Your view of history is completely distorted. The first person whose home blazed with electric light was J.P. Morgan, the man who really ran America.. The financier also owned the first business lit with incandescent bulbs. In the latter case, Thomas Edison himself was on hand to flip the switch.
Edison needed funders like Morgan, and later the Vanderbilt Family, because he was launching an endeavor that required huge capital expenditures. He was establishing the groundwork for the electrification of a planet, and to accomplish his goals he needed big finance. Fast forward to the present: J.P. Morgan Chase is now the world’s second largest financial company, General Electric is the world’s third largest company of any kind, and the U.S. electric grid is the largest machine ever built. Our energy system and our financial system have always run in tandem. The two grew up together and they have played off of each other to become history’s largest and, arguably, most centralized industries. In 1887 Edison set up the Edison General Electric Company, and J.P. Morgan paid nearly two million dollars to buy into it. In 1890 Edison became involved in the "battle of the currents." His system depended on low-voltage direct current (DC), which was capable of sending electricity little more than a mile. But industrialist George Westinghouse had developed a a far-reaching system that used high-voltage alternating current (AC), and a former employee of Edison's, Nikola Tesla, invented AC motors and generators that threatened Edison's domination of the electrical industry. When the first prisoner execution using AC turned into a grisly spectacle, damaging Edison's reputation, the board of Edison General Electric decided to adopt AC power, and dropped Edison's name; the company was now called "General Electric." Edison would refuse to set foot in any General Electric plants for the next 30 years, but his ability to reinvent himself matched his scientific prowess. In the second half of his life he would invent the first motion picture camera, improve his phonograph, and become America's first entertainment mogul. "People will forget," he stated with typical bravado, "that my name ever was connected with anything electrical." The moral to the Edison story: when Edison bucked the powers that be, he was crushed. On Sat, Aug 31, 2013 at 8:52 PM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote: > Axil Axil <[email protected]> wrote: > > *A development approach that may be more compatible with the way things >> are today are to orient the reactor design to the needs of the grid and the >> various utility companies.* >> > > This strategy makes no sense to me. None at all! Plus it would not work > because as Christensen says, established industry has no interest in > disruptive technology. Imagine how this might have played out in the > history of commerce: > > Edison invents the lightbulb and waits for the gas lighting industry to > buy it. They have pipes under the streets already and they see no point to > laying electric cables. The technology languishes. > > Alex Bell invents the telephone and offers it to Western Union for a > pittance. They say no. (That really happened!) So Mr. Bell decides it is > not worth pursuing. > > In the late 19th century, small gasoline motors are developed. They are > too small for locomotives or street cars, which is the only motorized > transport at the time. People cannot think of any use for them, and > development is put aside. > > Jobs and Woz develop the Apple computer. Hewlett Packard and IBM express > no interest in the product so they drop the idea. > > - Jed > >
