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No, literally! Tesla was brilliant and all but had no idea what to do with his brilliance other than get rejected time after time because of his social awkwardness. Without Edison stealing his ideas and bringing them to light, Tesla would likely have remained a manual laborer till the day he died.
This isn't an attempt to diminish Tesla; it's a call to stop vilifying those who have succeeded through the accomplishments of others. It's The American Way - we don't make stuff, we make stuff *better* and figure out a way to make money off it, by hook or by crook.
Many of our greatest American Heroes and/or success stories are like this - Bill Gates, Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, P.T.Barnum, The Wright Brothers, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Jim Henson, Stan Lee, Bob Kane - All folks who made significant, HUGE marks on history by using other people that, without the guiding hand of an American Hero, would have lived extremely normal and/or ordinary lives. And all the stuff we love today, would have just been pipe dreams that died in the back of some brilliant person's mind while they wasted away in a dead-end office job or, as with Nikola Tesla, digging ditches. 'Cuz the world always needs more ditches.
We're currently living in a world that seems to be encouraging "Dreamers" which is awesome, I love dreams (have plenty of my own, as a matter of fact), but what we Dreamers need... what *I* need... is a Thomas Edison to come along and make those dreams Reality.
(This post inspired by a conversation I had at Disneyland with a stranger who wanted to vilify Walt Disney because of how he treated his unionized workers and, specifically, his relationship with Ub Iwerks)
This isn't an attempt to diminish Tesla; it's a call to stop vilifying those who have succeeded through the accomplishments of others. It's The American Way - we don't make stuff, we make stuff *better* and figure out a way to make money off it, by hook or by crook.
Many of our greatest American Heroes and/or success stories are like this - Bill Gates, Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, P.T.Barnum, The Wright Brothers, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Jim Henson, Stan Lee, Bob Kane - All folks who made significant, HUGE marks on history by using other people that, without the guiding hand of an American Hero, would have lived extremely normal and/or ordinary lives. And all the stuff we love today, would have just been pipe dreams that died in the back of some brilliant person's mind while they wasted away in a dead-end office job or, as with Nikola Tesla, digging ditches. 'Cuz the world always needs more ditches.
We're currently living in a world that seems to be encouraging "Dreamers" which is awesome, I love dreams (have plenty of my own, as a matter of fact), but what we Dreamers need... what *I* need... is a Thomas Edison to come along and make those dreams Reality.
(This post inspired by a conversation I had at Disneyland with a stranger who wanted to vilify Walt Disney because of how he treated his unionized workers and, specifically, his relationship with Ub Iwerks)
