Edison on Innovation: 102 Lessons in Creativity for Business and Beyond

8.14. Lesson 78: If At First You Do Succeed, Try Again Anyway

History describes Thomas Edison as an inventor. He described himself—far more accurately—as an inventor–manufacturer. Unlike many so-called independent inventors, Edison rarely sold or even licensed his major inventions and innovations to established manufacturing firms. Instead, he almost always took on himself the commercialization, manufacture, and marketing of whatever he created. This was not merely an act of egocentricism; it flowed from a belief that controlling all aspects of creation, production, and marketing was the best business deal. "The patents I am now taking," he told investors in the Edison Electric Light Company Ltd. of London, "are more valuable than those already ...