6.11. Lesson 58: No Such Thing as Overproduction

Edison categorically rejected as "nonsense" the idea that "anything which men and women want" could possibly be overproduced. He insisted that the stomach was the "only part of man which can be fully satisfied." In all other respects, human wants are unlimited; they constitute an appetite that can never be appeased.

NOTE

Few today can share Edison's faith in the infinite capacity to consume any one product, yet his hyperbole is useful as a guide to invention, innovation, and production. It teaches us to identify those demands that are both greatest and least readily satisfied. On these the successful creative entrepreneurs stake their claims.

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