When I was a kid I read everything I could get my hands on about Nikola Tesla. I absolutely idolized the guy. He was pretty cool. He was gifted/cursed with the ability to run experiments in his head, visualizing them as clearly as if he was actually seeing them run in real life.
He made some astonishing breakthroughs in the world of electricity, radio, and robotics. However he died penniless in a run down hotel in New York.
Part of loving Tesla as kid was learning to despise Edison. According to Tesla, Thomas Edison was dull, inefficient and “money hungry.” Tesla was the genius, Edison the imposter.
They approached their work very differently:
Tesla’s Process
- Come up with some futuristic, idealistic idea
- Spend time experimenting and building it out (mostly in his own mind)
- Get a patent
- Try and find someone to finance and “market it for you”
Edison’s Process
- Pick a market that you understand.
- Find a better solution to an apparent need.
- Test test and test solutions out until it worked in real life.
- Get a patent
- Marshal resources until it reached adoption in the real world.
How following Tesla’s Process screwed me over.
I kept coming up with really cool ideas, ideas that I thought would change the world in amazing ways. I would go out, code them up, and then try and market them to the world. That usually meant a launch to crickets, $0 in revenue, and 0% change for good in the world.
You see, the problem is that Tesla’s Process is great for building things that work out well in your mind but not so great if you want to build things that work in reality.
“You know what’s better than building things up in your imagination? Building things up in real life.” -Ryan Holiday
Eventually I got fed up with this cycle and have decided to move over to Edison’s camp. I really don’t want to die penniless in some random hotel.
Edison’s way
“Edison blended invention with economics. His electric lighting system was designed to be an economic competitor with gas lighting.” -Wikipedia
You can’t actually make lasting change in the world or hope to have any level of success if you ignore the realities of economics and human nature. If you think that having a “great idea” is what matters most you are screwed.
In other words, you can only make lasting change and be successful if you get good at business.
That’s how Edison did it back then and that’s how people like Elon Musk, Jason Fried, and Mark Zuckerberg are doing it today.
So what about you? Are you going to succeed like Edison, or are you going to be like Tesla and eventually die without a dime in some hotel?