CHAPTER 11

Conclusion

THOMAS EDISON HAS MUCH to teach the would-be disruptor. The Wizard of Menlo Park has a long list of world-changing inventions to his name. The stock ticker, telegraph systems, wax paper, the phonograph, the incandescent light bulb, the fluoroscope, nickel-iron-alkaline batteries, a motion picture camera, and vulcanized rubber were just a few of the creative ideas he turned into commercial successes. All these inventions were born and nurtured in his “invention factory,” a place where he and nearly sixty colleagues worked to conceive, extend, improve upon, and tinker with electric mechanisms.

Edison did not consider himself to be a creative genius. He famously remarked that “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine ...

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