by formal charges and 0:24:02.920 --> 0:24:07.520 a long period of negotiation, and ultimately the parties agreed 0:24:07.720 --> 0:24:11.359 to our CIA becoming its own incorporated company and the 0:24:11.480 --> 0:24:15.840 various partners, including GE, would divest themselves of their shares 0:24:15.880 --> 0:24:19.480 in our CIA. In addition, GE and Westinghouse had to 0:24:19.520 --> 0:24:22.600 agree to stay out of the radio broadcast business for 0:24:22.680 --> 0:24:25.000 two and a half years in order to give our 0:24:25.040 --> 0:24:27.440 CIA a chance to stand on its own. And boy 0:24:27.480 --> 0:24:29.920 how they did it ever, But that's covered in other 0:24:30.000 --> 0:24:33.120 episodes I did not too long ago. We'll get back 0:24:33.119 --> 0:24:36.719 to both NBC and our CI a later on in 0:24:36.720 --> 0:24:41.240 this series. For now, let's talk about plastic. Plastic was 0:24:41.280 --> 0:24:44.480 something that had been around for a while. Synthetic plastic 0:24:44.760 --> 0:24:48.439 was a relatively new idea. There are natural plastics, but 0:24:49.200 --> 0:24:52.800 those are limited because it's hard to get to them 0:24:52.840 --> 0:24:55.200 and you have to do some processing. It's not very efficient. 0:24:55.880 --> 0:24:59.320