In this article, we’ll look at a character that Silicon Valley giants such as Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Larry Page are making role models.
In addition, I will tell you why he is a huge inspiration to so many founders even today, nearly 100 years after he passed away.
The main character of the day is Thomas Edison.
The title of Invention King Edison feels much more familiar.
“My role model is Edison. The mind behind Tesla Motors and SpaceX is Edison’s incandescent bulb and projector.”
That’s what Elon Musk left in a press interview in 2008.
In this interview, Musk said he named the company after Edison’s rival Nikola Tesla.
He said, “It was because the power of the electric car went back to the AC power method developed by Tesla.”
He clearly states that his role model is Edison. Elon Musk’s role model for Edison wasn’t just because he was a brilliant inventor.
To see Edison as a “just” great inventor is to focus on only a small fraction of what he has accomplished.
Edison was the first founder in American history to create a giant company based solely on ideas and technology.
In 1871, Edison, twenty-four, developed a stock ticker that printed and displayed stock quotes received via telegraph on paper.
He sells this patent for a ton of 50,000 dollars to raise capital to grow his company in earnest.
At the time of the development of incandescent light bulbs, J.P. We persuaded Morgan and William Vanderbilt, who dominated the gas industry and received enormous R&D expenses as a condition of sharing profits when the light bulb was completed.
It was the same way that today’s startups receive funding from venture capital.
And in this way, Edison was able to start and lead several large and small companies, including General Electric (GE), which remains a major American conglomerate to this day.
“You have to be like Edison. If you say you invent something, you have to know that it doesn’t end with someone helping one person.”
“You have to bring it to the world, that is, you have to actually produce it and make a profit.”
Google’s co-founder Larry Page praises Edison because he turned the idea into reality and then created a company with overwhelming competitiveness.
So, let’s take a look at the points where entrepreneur Edison is inspiring a great deal of inspiration for today’s founders.
First, let’s look at one option he made after inventing the incandescent light bulb.
This judgment is where Elon Musk got the most inspiration from Edison.
The insights we gained are actually having a huge impact on the strategy that Tesla and SpaceX are pursuing at this very moment.
In early January 1881, after completing the initial development of the incandescent light bulb, Edison was preparing to mass-produce J.P. Investors, including Morgan, came here to convey the opinion that light bulbs were also developed and that we should earn money in earnest.
Instead of producing and selling the light bulbs themselves, as Edison wanted, investors proposed a business model that lends patent licenses to incandescent light bulbs to other manufacturers and earns royalties.
That way, I could make a profit right away without the additional investment to build a factory that produced light bulbs and various parts, but Edison declined the offer.
His goal was not simply to make money by developing light bulbs, but to create a new industrial ecosystem called the electricity industry itself.
From the beginning, Edison developed an incandescent light bulb, and at the same time, developed a generator that produces electricity, a wire that supplies electricity, a socket that safely connects a light bulb to a wire, and a switch that allows you to easily turn the light bulb off and on. I developed it.
The power produced by the generator is evenly distributed to hundreds of light bulbs.
He also developed a power supply system.
To do this, he dug the ground around Menlo Park, where his research center was located, buried an electric wire over 10 km in length, and repeated the experiment to light hundreds of incandescent streetlights with electricity from the power plant.
The idea of supplying electricity through electric wires buried underground was also his first idea, so whenever there was a problem, he dug and buried the ground again to create and improve the system.
Edison was more than anyone who lived in that era, he was a person who accurately penetrated the power of the new energy of electricity and the shape of human society that electricity would change.
He was also well aware that if he took control of the infrastructure of a huge emerging industry, he could reap enormous profits.
In particular, he was able to monopolize big profits without competition by establishing a power company that produces and supplies electricity, rather than a manufacturer of light bulbs and wires.
That’s why he responded to the question,’ What’s your biggest invention?’ “Incandescent power system.” We jump into the business of supplying electricity generated by turning generators to businesses and households.
He founded the Edison Light Bulb Company, which serves as the headquarters at 65 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York. Electric power plants are built at 255 and 257 Pearl Streets.
Along with this, after digging the ground in a section of downtown New York 24 km, the electric wire was buried, and the electric wire was connected to each building and house. Through this process, on September 4, 1882, 8117 light bulbs in 368 buildings in downtown New York were illuminated.
Edison’s statement in commemoration of the day’s success was one sentence:
“I have done everything I promised”
Edison Light Bulb Company, New York Edison Electric Lighting Company, Edison Machine Shop, Electric Tube Company, Bergman & Company, Edison Lamp. These are companies that Edison started to achieve his big dreams. Through these companies, Edison has been able to create an entire ecosystem of the electricity industry, from light bulbs to generators.
And the companies he created will then merge and grow into GE, the leading U.S. company.
The first lesson Ron Musk learned from Edison
‘It is made the industry itself, not the product’. Tesla’s active involvement in the charging infrastructure business from the beginning of the business is because it followed Edison’s teaching that it should not remain as a simple manufacturer and take over the entire ecosystem.
“Edison teamed up with engineers, chemists, mathematicians, and mechanics to assemble and connect his ideas.”
“In the process, Edison empowered and trusted his ideas to be put into practice by his team members.”
“Edison wouldn’t have existed without the help of people like Cruise, which are unfamiliar names to us.”
This is a sentence from a book review that Bill Gates left after reading the book Edison and Rice of Innovation.
As Bill Gates puts it, all of Edison’s inventions were the result of collaboration with his subordinates.
Not only the incandescent light bulbs and power systems I mentioned earlier but also the products such as phonographs and projectors were all achievements Tim Edison’.
Edison was the first to create today’s corporate laboratory system.
That’s why many experts, including scholars who study the history of science, choose the ‘invention-creating laboratory system’ as the best invention Edison has made.
Many people think of Edison as an image of a lone inventor who remains alone in the laboratory and experimenting until late at night.
Nothing is as far from the actual Edison as this image.
Edison, twenty-nine years old, raised enough capital through several patent sales, opened his “invention factory” in Menlo Park, New Jersey, halfway between New York and Philadelphia in 1876.
He spent an enormous amount of $40,000 on land purchases, new buildings, and various machinery and research equipment.
Menlo Park’s invention factory was bigger and better equipped than any other machine shop and chemical laboratory in the United States at the time.
In 1878, when the incandescent light bulb development project was just started, the number increased to 30, and two years later, in 1880, the number of employees increased to 64.
Afterward, Nikola Tesla, who fought a “current war” with Edison over how to supply electricity, joined the Menlo Park Research Center here in 1884 and worked for about half a year.
At that time, there was no organization dedicated solely to research and development with such a large number of people in the United States as well as in any other country in the world.
This is why the Menlo Park Research Center is called the first corporate research institute in mankind.
“I will do one minor invention every ten days, and one big invention every six months.”
This is what Edison said in an interview after setting up the Menlo Park Institute.
What he was able to say so confidently was because he had a strong belief in the skilled mechanics and creative inventors he worked with.
In 1887, when I was 40, I founded the West Orange Institute, which is much larger than the Menlo Park Institute.
Edison planned to create an industrial complex that mass-produces various new products, not just inventions.
Building a huge industrial complex centered on a research center, hiring 15,000 people, was the future of the 10-15 years he drew.
The researchers who worked with Edison were nicknamed Mucker, who teamed up the Muckers according to the project and then entrusted them with the invention.
He was responsible for monitoring the progress of each team’s research, allocating various resources, and advising on new approaches to take when research hits challenges.
He presented only the goal and the big direction of the research and asked Merkers to find out a specific solution for themselves.
Thanks to Edison’s method, researchers were able to gradually invent new products on their own.
I explained earlier that Edison established several companies simultaneously to produce and supply power for incandescent bulbs and various parts.
It was his researchers who were in charge of running these companies.
The cutting-edge expertise accumulated while working in the lab was applied to the mass production process, allowing each company to grow rapidly. Edison’s ability to create an ecosystem for the electric industry in a short period was thanks to the development of a wealth of talented personnel through the laboratory system.
The second reason for Elon Musk’s role model for Edison, which can be found here, if you want to make the best product, start with the system that will achieve the best invention.
Edison and Mucker usually work 60 hours a week, often 80 hours.
Munchers, who had a lot of young single men, immersed themselves in research, living and eating with colleagues in a dormitory next to the lab.
Edison worked the same with the younger employees. He worked late at night, and when he fell asleep, he often lay down on a pile of newspapers as he was wearing his clothes to sleep. “It was difficult to live with Edison in the lab, but I enjoyed it. We worked late at night all week. Sometimes I even worked beyond human limits.”
“It was a community of youthful spirits and passion about each job. We expected tremendous results. Sometimes I made a loud noise, joking around and playing.”
This is what Charles Clarke, who worked for Edison as a young researcher, recalls his days with Edison.
In the early days of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk also teamed up with a handful of engineers and scientists to eat and sleep in factories, focusing on research and development day and night.
It’s no coincidence that Edison’s appearance overlaps in such a look.
His excellent marketing skills, along with his inventor talent, his ambition, and his managerial abilities as a businessman, were also important factors in driving Edison’s success. Edison’s sense of marketing is evident in several strategies he has taken to prove to people the practicality and safety of electric and incandescent light bulbs.
Using bamboo filaments to significantly increase the usage time and performance of incandescent bulbs, Edison begins to think about how to show his invention dramatically and effectively to the public.
And after these thoughts, Edison’s choice was on the sea.
He chose ships to and from major cities in the eastern United States as a medium to promote his inventions, sailing along the Pacific coast.
Edison and his researchers installed four small generators and 120 light bulbs on the Columbia, which had just finished test flights in March 1880.
Each first-class room has one light bulb. All chandeliers in the banquet hall were also equipped with light bulbs.
Worrying about the possibility of a fire caused by electricity, after barely persuading the shipyard and ship insurance company, which were very opposed to the installation of incandescent light bulbs, we were able to enter the construction.
And the first electric-lighted ship in history, the Columbia, was 100% perfect as a mobile billboard for Edison and incandescent bulbs.
Not only the passengers aboard the ship but also those who watched from a distance sailing over the dark sea with a bright light like broad daylight could see at a glance how brighter the incandescent bulb was than the existing dim gas lamp lighting.
Every time Columbia entered the port, people’s attention was focused on the electric lighting installed on the ship.
As word of mouth spreads among the people, Edison can promote his inventions across the United States without spending a penny.
When incandescent bulbs and electricity first came out, people were most concerned about safety issues such as fire and electric shock.
Whenever a new technology that has not existed appears, concerns about safety accidents are raised in the past, and today it is no different.
In 1884, two years after Edison and his staff began building and supplying power to a power plant in downtown New York, people still had anxiety about electricity.
Edison believes that for the rapid growth of the electricity industry, a large event is needed to alleviate people’s vague fears at once.
And on October 31, 1884, he holds a parade for this.
The employees of the Edison Company marching through downtown New York in a line were wearing helmets with light bulbs on their heads. Each helmet was powered by a power generator and a wire placed on a large wagon in the middle of the march.
Lights pouring from hundreds of light bulbs on top of the helmet lit up all over downtown New York.
For those who have never seen such a scene with so many light bulbs shining at the same time, the scene was truly spectacular. It was literally “The March of Light”.
The New York Tribune, who covered the event at the time, introduced the day’s march as “an event that pleased the eyes and awakened the soul.”
Through this event, Edison succeeds in calming people’s vague anxiety about electricity and incandescent light bulbs.
Despite the marching of hundreds of people wearing electric light bulb helmets, there was no small accident.
No one was electrocuted, and there was no fire in the power cord.
What would the people of the Edison Company, who know the best about electricity, walk walking with light bulbs on their heads and not in their hands? It is clear.
The third reason Elon Musk uses Edison as a role model
‘Don’t try to explain to people the principles of technology. Just show how technology can change their lives.’
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