#267 Thomas Edison

0:00 There were other notable American inventors in his time. But they were more usually lonely. Troubled souls. And his personality outsone theirs.

0:09 By nineteen twenty nine. Two whole generations of Americans had grown accustomed to watching the progress of this self educated man who worked in a laboratory that had its windows virtually open for To all of the world. He had known how to dramatize his inventions. He had known how to gather interest.

0:29 Faith. And hope. in the success of his projects. He typified the independent Lone handed inventor of the nineteenth century's heroic age of invention.

0:41 He had begun his work in in the age of gas and kerosene lamps and was leaving it With the cities throughout the world lit up with his lights. And music. And voices

0:52 Sounding everywhere. That is an excerpt from the book I'm gonna talk to you about today, which is a sixty year old biography of Thomas Edison, originally published in nineteen fifty nine. It is Edison, a biography written by Matthew Josephson. Okay, so I want to tell you why I started with that paragraph in particular. When I read that paragraph towards the end of the book, it made me think of Steve Jobs quote. That we're here to put a dent in the universe.

1:18 That paragraph describes the dent. that Thomas Edison put into the universe. And so the way I think about the conversation that you and I are about to have, it's really a continuation of the conversation that I think started back On episode two sixty three. To me These last I guess this is the fifth

1:34 episode in a series that I think are heavily related to each other. So it starts back on two sixty three In two sixty four with Edwin Land, the founder of Polaroid. then two sixty five Steve Jobs and two sixty six Henry Ford And the reason to me it's just one conversation that is appearing over five different episodes is because they all admired and studied each other. So Edwin Land studied Thomas Edison, Alexander Rombell, who's also in this book that but I'm not gonna talk about today, and Henry Ford, Steve Jobs is the one that turned me on to all of them. So Steve Jobs talked about how Edwin Land was his hero. Jobs also talked about what he learned from studying Henry Ford.

2:08 and Edison and then you get to Henry Ford and Henry Ford Essentially idolized. He winds up becoming almost best friends with Edison, who's like two decades older than him, but he idolized Edison. And the reason I'm bringing that to your attention now is because Edison to me is different. than land and jobs and for it. So when you and I are going through these books, when you're listening to this podcast.

2:28 One of the main points is like okay. This is how they did their life, how they d how they built their company. What are the ideas Like, how can I let those ideas influence my life? And that is what I was thinking of. as I was working through this is a five hundred page

2:42 biography. It took me over twenty five hours to read and actually ingest before I can sit down and talk to you about this. And so as I'm doing so I like Edison. Like he is Wicked Smart.

2:53 Really funny, and he gave all of his life energy. to inventions that made the world a better place. But If I had to choose between Edison's approach to his life and his career And the one that Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, and Edwin Land used.

3:08 I'm choosing Ford jobs and land. Because I think what they did that Edison did not With focus. And this is not a criticism of Edison. I don't think he could. It was clear like go back to what Charlie Munger says, you've got to follow your natural drift. Edison's natural drift was that he was curious about a lot of things. He wanted to work on a bunch of different things at once.

3:27 Where if you go back and listen to the last few podcasts, once Ford had one idea, right, he's like I just wanna make An affordable car for the everyman. And he dedicated his entire life to that. Once Steve Jobs making starts making products His same thing. He's like, I just want to make insanely great products and then I want to build a world class organization that outlives me. Edwin Land literally invented

3:45 the industry that he worked in in instant photography and dominated that industry for four decades. And I wanna give you another example. I was just reading yesterday this fantastic newsletter. It's written by my friend Frederick. I'll link to it below. I feel a little funny in linking to it below because at the beginning he talks about me. But that's not why I'm linking to it. The entire thing is worth reading, but this one section, Frederick does a fantastic job of like weaving all these different ideas together. And so in his post he has this story that Warren Buffett

4:12 is relaying. And Buffett is talking about being at dinner, or I guess drinks, maybe, with Bill Gates and Bill Gates dad. And this is what Buffett says. Then at d dinner, Bill Gates senior posed the question to the table. What factor did people feel was the most important in t in getting to where they've gotten in life? And I said. Buffett saying Focus.

4:33 And Bill said The same thing. And if you think about just from that one post, the last five weeks of the conversation you and I have been having together, we have Bill Gates. Warren Buffett. Henry Ford Stів Jobs

4:44 And Edwin Land. All saying the exact same thing. Focus. A simple thing to say. And a nearly impossible thing to do.

4:53 over the long term. So with that, let me jump into the book. I wanna read a description of some of the ancestors of the Edison family, which I found fantastic because they're a family full of misfits. This one trait is probably what I admire about uh Thomas Edison the most. It said they were a simple, hardy, pioneering people. Most of them

5:11 We're short on education. The family was full of dissidents and eccentrics, and A marked family trait distinguish them. They were strong individualists. Often naysayers and independent minded to the point of obstinacy.

5:26 Obstinacy is just a fancy word for stubborn. And so when the author says they're hey, they're a family full of dissidents Uh he means that literally. There's a fantastic story. Edison's dad Had to literally Run for his life.

5:39 And if you think about this, this changed the entire trajectory of his son's life. So Edison's dad was part of this like insurrection movement where they were re literally trying to overthrow the Royal Canadian government. And so his dad's name is Sam. It says Sam Edison was publicly denounced as a leading figure among the would-be revolutionists. Before dawn, Sam was off through the woods, running like a deer towards the United States border that was more than eighty miles away. He was hotly pursued by the king's men. I don't know why, but that line made me laugh. Just the idea of being pursued by the king's men. Uh by performing the incredible feat of running for two and a half days and stopping only for brief intervals of rest and food, he managed to reach the United States. Why is that important? Why am I reading this section to you? This line explains that. It was by this stroke of chance that Thomas Edison happened to be born in the heart of the American Republic. That line is even more important because not only was he born in America, but he's born at a time where in America, at this point in history, they idolize the lone inventor.

6:37 Edison's lifelong fetishization and grasping for as many patents as he could possibly gather was not an accident. It was heavily influenced by the light by the by the this point in history they happen to live in, where people thought that was their way to freedom and wealth. Then we fast forward to something that happens to Edison when he's six years old that he remembers for the rest of his life. And so this is how the author describes this event. There's a bunch of people. Uh, they were gathering in the village square. What were they gathering to see? Sam Edison was whipping his youngest son.

7:08 A public chastisement Carried out in anger. In the presence of the neighbors and their children. This is a crazy sentence right here. Sam Edison had advertised the event in advance.

7:22 So it says a public chastisement carried out in cold anger in the presence of the neighbors and their children was something drastic. Edison had set a little fire inside the barn, quote just to see what it would do. He's six years old. The public thrashing he received state this is why I'm reading this too. The public thrashing he received stamped itself on the boys mind and memory. For Tomis described it all sixtiers later.

7:48 When he thought back upon his boyhood. From his description we have a picture of the boy who receiving blow after blow and early in life learning that there was inexplicable cruelty and pain in this world. That part especially stood out to me because this happened to me as well. I was ten years old.

8:09 And I lit A newspaper on fire in the house. And my dad beat the shit out of me. And I knew it had to be bad than the other times he beat the shit out of me,'cause my mom was trying to get him to stop. And that's actually an important point because not only you see it in the books, but also in your own life because

8:26 My daughter is the same age I was when that happened to me, and I'm about the age my dad was when he did that. And I could never imagine laying a finger on her. Never have, never would. And so that the important point is like All I understand it happened in their family and up and down the family tree and all that other stuff, but it's okay. It only takes one person to be like No, that stops here.

8:43 And I think the idea that w one person can not only change the world around them, but also change the relationships that families have is exhilarating to me. So I wanna move forward. This is very bizarre. This is this is one of the things I like about Edison, right? Where He's obsessed with he's just constantly asking questions, constantly getting in trouble, as we just saw, very mischievous, very independent minded, very hard to control. In fact on this page where I'm about to read to you, it says he was very headstrong and willful when you could not have his way. early signs that he was meant to be an entrepreneur, right? But what was fascinating is that he had this life, he just knew he's like, I want to invent things.

9:15 And that's kinda bizarre when I'm gonna read the description of the first inventor that he ever meets. And so there's this guy says this this uh eccentric person named Sam Winchester. Often Edison would be found with his nose pressed against the back window of Winchester's shop watching the strange things being done there. The mysterious Winchester was constructing a passenger balloon. So he fills a balloon by hydrogen and he's trying to fly in a hydrogen balloon. And the reason I think this is so strange is because again, this is the first inventor that a young Edison sees. What's about to happen to this guy is not gonna be good. And Edison's like, Yep, I wanna do that.

9:51 And so it says he had a few attempts at flight didn't work out, but it says then during the the next trial, Mr. Winchester managed to ascend into the air. Then was wafted slowly in the direction of Lake Erie. Never to be seen again. And to think Edison's like Yeah, I wanna I wanna be an inventor after seeing this guy disappear into the sky.

10:10 So Edison's constantly getting in trouble. He's not people like he can't even last in school. So he gets in so much trouble that he has to be home school. But his mom does something that's so smart and intelligent here. And so she's gonna be his teacher. So I'm gonna describe her method of teaching and then Edison's gonna tell you why this is so important that she did this for him. She literally changed his life. Nancy Edison had superior taste, believing that her son uh was far from being dull witted. So what they're talking about is the fact that he didn't he hated road memorization. He was very curious. He wanted to basically have like self-directed learning.

10:42 his teachers at the time, like think about w what kind of school he could possibly be in. You know, this mid eighteen hundreds. And I think they're in rural Ohio. But basically his his teachers misinterpreted. his own like w will for self directed learning as, you know, maybe this boy's stupid. So her m his mom's like, No, I I know my son. I think he's twelve at this time.

11:00 Uh, and she's like, No, I'm pretty sure he's not stupid. So it says uh she she believed that her far her son was far from dull witted. Um and she had unusual reasoning powers. She read to him. From such books as The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, The History of England, And then from literary classics ranging from Shakespeare to Charles Dickens. He grew fascinated. Oh, he's actually nine, he's even younger than I thought. He grew fascinated, and at age nine was inspired to read such books himself.

11:27 He became a very rapid reader. This is one of my favorite things about Edison. Later on I'm gonna have a highlight for you where he's not making a lot of money. I think he he he has to buy a subscription to a library, right? And I think that per s the s subscription to the library equates to like two day two full Days of work. And there's no such thing as an eight hour day at this point in history. He's working like from the time the sun rises till coming back at like 10 in the 10 at night, and he's like 11. And so when he goes to the library. It's not like okay, I'll just pick out some books. He reads the entire library.

12:02 Every book. All of them. It's incredible. So I'll get there in a minute. Uh she brought another book on physic which was called The School of Natural Philosophy. This book changes his uh he's got a few books that change his life. This is the first one, which described and illustrated various scientific experiments that could be performed at home. The boy had truly caught fire. He read and tested out every experiment in the book.

12:24 All of his pocket money went for chemicals purchased at the pharmacist for experiments. Thus his mother, and this is the important part, the reason I'm reading this entire section to you, thus his mother had accomplished that which all truly great teachers do for their pupil pupils. She brought him to the stage of learning things for himself. Learning that which most amused and interested him. And she encouraged him to go on in on that path. It was the very best thing she could have done for this singular boy, amen at that. And he he sums this up for you and I. She let me follow my bent. So at one point in his childhood his father had a profit for his business, there's a lot of ups and downs.

13:02 This is now the down part where his father's not doing well. I think he might have even lost the business. So this is where he starts work at twelve years old. This is actually gonna change his life. So Okay. He's gonna actually save a young he's gonna work on the railroad. He's gonna work on a train. And the reason and I'll get to this in a minute

13:19 But the reason this job that he gets at twelve is gonna change his life. is because he's gonna save a young boy's life. I think the kid was like three years old. Uh, he was like on a train track and Edison winds up grabbing him before he could be hit by a train. And in return I think it's a station master sun, if I'm remembering this correctly.

13:38 The station master is like how can I ever repay you? Thank you so much. And he teaches Edison. how to operate a telegraph. And why is that important? Because Edison's first experiments were how to make a telegraph better. It may this may sound stupid to you and I or like silly to you and I, but at this point in history, the telegraph is the leading edge of communication technology in the entire world. The best description in case you don't know what it is, it's just a point to point text messaging system.

14:02 So instead of sending a letter by horse that gets there three three you know, three months later and then maybe you get a response six months after that. You can send a message immediately. If you were a young person interested in the cutting edge edge of technology at this point in history, you would have worked on the telegraph. So we'll get to that in a minute. Uh he learned that there would be a job on the Daily Train for a Newsboy. So he's selling newspapers and then he's selling like food and sweets to the passengers. He was only twelve.

14:25 and this is the beginning of these extremely long hours at work that he maintains his entire life. He would leave at dawn and the young boy would return Uh to home at ten or eleven at night. And so this is the first example of a young Edison's a relentless resourcefulness. There's all these times where like he's riding a train all day long, he has to get off and switch trains, and sometimes there's like this long layover, right? And so what does he do? He's constantly into in and out of Detroit and he realizes, hey, I have a a several hour layover every day. uh in Detroit and there's this fantastic library and this is the what I was referencing to you earlier. In Detroit during the hours of layover he found his way to the public library. This is Edison describing this point in his life. My refuge was the Detroit Public Library. I started with the first book on the bottom shelf And went through the lot.

15:08 One by one. I did not read a few books. I read The library. And so when I got to this section, it made me think of this what I caught what I've told you over and over again. I hope you've watched it have you watch I hope you've watched it five times by now.

15:20 What I feel is the best talk on ютю. for entrepreneurs is by the uh the investor Bill Gurley. It is called Running Down a Dream, How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You Love. I will leave a link in the show notes. Anytime I say hey, there's something in the show notes, it's in the show notes on your podcast player. It's also available at founderspodcast.com, okay? I will leave a link for the full video in the show notes. I will also leave Blake Robbins. Incredible notes on Bill Gurley's talk.

15:45 And I'm gonna read from those notes right now. This is the section that came to mind when I read this part. Bill Gurley says, Greatness isn't random. It is earned. If you're gonna research something, this is your lucky day. Information is freely available on the internet. That's the good news. The bad news and this is why I think the the this um

16:03 I think this video is so important for entrepreneurs and founders to to l watch and listen to over and over again because it just holds you to a higher standard. He goes into great detail. how bad people want and like there's five examples how bad These people want the dreams that they That they're going after.

16:19 And this talk also helped shape my approach to founders. And so let me start this part over. Greatness isn't random, it is earned. If you're gonna research something, this is your lucky day. Information is freely available on the internet. That's the good news. The bad news is now you have zero excuse. for not being the most knowledgeable in any subject you want. Because it's right there at your fingertips.

16:40 That is something Thomas Edison knew instinctively. He is twelve years old. Yeah, twelve years old this time. And he's like, All right, cool, I got access to the library. I'll read every single book. That's something he does throughout his entire life. I I have a bunch of I I'm pretty sure I'll get to'em. I have a bunch of highlights. He just does this over and over again. And when you know, he's studying a million different fields of study. And he's just like, Okay, where can I start? Ex he was extremely big on experimenting, but before he experimented, he would just you would just see him laying out on the floor with like fifty books on the subject. He's like, I'll just read everything.

17:11 So let's go back to this fact that he's on this train, he's got this job. Now it's a few years later. And again, resourcefulness. He's like, Well, I'm selling somebody else's newspaper for like a quarter. Why don't I just make my own? So he says he undertook the venture of editing, printing, and selling a small local newspaper which was produced in his baggage car. He sold it for eight cents a copy and had a circulation of about four hundred people. It was said to have been the first newspaper in the world that was published on a train.

17:35 So that was the good idea. It's like okay. Instead of selling somebody else's product, I can just make my own. Here's the bad idea. He allowed another person to Influence a direction. So he starts printing like personal stories of people in the industry because his friend convinced him that it would sell more. Problem is

17:50 Edison's like a fifteen year old country boy. He doesn't know too much about human nature yet, and so this is what happens to him. One of these candid little stories touched on a local figure. This proved to be excessively candid. And so the person he's writing about did not like the fact that his business was put for everybody to read, and he says, I'm gonna find this Edison kid and I'm gonna extract my vengeance. So now this is a grown man. A grown adult.

18:13 Attacking and beating the hell. out of a fifteen year old kid. One day the man sighted the young editor near the docks. He laid violent hands on him and then threw him into the river. shortly after Edison closed down that operation. This is the event that changes his life that I referenced earlier. Uh Edison noticed that the three year old son of the station master was playing uh right on the main track in the path of the car. He dashed towards the child and snatched him up in order in time to avoid the car. Uh the guy's name was McKenzie. McKenzie was filled with such gratitude and expressed a desire to repay him in any manner within his power. He had noticed that Essen hung over his telegraph table constantly. He offered to teach the boy to be an operator.

18:50 That is really important because even if he fell back and he made jokes about his life, obviously later on he's much wealthier than he is now, but he's like oh worst case scenario I can always be a telegraph operator for seventy five bucks a month. It's almost akin to being like a programmer today. within him, within Edison that is, there is a passionate curiosity to learn certain things. So what they're talking about is like as soon as they start teaching him the telegraph You had a hard time getting him up from it.

19:15 He says he works alone at his experiments for long hours and enjoys himself Uh heartily. And so most of these telegraph operators are young men They really don't know I like myself here is the telegraph operators were the digital nomads of their day. So says Edison could find work almost anywhere because the need for telegraphers was so urgent during the civil war.

19:34 Uh, these were his wandering years that began when he was only sixteen. In those days the strange new tribe of telegraphers were generally young men uh noted for their nomadic or bohemian habits. They would travel light, pitching their tents for a brief season in one place, and then journeying on to another that seemed to offer greater pastures. A few steady young operators rose from the ranks to become industrial magnets like Andrew Carnegie,'cause that's what one of the first jobs Carnegie had. And I think he was around twelve at the time, too. So not only do are they making good money for their for their age and the their time Uh their trade is in high demand.

20:08 And also they didn't really need much because they just hop a train and in many cases they were like trying to sleep in the offices. Where their telegraphs were. So that's another trait that Edison would use his entire life. He would just Fall asleep wherever whether he was in New York trying to build out the electrical system, right? Or he's in Menlo Park, you just sleep where like you go to the corner and just fall asleep.

20:28 fall asleep in a chair, on a table, he just didn't really care. So for the next few years he becomes obsessed with the telegraph. This is the electric telegraph. So remember, there is no electrical lighting before him. This is like the cutting edge of electric like if you have an electrical industry it's manifested most pronoun like its most pronounced manifestation is in the telegraph. And so he's just sitting there constantly getting better at it, constantly thinking of ways to improve Uh, the telegraph. The reason that's important is because what he's focused on now leads him to everything else that happens in his life after. The germs of many ideas and strategies perfected by him in later years were implanted in his mind when he worked at the telegraph. He described this phase of his life afterward. His mind was in a tumult, he said. It was besieged by all sorts of ideas and schemes. The future potential of electricity obsessed him day and night.

21:16 It was then that he dared to hope that he would become an inventor. And the next step in his life that was hugely important was he discovers his hero. This is when he discovers his hero, Michael Faraday. And so Edison's fired up about being an inventor, but at this point he still has a job. And the problem is like he w kind of neglects his duties.

21:35 to follow whatever he's most excited about at this point. though he intended to be reserved at this point in his life, he could become excited and vehement in expounding his novel schemes. He would hold forth with undeniable eloquence on every conceivable subject Excepting that relating to the prompt dispatch of messages that the company had on file for transmission. So that's one of his co workers saying, Hey This guy knew a lot of stuff.

21:58 He would speak passionately about it. But he would neglect his work. And if he kept doing that, he's gonna get fired, and says his job to him was a distasteful bondage. It was at this time that he bought a secondhand copy of Michael Faraday's book, Experimental Researches in Electricity. Edison said this first encounter with the great English scientist journals on his experiments was one of the decisive events of his life. What I wrote down here, we've seen this over and over again. Not only did Edwin Land also Uh Michael Faraday was one of his heroes and somebody he studied uh immensely.

22:30 But there's always like a book that changes everything. So in Lan's case it's that book on light by the physicist wood that he would keep underneath his pillow and read like the Bible, he said. But what really popped to mind when I got to this point was what Buffett said that the uh the day that he discovered Warren Buffett said the day he discovered Ben Graham's book changed his life. The exact same thing is happening in Edison's life right now.

22:53 And I think he's around nineteen or twenty years old. So it says uh this sh uh was one of the most decisive events of his life. This is why, here at last, was the lucid exposition of Faraday's long searches in the field which most fascinated young Edison, and it was steeped in the spirit of truthfulness and humility before nature that was always in Faraday's character. His explanations were simple. Edison said.

23:14 And then he starts seeing it. parallels between Faraday's life and his life. He's like okay There's another me out there. It's very comforting. Michael Faraday had been poor, like Edison, and though virtually without schooling, had taught himself everything too, like Edison. And so check out Edison's insane schedule. He he purposely picks the night shift because fewer uh less messages come in overnight and it gives him more time to learn. So it says though he'd worked to an early hour in the morning at the telegraph office, Edison began reading

23:42 Uh Faraday's book when he returned to his room at four AM. And continued throughout the day that followed. So that when he went back to the telegraph office he had not slept. He was filled with determination to learn all that he could. Two sentences here that give you an idea of what's happening. His brain was on fire.

24:00 And then this is a fantastic quote. He he uh he loves the word hustle. And he loves hustlers. He likes hustling. He sa he repeats it over and over again in the book. He's hilarious. I've got so much to do and life is so short. I'm gonna hustle.

24:12 So this is where he gets the inspiration to become an entrepreneur. He is rather crazy for doing this because it's one thing, okay, I'm gonna start a business, there's a demand for the product. He's like I gotta invent the product I'm gonna sell and I haven't invented it yet. So to describe why this was important, I'm actually gonna read from a different book. So this is technically the fourth book on Edison that I've read. The first one was The Wizard of Munal Park. I'll leave all the episode numbers in the show notes for you.

24:37 Uh the Wizard of Menlo Park. Then I read Empires of Light, which is about the the war of the currents between Edison Tesla and Westinghouse, that's episode eighty three. And then I read uh the book Vagabonds, which is about the relationship between Henry Ford

24:53 And Thomas Edison. And that's episode one ninety. But this excerpt that I'm about to read you comes from the book The Wizard of Benlo Park. I think this might have been like the second or third episode I ever did at Founders. And really I think it describes just what was important to Edison and this is the step one.

25:07 in uh chasing after the stream. Having one's own shop. Working on projects of one's own choosing, making enough money today so one could do the same tomorrow. These were the modest goals of Thomas Edison when he struck out on his own as full time inventor and manufacturer. the grand goal was not nothing other than enjoy the autonomy of entrepreneur and forestalling a return to the servitude of employee. And so his first invention flops. I'm gonna skip over that because I thought this was just fascinating. And this leads to

25:40 So many opportunities after this. And it's a great example of that maximum that you and I always talk about that history doesn't repeat, human nature does. And so it says during the Gilded Age after the Civil War, speculators in gold and securities on all the financial exchangers were of course greatly dependent on On the telegraph. Market quotations were rus rushed by wire to distant cities and to newspapers all over the world. And so he's identified a willing party that would pay for his invention, which he's like, Hey, there's these things called stock tickers. They already exist. And I guess this is I guess I need to pause here too, because this is another maximum that you and I always talk about. Especially at the beginning of your career. Imitation precedes creation.

26:18 We are all going to build on the work of the people that came before us. In many cases, the first few iterations of our product are gonna be imitations of them. As we understand and we go along and we learn more and we understand more of what we're doing, then we get to actual creation. So the very and that's that's exactly what happens in Edison's career. The very beginning he's like, Okay, there's already stock tickers, let me just take an existing product and make it a little better. There's clearly like the people that are trying to sell gold or f speculate in all kinds of financial instruments. If I can get their information faster or better, they will pay me for That was true. In the eighteen seventies when this is happening, and it's still true today. And so that's the first reason I'm reading this to you. The second reason is because he gets taken advantage. This is what I meant about

26:57 I'm not gonna call him a cautionary tale by any means, but if you looked at Ford and Land and Jobs, they always had control over what they did. Edison was so scatterbrained, he never did. And so he gets it taken advantage of later on by people like Jay Gold, JP Morgan. I mean, it's not really his fault. I'm not like I don't want you to think I'm like judging this guy for any means. Like imagine being in your twenties. I think he was twenty-two. WJ Gould buys his patents. Like, come on. Undoubtedly, Jay Gold would have tied me up in pretzels if that was me and when I was twenty two. He'd still he'd still do that to me today. You're talking about one of the most sophisticated investors and entrepreneurs to ever walk the planet. So let me finish just before I get ahead of myself. So it says Edison conceived a number of refinements on the stock ticker, which he incorporated in his own model.

27:36 Uh, this was his second invention and he acquired another backer who had lent him some money. Uh he was in his early twenties. Edison was a whirlwind of activity, sleeping little and working all hours of the day and night. His patent rights were sold off to a large telegraph company and thanks due to his want of business experience, meaning he didn't know what he was doing, Edison received almost nothing for his work on this venture. That is why I'm reading this to you. The early career of Edison is him constantly linking up with bad partners. Go back to what I can't remember if it was Warren Buffett or Charlie Munger said, You can't make a good deal with a bad person. And one thing is clear from history you should not expect

28:11 other people to not act within their own interest. And so in many cases these are much older men. They see like this young country bumpkin. He may be a great inventor, but he doesn't know much of anything else. And so they're like, Okay, we can take advantage of this guy and that happens over and over and over again. So I think the warning there is just be very, very careful.

28:30 about who you're letting into. Like you're your work and who you're partnering up with. Because after this happens he's left with no money. So he's in Boston. Now he's gotta go to New York. He can't raise money for anything.

28:41 And what's crazy is like you find somebody that maybe they're gonna make the point here, like there's very few people on the planet that knew more about telegraph, like the the science and technology of telegraph. Telegraphs. than Edison did at this point, yet he literally has to borrow money. Like he has no money, he's almost homeless. So it says the moment was a desperate one. He was deep in debt.

29:01 He seemed to have gone from one failure to another, step by step, and now his credit in Boston was virtually ruined. There was no chance of finding new patrons or investors for his experiments. His only hope was to reach the bigger city of New York. He arrived the next morning in New York with not a coin left in his pocket. And this is why There's such a uh uh uh

29:21 The knowledge and the talent that he has in his financial station in life at this point. There were not even ten people in America who knew the tricks that he had with currents, relays, and resistances for the telegraph. His mind buzzed with ideas for improvements in electrical communication. He described himself as a fire with no chimney. Through which his smoke might escape.

29:47 So at this point, Edison's twenty two. No money but to tell all these telegraph people, like it's very common. And all the engineers and everything, they kinda know each other. And so he goes and seeks out this other guy named Pope. And Pope is working in this company call the Gold Indicator Company. And so the gold indicator company is just another company set up

30:05 This is really like th there's a There's multiple versions of this basic idea in different forms throughout the book, but it's essentially saying that any machine that facilitated facilitated or sped up communication concerning this key market assumed immense importance. Remember this is New York City. in the nineteen fifties, okay? By the nineteen by the eighteen fifty uh eighteen fifties, sorry. By the eighteen fifties, the telegraph was the prime instrument for rapid financial intelligence. And so that is what this company traffics in. They traffic in rapid financial int intelligence, okay? So he just happens to seek out this guy Pope. Pope was working in this office. And he's got great timing because he's gonna wind up getting hired at this company

30:42 That's transmitting valuable information to investors, right? And he gets hired by m by being immediately useful. The day he shows up, the entire system goes down. And Pope, who's the head engineer there, can't figure out what's going on. And so while Pope and the founder of the company are yelling at each other and they're all going crazy,

30:58 You have all the customers like They're literally the customers are like rushing their office. Like Dude, the thing that you sold us It's off, it's not working, I need this information, so they're going crazy.

31:07 And so it says Edison had been quietly engaged in looking over the machine himself and soon ascertained the cause of the trouble. He managed to convey to them to his belief. was that one of the contact springs had broken off and dropped between the two gear wheels, which stopped the whole mechanism. Fix it, fix it, fix it. Be quick for God's sakes, Laws yelled at him. This is the guy that owns the company that's about to hire him. Remember, Edison does not work at his company yet, so it's like yelling, it's like fix it, fix it, fix it. So it says within two hours the gold indicators quotations were being communicated all over the street once again. And so Laws is like okay, who are you strange kid?

31:38 How the hell did you do that? They wind up talking and then Laws is like, Oh, I'm gonna hire this guy right away. Uh laws hired him at once at a larger salary than he had ever received. And so now this guy's got this giant organization That Edison can actually apply his trade to. A fruitful and prosperous period had opened for Edison, who now perfected a whole series of new devices, mainly refinements upon the telegraph.

31:58 This instrument was Edison's first great love. This is why I keep bringing it up to you. We cannot understand the invention of the phonograph. The invention of the electric light. The invention in many ways of the early movie industry. And everything else that Essen did without understanding this period of his life. Everything was built upon this. Ed this was Edison's first great love, the primary invention out of which many other innovations were to flow. That I just ran over my own point there. Some of them eventually destined to supplant

32:27 the Morse's instrument itself. And so they're talking about Samuel Morris, the inventor of the telegraph. Edison along with Bell, obviously Bell's credited to this, Edison's try to figure out is like how can we do a speaking telegraph? That's the way telephones it's hilarious. That's the way telephones were thought of at this point in history. It's like Well the telegraph will transmit text. How can we how can we get it to transmit voice? And if you think about what a t early telephone is, really to this day it's like a speaking telegraph. Now this part blew my mind. Okay, so you know, or you probably know, I did this podcast on Jay Gold. This is back on episode two fifty eight. If you haven't listened to it, you gotta listen to it. When you're done listening to this, go listen to that. Why is Jay Gold, why is listening to episode two fifty eight uh important? Why is studying and reading about Jay Gold important? Because if you ask Rockefeller who's the best businessman he ever met,

33:10 He said Jull without hesitation. Cornelius Vanderbilt, who doesn't give out Uh give out compliments for anything. Say Jay Gold Was the smartest man in America. And at that time, Vanderbilt was like 40 years older than Gold. You got to study Jay Gold. The reason this blew my mind is because in that Book that I read on gold, and I'm gonna read many more in the future. And that podcast I talked about that Jay Gold became infamous because he tried to corner the gold market. I had no idea. That

33:36 The person inside the gold indicators company transmitting All of these quotes. on the g price of gold the day this is happening. Was twenty two є rol Thomas Edison. та бу а ось цей

33:49 Like it's amazing how many events in history are kind of interlocked and connected to one each other. This is crazy. Says he was an eye witness to one of the most stirring events in America's financial history. So after the whole like market collapses, he goes outside, climbs up on like a telephone pole. And he's so bewildered'cause he's got no fight. It's like When you have financial markets melting down, right? He's a twenty two year old kid with almost no money. I think he's like sleeping at the office or something at this point. So he's just looking at these grown men losing their entire life's fortune going crazy. And he can kind of just step outside of like this bemuse spectator. But that's wild the day Jay Gold tries a corn Jay Gold and French Fisk.

34:27 Is it Frisk or Fisk? I can't remember his part, Ja Chase uh name at the moment. It's either Fisk or Frisk. But yeah, the day that happens, Edison's actually i the one At the machine. That's remarkable. So there is a telegraph monopoly at this point. Um it's Western Union. This is the one Jay Gold is actually going to fight with.

34:45 And one of the weapons that gold uses to fight. That monopoly is actually patents. that Edison Uh they were actually patents granted to Edison, but Edison's a freelance invent inventor at this time, so he's selling

34:57 Uh he'll sell his uh patents and and uh his inventions to You know, basically. the highest bidder, I guess, per se. So he's actually selling something to Western Union at this point. And I just want to bring this up because It's the continuation of this idea that Addison just keeps making more and more improvements to telegraphic stock tickers.

35:14 And as a result of doing so and keep doing so. I think this is now two years later. or thereabouts he gets his first big payday. And I thought the description of that was rather funny. And so he's meeting with the people at Western Union and says, Well, young man, the committee would like to settle up the account. How much do you think they are worth, his invention? Edison uh was uncertain about what to demand. He had thought

35:34 That he should ask for five thousand dollars. Instead he said Can you make me an offer? And then the guy from Western Union said, How would forty thousand dollars strike you? And Edison was hilarious because he's describing this later on. He goes, I felt near fainting. Edison managed to stammer the stammer out that the the offer seemed fair enough.

35:53 He gets the money. in cash goes back to his like little He's in a dingy boarding house in Newark, New Jersey. This is just one sentence. This is funny. I had to read to you. He sat up all night unable to sleep for fear of being murdered for the sake of his great w of his great reward. He'd never seen so much money in his life. He's like, Oh there somebody's gonna kill me for this.

36:13 So now we fast forward a few years of the story, he's twenty six years old. And he makes the mistake and he corrects it later on when he opens up Menlo Park. But he's just like he's like trying to invent he's trying to be an inventor and a manufacturer at the same time. So eventually he's gonna realize hey, I picked the wrong path and he's gonna change course. But I wanna bring up how he managed because he the way he managed that when he was twenty-six years old. And very it's very much the way he managed throughout his entire life. And it's why he had a lot of dedicated employees that worked almost their entire lives with him. Because they didn't work for him. They worked with him.

36:41 Edison was as dirty as any other workman. I immediately felt that there was a great deal to him, one of his employees said. He was like no other shop boss. Those men had ever known. He was approachable, and yet in the next breath he was very severe with them, and he was bent on keeping them quote unquote hustling perpetually. His intuitive powers and his endless curiosity about everything amused and intrigued his co workers. He showed them an irrepressible enthusiasm like that of a child.

37:05 He kept his men at work long hours, but he himself would work even longer. He's working on a bunch of different ideas, but the most important idea that's gonna come out from this period of his life is what's called the multiplex telegraphic system. Think about it's just like way to send. two message simultaneously. So it essentially takes the existing telegraph uh machines and makes it just allows them to send more messages.

37:26 This is one of the weapons Gold is gonna use in his war against Western Union. But says uh Edison's myth, I wanna read this part to you because he's i this is w one of his most important inventions. And it also reminded me of Edwin Land, where he's like, he'll just read it all. Like Edwin Land goes and reads every single book on light in the Harvard uh library, then he goes to New York and reads every single book on light in the New York public library. You see the same thing that Edison's doing over and over again. Um and so it says Edison's methods of investigation were described as requiring complete knowledge of everything that had ever been done before in such a field as automatic telegraphy.

37:59 uh books and periodicals describing all that these other p experimenters had done. Uh and uh and all these other people had attempted And indeed all records of previous experiments and automatic uh mechanisms were acquired. And one of his employees is describing Edison at this point. I came in one night and there sat Edison with a pile of chemical books that were five feet high. This is kinda what my house looks like. Uh, but they're just biographies of entrepreneurs. He studied them night and day. He ate his a desk and slept in his chair. I don't do this, thank God, because I have a family.

38:27 But I'm glad I do have a family because I think I would. And so another thing about Edison is like the cautionary tail aspect. is I think especially, you know I know a ton of entrepreneurs were obsessive people. And I think having guardrails. on your obsession is necessary because you're it's very likely that you'll over optimize

38:46 If the history of entrepreneurship is any indicators of such, uh I think it's highly uh likely that you'll over optimize Uh your professional life to the detriment of your personal life. Edison definitely did that, you know, his kids are in this book Yeah, I don't know if I'm gonna read this to you later or not. But his kids were in the books and you know, we didn't know our dad, he didn't spend any time with us, that kind of stuff.

39:06 And if somebody as smart and as driven as Edison made this mistake, then what's the likelihood that you and I won't? It's very likely they will. So Again, cautionary tale to some element. I came in one night and there sat Edison with a pile of books. That was five feet high. He studied them night and day. He ate at his desk, he slept in his chair. In six w in six weeks he had gone through all the books, made two thousand experiments, produced a solution. Uh that could do the one thing that he wanted. And so this gets the attention of Jay Gold. There's like Golds are huge.

39:34 like supporting character in this book, I'm not gonna I think listening to two fifty eight you'll get an idea of of gold. I'm just gonna give you a couple of things from him. Jay Gold. had taken over The ownership of this other company called the Automatic Telegraph Company, and he he bought the company because he wanted its new telegraphic patents, and this is the instrument that he's gonna use to wage war with Western Union. Gold had determined to force his way into the rich telegraphic field. This is very fascinating how he realized it was really important because Gold had a lot of um

40:02 This idea where you can uh you can identify an opportunity because you have deep knowledge about one industry and you see that there is An industry developing a parallel to that industry that you know about, so you can kind of get there before anybody else. I don't know if that was very clear. Let me read this and hopefully it becomes clear. Gold had determined to force its way into the rich telegraphic field. Gold began to build up an independent and competing telegraph system whose real object was to harass and raid. Western Union's empire until they'd be forced to pay him his price. By acquiring this company, Gold had also acquired the services of Thomas Edison and the rights to his automatic patents, a powerful pawn in the campaign for the conquest of the nation's telegraph system. Edison at this point was completely oblivious.

40:41 to any of this. All he was focused on is like trying to make the best invention possible, trying to make the telegraph more functional And hopefully build a business around that. He didn't understand And so What I was referencing there, I thought this was a section I was I was actually confused, but gold makes the point later on in the book. That

40:59 As he's developing the it was very common for telegraph lines to be laid next to railroad tracks, but the railroad tracks came first. And so he's heavily invested. in railroads and he's noticing this parallel technology shoot up. He's like, Oh, I'm gonna dominate the railroads, I might as well dominate that too. At one point Edison describes all the stuff that's happening in his life that he doesn't understand, the strange financial warfare, which is a great way to think about it.

41:22 But he also learns a little bit about that. And we'll get to that in one second on the very next page. But this is why like it's a very highly if you were a young person interested in technology, you'd be doing exactly what Edison was doing at this point. It's like why would you work on the telegraph? And I've tried to explain this to you earlier and I don't know if it was clear, but this is pretty clear the importance of the telegraph in eighteen fifty to eighteen eighty, before the day of the telephone. uh was the mighty impetus it gave to the American economy can scarcely be measured nowadays. So it's the importance of the telegraph. uh the the mighty impetus it gave to the American comedy uh economy can be scarcely measured nowadays. Okay, that wasn't actually very clear at all. That's actually w a little weird writing basically what they're saying.

42:00 Is that the the entire information economy is running on the telegraph. Just like the entire information economy today runs on the internet. So if you're working on the internet, highly likely you would work on the telegraph at this point. So eventually Edison has a a vague idea of what all these people are doing and why these telegraph companies are are are being bought and try to be merged with one another.

42:20 Yeah,'cause Western Unions kind of relentlessly Monopolizing the entire industry. I'm gonna read this paragraph to you and then I'm gonna read what I think you and I could take away from it. Although Edison invariably pose as a country boy who knew little about the ways of the wicked world, he had already appreciated how inventors' patents Even this is a really important phrase here. Even without operational value.

42:41 So he had already appreciated how inventors' patents, even without operational value, could be used as pawns Our bargaining uh measures. by moneyed patrons of applied science. If you think about what is happening behind his thinking, he's asking, What is an asset That you have inside your company.

42:58 That is valuable to other people. And so gold actually gives him thirty thousand dollars for his invention. And Edison's like holy shit, this is amazing. But again, I th I think this is hopefully the last time I mentioned gold because he's all over this book. But this is again fascinating the way that Gold's mind worked.

43:18 It says it was said, but at the time when the news came out that Edison uh had been lured into gold camp, the stock of Western Union fell sharply under Heavy short selling by Jay Gold, so that he b that he gained, so gold gains in a single day. twenty or thirty times. That which he paid the young inventor.

43:36 So he used He convinced Edison, hey, I will give you thirty thousand dollars. Edison's like, Oh crap, that's a lot of money. I'll take it. Gold uses that news to drive down Western Union stock. Obviously he short sold it and so he makes twenty or thirty times in one day what he gave to Edison. And then I'll wrap up this section just with one paragraph because this explains to you and I

43:56 Like, first of all, Edison is twenty seven years old at this point in the story. But why is Jay Gold in Western Union fighting over Thomas Edison? Like what is happening here? And so it says why did the great barons contend with each other in the courts for possession of Edison's quadruplex? It was not only a superb invention. Бо вона до морд контрибуються телеграфік арт. And would bring dominance of the great industry. to whoever owned it.

44:21 So the last decade that he's been in New York, it has been he starts out with no money, right? Then makes a lot of money. Then goes down. is like there's these peaks and valleys that are that are happening. He's under incredible financial stress. He gets Like a payday. And this is where he's like, Okay, I need to change course

44:37 Now he's almost thirty years old. He's like, I need I'm getting out of New York and I'm going to the middle of nowhere, New Jersey, and I'm going to build A laboratory of science at Menlo Park. And so there's a few authors that have stated that they actually think

44:50 This s the the his creation of Menlo Park was just a significant invention. Because it was like the first of the laboratories. To pursue like practical commercial applications of research, and that was all it did. And Edison arrived at that just by following his natural bend. It's like this is just what I want to do. I wanna wake up

45:08 I wanna invent all day long. Not worry about money, not worrying about manufacturer, and then do that until I'm tired. I'll take a nap and I'll just get up and do the same thing over and over again. And so this is a quick description into like his frame of mind for doing this. Uh, my note is after a decade of financial struggle he wants to build a library. This is the Menlo Park

45:26 of Edison's or not library, laboratory. This is the Menelo Park part of Edison's life. He turned back on the threshold of the hidden world of electronic science and turned back, abandoning these perplexing experiments to devote himself to other to other more immediately rewarding investigations. So What they're talking about there is that This is where again I think the focus of a Ford a land and a jobs is gonna yield superior economic results in your lifetime for sure. He would invent something.

45:53 And then once he figured it out and kinda like jump onto the next thing, like he's gonna vent the phonograph, which just think about it's like Phonograph is like the first way that you could have recorded audio in the world. He invents it and then Doesn't try to commercially

46:06 exploit his invention for like ten years and by that time there's all these other competitors. He's making a lot of non economic decisions which may be better for the world but weren't better for his financial outcome. He was by no means a poor person, but the difference in wealth that like a Ford or jobs and a land had access to It'd be like fifty times, a hundred times more than than

46:25 Maybe even larger than Edison did. So that's what I'm talking about there. But it's at this stage his career, he was prosperous again, but he was also determined to bring about a sweeping change in his way of life. This is actually smart what he's doing. It's like you gotta build a company that you actually like to enjoy working in. He had built companies he didn't enjoy working in. He must at all costs quit business, he said, and manufacturing And live in some quiet retreat where he could give himself entirely to the vocation he loved. Inventive research. And so that is the why. behind Menlo Park.

46:53 And then a few pages later I write, This is interesting and a course to be avoided. So they're talking about hey Why the hell did you set up Menno Park in the middle of nowhere? Uh and'cause to Edison it's like why do you need distractions? So he brings people out there, they build like little houses, they have like a little scientific community, but there's nothing for like the wives and the kids to do. And so it says this became a community devoted to experimental science. What would these people do to entertain themselves here in the quiet backwater?

47:18 They would invent things. Edison said. And after that. They would invent more things. So that gives you a perfect insight into like what was important to him, not realizing that other people are not gonna share his obsessive twenty four seven nature on inventing.

47:31 Now He is also a very charismatic person. And so he's able to convince people to share his mission, but also in many cases It actually goes against What's actually good for them.

47:43 And so this is what I mean when I got to this section, I was like, uh uh, nope, not doing this. John Ott, who served under Edison for half a century. uh at the end of his life described the sacrifices that some of Edison's old co workers had made and commented on their reasons for doing so. My children grew up without knowing their father. He said. When I did get home at night, which was seldom

48:04 They were in bed. Why did you do it, he was asked. Because Edison made your work interesting. He made me feel that I was making something with him, and that I wasn't just a workman. And then in those days we all hope to get rich with him. So this is more about Menlo Park and why Edison did this and he he loved it. The years at at Menlo Park from eighteen seventy six to eighteen eighty one were by all odds the happiest and most fruitful of Edison's life. He was in his early thirties and at the very height of his creative powers. The business of inventing was humming along.

48:32 he was in the happy condition of being at liberty to absorb himself in a whole variety of inviting studies. Here he could allow himself to meditate, Permit his mind to wander, even to play without fear of interruption. When he wished to inform himself on some special subject of moment to him, he would gather together a great mass of books, lay them out on the floor, flinging himself down among them, and then pour over them for hours on end. After which he would go back refreshed To the manual part of his task.

49:01 And so one thing he works on is he actually find a way to record voice and then replay it back at a later time. This is eventually gonna take form in a product called the phonograph. But he also had like a primitive way Actually, transmit human voice over a long distance. And it was actually under the heading in his notebooks of something called the telephone repeater. The most interesting part of this section though is not that.

49:20 What's most interesting is that who he tried to sell this technology to and why they would not But So he says he approached Western Union people with the idea of reproducing and recording the human voice. But they saw no conceivable use for it. And there's an exclamation point at the end of that sentence by the author. And so you think about this, it's like Western Union.

49:41 Was a telegraph monopoly. they did not want to believe or maybe was impossible for for them to believe. This is really a uh a lesson on human nature, if you think about it. So they don't wanna believe, or they don't wanna see, or maybe they can't see anything. That would disrupt that. So if you're inventing something or your new product m renders another product obsolete.

50:00 Probably the worst place to go and sell that product is to a person that has economic incentives that your product does not continue. I talked about this on episode two hundred with James Dyson'cause he's like, What the hell's going on here? I built a Technologically superior vacuum, I go to the vacuum cleaner companies and they don't even see it. They're like, This is crap. And he realized like oh My vacuum is bagless. It does not have a bag, and these dudes sell five hundred million dollars worth of bags every year.

50:27 Of course they don't want they can't see. What is against their economic incentives, and so that's when you realize like I gotta do this myself. So this is when he invents the phonograph. I'm gonna skip over that part because what he does is he sets it aside. So it's like the lack of focus. are different area of focus, I guess one way to think about it. And he starts getting this idea that he's eventually gonna invent, which is the electric light bulb, right? And this is one way to describe that.

50:51 One undertaking particularly gripped his imagination. It was described as being that of dispelling night with its darkness. From the arena. of civilization Dispelling night with its darkness from the arena of civilization is what you and I call the electric light. So Edison's gonna need a ton of money to build out the entire electrical system, right?

51:11 And so he's gonna link up with Morgan and Vanderbilt and all these other people in a minute, but I just wanna pull out something that's very interesting. It is mentioned a few times previously in the book, but I hadn't drawn your attention to it. And it's the fact that it says he had an air of supreme confidence with which he sought to imbue everyone around him, including interested capitalists. So he was very good at selling others on his ideas, including selling people like investors on the fact that hey, you should give me money. to pursue this invention'cause we can turn it into a company.

51:39 And the note out of myself on this page is passion is infectious. Danny Lewin. five hundred thousand dollar check story. So Danny Lewin is the was the co-founder of Alkamai. And I read his biography years ago. It's called No Better Time.

51:53 And the reason this came up now is because Danny Lewin is also widely believed to be the first person killed in the nine eleven attacks. He was in first class on one of the planes, stood up to try to do something when they were hijacking and he was stabbed to death. He was only thirty one. But in his biography it talks about that he completely believed in what he was doing and once you believe in something It's easy to transfer that belief to other people. So I just want to read a section.

52:17 From This book called No Better Time. And it says stunned by what he saw in Louin at the whiteboard, Freesen, this is a S investor, said he felt a familiar sensation. The same one he experienced when he watched some of uh his top musical talents at the start of their careers. Danny was like ambition and intellect on steroids, he said.

52:34 His belief in this thing. Was so profoundly convincing that I believed too. So that's what I meant about the transferring of the belief, which is extremely powerful, which is exactly what is happening. in this where we are in the book with Edison right he's transferring his belief In electric light. To people that he needs help with, right? On the spot, Friesen pulled out his checkbook and handed Danny a check.

52:56 For a half a million dollars. And when I read that book four years ago, whenever it was, the note out of my cell phone there was Passion. Was worth half a miljon and more. And so you go back to the Edison.

53:09 book he had an air of supreme confidence with which he sought to imbue Everyone around him, including interested capitalists. And so this is when he starts partnering up with Vanderbilt. This is Vanderbilt's son,'cause Cornelius had just died and left I think like ninety five percent of his money to his oldest son and JP Morgan There's a lot more detail in the other podcast I did on episode eighty three, which is Empire's light. That entire book.

53:30 It's just about this point in Edison's life. So it goes into way more detail in the book I hold my hand, but I wanna pull out a few things here'cause I think they're important for you and I to understand.'Cause he's gonna cut you know, he gets kinda Yeah, screwed over. Multiple times by partners. Uh, in effect, the Western Union people were buying rights, but not an existing invention, but in an unknown quantity, a promise.

53:49 Edison said. Their money was invested in confidence in my ability to bring it back again. Undoubttedly, these financers were risking We're taking risk with their capital. Though for such ri for as people as wealthy as the Vanderbilt, who at that time was the richest man in America,

54:03 Uh, it was only peanuts. So there's a collection of very rich people he's raising money from. One is the Vanderbilt. Uh JP Morgan's the one organizing all this, which I'll get to in a minute, but it some of them were also like the founders and executives in Western Union who were extremely rich at the time. Uh behind this whole venture stood JP Morgan, who kept his name off the board of directors, but had his partner serving as director of the new company. And they also made the company bank with

54:28 uh Morgan's firm. So his name might be off of it, but he is very much in control. Uh, Edison believed that the chances of ultimate success of his project were vastly greater because of the Morgan connection. the launching of the Edison Electric Light Company by such sponsors is noteworthy also that it inaugurates a phase of increasingly cross close relations between big business and technology in this company. So how think about crazy this is remember the words that you and I are talking about right now, they were written in nineteen fifty nine. And he's like This is a phase of increasingly close relationsh be relations between big business and technology and the company.

55:03 Or shooting the country. Even more so today. And so before I move ahead, I want to read this section from Empires of Light. Because this is how this story ends. Uh and so it was that J P Morgan, whose house had been the first in New York to be wired for electricity by Edison

55:16 a decade earlier, now erased Edison's name out of corporate existence without even the courtesy of a telegram or a phone call to the great inventor. Uh Edison's biographer Matthew Josephson, which is the guy that wrote the book that Holding My Hand, wrote Morgan uh to Morgan it made little difference so long as it all resulted in a big trustification Big trust. For which he would be the banker.

55:38 Edison had been in the vocabulary of the times Morganized. And that was something that pops up in these books over and over again. would prey on weak financially weak companies if they needed his money and his uh the the money of his investors then he would take over in many c parts take control of the company, combine them with other companies. They the this happened so much

55:57 That there was a term for it, that term was morganized. And that is the beginning of General Electric. book goes on for quite a while how difficult you can imagine trying to build the electric industry from scratch. There's just two lines. Actually I was just having this conversation with my daughter this morning before school. So it says uh he seemed to be meeting with fresh difficulties at every step. That's sentence one and then step sentence two. No great N can be obtained without considerable doubt. So pr really the the summary of what's happening on all across these like ch set of like twenty pages is

56:27 Problems are the rule, not the exception. And so the conversation I was having with my daughter this morning is just like, you know, being upset about something going on in our life, or maybe you don't like whatever's happening at the moment. It's just like that is an everyday thing. You were concerned and worried about this today. I was like, you just have to really I I actually quoted the podcast. I go, problems Are just opportunities and workflows. It gives you an opportunity. to use your brain to solve it.

56:50 But don't think that because you solved this problem or now you've overcome whatever's taking place in your life. that that is the end. It's highly likely and a near certainty that you'll just have another problem the next day or next week. Life we always on the podcast you and I always talk about the businesses problems and that companies are just effective problem solving machines. Life is problems. Everybody has problems in their lives. So the point I was trying to make to her is like you shouldn't try to eliminate problems completely'cause that's futile.

57:14 You should just get good at problem solving. And then if you enter every day it's like okay, most likely gonna cur encounter something today that I don't like or there may be a problem, they're the rule, not the exception. Do not let it upset you. Just handle it and then move on to the next. And so there's s a small analogy between the conversation I'm having with my ten year old daughter that Edison is describing in the book about Holy damn, how difficult. What he's trying to do. And in many cases, I wonder

57:38 I haven't come across this in the book, but I I have to wonder, like he dips out. So he leaves Menlo Park, goes to New York because that's where he has to do this, right? And it's a big struggle and then he winds up leaving and getting kind of Upset and selling all his GE stock later on. And then going and doing mining and and all this other stuff that he does the rest of his life, right? But I wonder if he could go back and just be like I should have never left Menlo Park. And whether that's like a partnership with somebody else develops it.

58:03 A license agreement. I don't know what it is, but he gave like his life and soul again, and I don't think he wanted to be in New York. And I highly suspect that if you and I could talk to him today, he'd be like, Yeah, I shouldn't have done that. I should have stayed where I was'cause I was happy. And so what I want to do is get into like his mindset as he's setting out to do this. And it's a multi year process.

58:22 Even at the beginning he's like, Okay, I figure it out But then he doesn't really He hasn't uh figured it out completely. And so he'll have like a promising experiment and then he'll like have a fall uh like a setback. And what I found most fascinating is this section where he talks about like he was inspired by a Victor Hugo novel. So says the this is now a quote directly from Edison, the electric light had caused me great amount of study and and required the most elaborate experiments, Edison said.

58:42 I was never myself discouraged or inclined to be hopeless of success, but I cannot say the same for all of my associates. He was like a man possessed, after every reverse or disappointing trial, of which there were many, right? He worked on day and night compositely. One of Edison's favorite books was Victor Hugo's Toilers of the Sea. In the book, the hero of the book, Gilead. Described by his neighbors as both crafty

59:05 And laborious And believed by them to be in communication with supernatural powers. That could be a description of how Edison was viewed at this time. Because he's already world famous from the the um Not only was he world like he was world famous from the invention of the phonograph, And then the electric light just takes them to like other Yeah, levels of fame.

59:22 Uh, so they believe by them to be in communication with supermario power, set out alone to extricate a small steam ship. From a reef in the English channel, so he is taking the metaphor. that he's reading in the story is as what's taking place in his life at this point. So it says this this hero s sets out Tries to get this reef.

59:40 Or tries to get the this this ship that's stuck on a reef in the English Channel. on which uh the the ship has been stranded. In his long effort he must contend against the immeasurable forces of nature. The C The tides, the storm. To reach his goal.

59:54 By his courage, his powers of endurance, and his mechanical skill. The hero of the book Assumes for us the simbolic фір. The steam ship that he is bent on saving, of course, symbolizes progress. So Edison

1:00:10 Two strove on. So Edison seeing parallels. With where he is in life, with the story that he's reading about. Actually motivates him to go on. And then this point is just full of very f like some of the best Edison quote you'll ever come across. His enthusiasm was infectious. At such moments, he would say proudly,

1:00:28 The trouble with other inventors is that they try a few things and quit. I never quit. Until I get what I want. And then another great quote, remember Nothing that's good works by itself.

1:00:40 You've gotta make the damn thing work. He winds up testing maybe thousands, maybe tens of thousands of different materials for the filament that's inside a of a light bulb. And I just thought Edison's worldwide search for filament for his light bulb actually leads to some surprising ends. And so it says another agent of Edison's was sent on a similar mission to the West Indies in Central America, but he died of yellow fever. That's the second person you sent out, right? The third person

1:01:04 Uh was this guy named Frank McGoen, who was dispatched from Menlo Park. At Edison's expense to explore the upper Amazon. River journeying by canoe to the wildest regions on Earth. The newspapers carefully following such reports of his herring adventures.

1:01:21 After having survived the hazards of life among the men and beasts of the Amazon McGowan at last came back to New York. was given a large sum of cash by Edison's secretary, and celebrated his safe arrival by going to a cafe. Then he walked off in the night towards the west side docks. Невертов аген.

1:01:42 Thus creating One of the great police mysteries of the eighties. That is the eighteen eighties, by the way. And if you think about it, this guy's got a pile of money. Let's flash back to what was what was Edison worry right worried about, right? He gets that what, thirty or forty thousand dollars, can't sleep'cause he's in this like dingy boarding house, convinced somebody's gonna wind up coming and killing him for the money, which is very likely the outcome. Maybe this guy's drunk and he fell off into the water and drowned. That that you know, that we don't actually know. But he's walking around with a sack full of cash, he's super famous.

1:02:10 And they he leaves the cafe or leaves the bar and is never seen again. So the story of Edison's electric adventures are just a series of peaks and valleys, peaks and valleys over and over again. And one thing that Edison had to contend with was not only was it very frustrating if he found like a dead end and he couldn't get it to work the way he wanted it to. He also had to manage the expectations of not only his employees, but also his investors. And he was remarkable at always putting together like this front.

1:02:34 Ісправи труд, і абсолютно. That what other difficulties they were going through at the point at the time. were temporary and that they figure it out. And I think the best description of this is that quote by Mark Andreessen we says if you're starting a business Uh running a startup, you only experienced two emotions.

1:02:49 Uh euphoria and terror. And almost nothing in between. And so that's also occurring with his backers, which is v his financial backers, which was a big pain in the ass to Edison. Hope and pessimism alternated in the minds of Edison's financial sponsors during the transitional stage between inven the invention.

1:03:06 And its development. And so I mentioned earlier how he managed and why people liked him. uh working when he was a young man in his twenties, we still that's st we see that's still the same case at arguably the most important part of his life, which is when he's in New York trying to make his electrical system work, right? And so it says to the young electricians It was wonderful to see Edison working by their side all covered with grease and suit. Вот ти іншої мост із аттеуд ориента.

1:03:31 For what others thought of him and paying no attention to frills and fancy. So what they're talking about is New York has the the highest population in the United States at at this point. He is super famous and he's working in the streets of New York, so he's constantly haggled, constantly harassed, people are following around. Almost like some kind of like m mesionic character. And when there's an issue, they would just like dig up the lines and then you jump in and try to figure out what the hell's going on.

1:03:54 And so that's what they're mean, like he paid no attention to frills or fancies. This reminded me very much of Sam Zamur. And the huge advantage he had over his competitors. I just reread that book, The Fish That Ate the Whale. If you haven't listened to it, it's episode two fifty five. One of my favorite books I've ever read. But Sam did this where his competitors are in an office in Boston trying to run their fruit company, right? And he's actually in the fields in Honduras. With his workers. Sam knew his business and an intimate detail from A to Z that his competitors could only wish to know theirs.

1:04:24 And some Murray was a very hard dude and a taskmaster. He was by no means easy on his employees, but they respected him'cause they knew he worked just as hard, if not harder, than they did. I think Steve Jobs picked up on that too. When he came back to Apple and he's like Wait a minute. the CEO of Apple, Gil Amelio, is described as a turnaround uh as a turnaround expert.

1:04:42 And he's like, How can you be a turnaround expert? Uh when you're sitting here job said something like when you're sitting in your office eating lunch alone on China that looks like the from Versailles. And so if you compare it and contrast to the way Gil worked with his employees at Apple and the way Steve did, Steve was in there every day. In fact, that made me think of this quote There's a book called Creative Selection. I did a uh I've read it.

1:05:03 I've read this book three times. A anybody building a product should read it. Um it's written by one of the programmers that work directly under Steve, but or work with Steve rather than demoed to him multiple times. I did a bonus episode. I'll I'll go back and figure out where it is and I'll I'll leave it in the show notes. But what was fascinating, let me just read this whole section. 'Cause I think this gives you an indication of like what Thomas Edison's doing here, what Samson Murray was doing, what Edwin Land did and Steve Jobs did. So reading from the book Creative Selection right now, Steve was the center of all the circles. He made all the important product decisions. From my standpoint as an individual programmer, demoing to Steve was like visiting the Oracle of Delphi. The demo was my question. Steve's response was the answer. While the pronouncements from the Greek oracle often came in the form of confusing riddles, that wasn't true with Steve.

1:05:46 He was always easy to understand. He would either approve a demo Or would request to see something different next time. Whenever Steve reviewed a demo, he would say often with highly detailed specificity what he wanted to happen next.

1:06:00 This is the the part this one paragraph is what made me think of uh this excerpt when I got to where I'm at in the Edison book. He was always trying to ensure the products were as intuitive and straightforward as possible and he was willing to invest his own time Effort and influence to see that they were. Through looking at demos, asking for specific changes, then reviewing the changed work again later on and giving a final approval before we could ship. Steve could make a product turn out like he wanted.

1:06:26 That's absolutely fantastic. Can't recommend that book enough. It's it's really fun to read, and you can read it in a weekend. There's no reason not to. So I wanna bring to your attention I mentioned earlier he's like, Oh, I'm involved in business and manufacturing, that was annoying. So then he reverse course goes to Menlo Park, right? Then five, ten years later, whatever it was, he reversed his course again. This time in the other direction. And this is why I said earlier I have a feeling that he should have just stayed him or he he would have if you could ask him now, he'd he would say, you know, I should stay to Menlo Park because really what to read to you is like this is a sign that you pick the right profession.

1:06:58 And he says he could pretend that he was giving up inventing for some years because of the pressure of business affairs. So that is the actual making Like he invented the electrical lights, now how do you like actually scale the company and do all that stuff, right? So that's what he's talking about. Like they're they're now he's not inventing anymore, and now he's doing like the practical application or the business application of his invention, I guess. But he could no more stop observing things or experimenting than he could stop breathing. So that line is why. I think he might have wanted to stay in Menlo Park.

1:07:27 He could no more stop observing things or experimenting than he could stop breathing. And I think a main theme of this book and the conversation I think you and I are having today is the fact that founders are learning machines. And part of being a learning machine is just always being the curious about the world around you. And so there's a guy named Charles Ketering.

1:07:44 A lot of founders I talk to don't actually know who he is. I did a podcast on him a long time ago. It's episode number one twenty five. The reason he is important to study Is because he was called the twentieth century's Ben Franklin. If that piques your interest, go back and listen to one twenty uh episode one twenty five. It was on his autobiography, if I remember correctly. But this is ch this is cat, as I everybody call him cat.

1:08:04 Uh this is Ket now looking back on what Edison was able to accomplish. And I think what he's describing is again why founders are learning machines and why it's so important to just keep trying things. It was because Edison was always looking for things, as K as Ket said, that he inserted a straight wire into an incandescent light bulb and found he could pull a current of electricity out of a vacuum. Thus discovering An іxhaustible source. Of free electrons.

1:08:33 Wanna read his quote one more time. It was because Edison was always looking for things. that he inserted a straight wire into an incandescent light bulb and found he could pull a current of electricity out of a vacuum. Thus discovering an inexhaustible source of free electrons. And so eventually there's this rather dark period in Edison's life where the they call it the war of the currents. I covered it all the way back. There's an entire book called Empire of Light on it. I read it, it's episode eighty three. Edison's rather discussed it and so he goes back to New Jersey. But I actually think this interaction that Edison has

1:09:02 with the famous explorer Henry Stanley gives you an eye who Edison was as a person and what was important to him. And it brought a smile to my face when I read it. Henry Stanley was a sternly religious little man who believed that God had brought him safely through the jungle. He visited the Edison Laboratory. And spoke a few words into the talking machine.

1:09:20 Then he turned to the inventor and said. Mr. Edison. If it were possible for you to hear the voice of any man known in the history of the world. Whose voice

1:09:31 Would you prefer to hear? Napoleons. replied Edison without hesitation. Oh no no. I should like to hear the voice of Jesus, our Savior, said Stanley.

1:09:41 Oh well, laughed Edison. You know. I like a hustler. And that is where I'll leave it for the full story by the book. If you buy the book using the link that's in the show notes, you're a podcast player, you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. Every link that I've mentioned, every show or episode, or anything else, any other book that I've mentioned in the podcast is also available at founderspodcast.com.

1:10:00 The more books you buy, the more you read, make sure you sign up for the ReadWise app. It is the app I use to store all my notes and all my highlights, how I can remember all the stuff I read. And is by far the best app I pay for the right. I have an official partnership with ReadWise, so they'll give you sixty days free to try it if you go to readwise.io forward slash founders. That link, as always, is uh below, and at founderspodcast.com. That is two hundred and sixty seven books down.

1:10:24 One thousand to go, and I'll talk to you soon.

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