Management Hall of Fame: Leading Management Gurus
Thomas Edison
General
Electric GE - The Business of Invention (1847-1931)
- "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent
perspiration" (Thomas Edison)
Key Work
Inventor & Businessman - A Rare
Combination
- Sells newspapers on the Grand Trunk Railway.
- Works as a telegraph operator; travels across the United States.
- Patents his first invention, an electric vote recorder.
- Takes up inventing full time. Starts his
first business, making telegraph equipment.
- Opens a factory and laboratory - Thus
creating the first product research lab
- Then Develop quadruplex system for the
telegraph, Invents the phonograph & develops the first commercially viable electric light bulb.
- Opens Pearl Street Central Power Station in New York City.
- Forms Edison General Electric, and invents the Kinetograph (an early
motion picture camera).
- Edison General Electric merges with Thomson-Houston to
become General
Electric. Edison sells his interest.
- Invents a nickel-iron-alkaline storage battery.
- By end of his career he started up or controlled
13 major companies.
- He is recognize the genius of his times
and credited with life changing inventions. By the end of his life Edison had accumulated 1,093 U.S. and 1,300 foreign patents.
- He was also a pragmatic business man who
realized the innovation alone was not sufficient
- He understood the value of intellectual property
as an assets and made effective use of to patenting
- He understood the importance of entrepreneurship
and that commercial success. and that he needed business partner
Books & References:
IIM Executive Education & Management Training
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. New York: Hyperion, 1995.