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The Myth of the Lone Inventor
Codex The Sloth writes "Malcolm Gladwell (who amongst other things, wrote "The Tipping Point") has written an article for the New Yorker claiming that the role of the lone inventor is over. The example of Philo T. Fransworth (the "inventor" of Television) who failed because (amongst other reasons) he didn't have the big resources of a company to allow him to focus on his innovations. The thesis is that it is rare to have a single innovation that makes a product workable and that getting all of the inovations together requires a (large) corporation. No doubt others feel different."
my dad has developed & built a number of successful inventions/innovations that have gone on to spawn businesses & corporations. the lone person model can work quite well.y pes.html
www.karadon.com (an invention/corporation that was built from an idea facet of one of his previous successful inventions)
www.geocities.com/spdrcrn1tr0/protot
not to say i haven't developed a number of items as well. screw the corporations, do it yourself
- tensions in our lives that are attacking our minds, unite themselves together to make our consciousness blind - op'ivy
The free software movement has proven that in order to invent something these days you absolutely need to stand on the shoulders of giants. But it's also proven that this level of collaboration doesn't need to be driven by a lumbering behemoth or the almighty dollar. Innovation and collaborative invention can also be motivated by sheer passion and sharing. This is the article's only major flaw.
Farnsworth is a poor example to use for this subject. He DID invent television mostly by himself without the benefit of a large corporation. What he didn't have as an individual was reasonable protection from RCA, whose goal was to monopolize the airwaves at all costs. When they couldn't buy him out, they harassed him with lawsuits and propaganda campaigns that repeatedly told people that RCA brought them TV. The real problem with lone inventors is that "those who have the gold make the rules". Few people, until recently, ever heard the story of Philo Farnsworth.
Another cool fact about Farnsworth is that he developed a working fusion device, called the Farnsworth fusor. It doesn't even come close to breakeven, but it does produce neutrons consistently.
Second you must have the manufacture/ marketing/ sales etc. This is the bailiwick of larger corporations.
Why must I have these things? To be successful? I think not. The only reason I can see for these (especially marketing) is for other people to profit--and then it is they, not I, who must have them.
Consider, for example, when I play piano. I do not have a recording contract, there is no marketing, and I don't care. Why? Because I have a darned good time and that's the reason I do it. Now, if someone wanted to make a buck off of my piano playing they'd have to spend a pile on marketing (as anyone who's heard me can attest). They would need the resources of a large corporation, but I don't.
-- MarkusQ
So Farnsworth didn't really have a commercializable technology. Worse, he got to the demo level during the Great Depression, a lousy time to get funding for a long-term R&D project.
It took RCA well over a decade to make television work commercially. It was hard to build a good TV camera tube.
If you look at the tube designs, you can see the problem. The image dissector had no light integration; only the light falling on the beam spot at the moment of scan was sensed. In other words, only one pixel time's worth of light contributed to the output signal. Farnsworth put in all the amplification he could, with a photomultiplier-like arrangement within the tube. But it wasn't enough.
Zworklin's Iconoscope integrated light over the whole frame time, but didn't amplify the output within the camera tube. That wasn't enough either.
It was clear that using both ideas together would help the sensitivity problem, but it took over a decade at RCA and elsewhere to make that work. Both approaches came together in the image orthicon, which was big, expensive, complicated, and required lots of support electronics, but delivered a good image. The sort of thing you'd expect from a big industrial research lab.
The story about Sarnoff and the Titanic is a myth, a legend out of the mind of ... Sarnoff.
Quoth the poster:
Legal reform for this problem made simple: The loosing [sic] party pays ALL legal expenses for ALL parties!....just think...no more nuiscense [sic] suits,
While this might sound like a good idea on the surface, it would in fact have a devastating effect on the justice system. Even the most seemingly ironclad lawsuit is a crapshoot when taken before a judge. Law is a game of subtleties and minutiae; further more, it is inherently subjective. The mere fact that claims are contested is evidence of this: a case that seems airtight to a plaintiff is scoffed at by the defendant. The judge listens to the arguments as presented by each side (in effect, making the skill of the argument part of the case, for better or for worse), and renders his decision based on his legal training, precedent, his experiences, his ideology (again, for better or for worse), and a whole host of other factors. These factors introduce an element of chance into the proceedings, an element which one cannot discount.
What does this mean? It means that even the most solid case, argued by the most skilled attorney, can be lost. Now, if you make the loser pay the legal fees for both sides, then you are putting a potential plaintiff in the position of having to pay legal fees on a case that may have been perfectly legitimate, but cursed by bad luck; this problem is compounded by the fact that with the loser paying, both parties would have incentive to hire the best attorney possible: if a better attorney can win the case for you, and you won't have to pay if you win, then it is absolutely to your advantage to hire somebody better. This would inevitably lead to a chilling effect on lawsuits. While that may be viewed as desirable, the chill would extend not just to frivilous suits, but to legitimate suits as well.
Also consider enforcement: if Microsoft were found to be using code from the Linux kernel, and Linus decided to file suit against Microsoft, how would he be held to pay if he should lose? Would he be required to post funds in advance in escrow, in case he loses? How much should he post? Microsoft has quite a legal team. What if MS decided to hire additional lawyers, or specialists? Perhaps expert witnesses? Should Linus pony up every time they add a staffer to the payroll? If you institute a policy like this, quashing a lawsuit would be as easy as hiring everybody you know. The other options would be to make them pay afterward (what if they don't have the money), or require some sort of legal insurance (equally expensive).
Short answer is that, while it may seem attractive, having the loser pay the winner's legal fees, it would have dramatic negative consequences. A better idea, perhaps, would be to have a two-tiered system: bring your case before the court, the judge listens to the synopses. If your case fails a "straight-face" test, he can instruct you to pay the defendant's legal fees. If you pass the "straight-face" test, you move on to the trial court, and follow the current rules. This is, in fact, a derivative of the criminal system: before the trial, the prosecution must get an indictment. The indictment forces the prosecution to show some sufficient cause to believe that you committed a crime, before you go to trial. Incidentally, even now, there are some provisions for making the the loser pay the winner's legal fees; legal fees can be included in a judgement. This is just used semi-sparingly, to prevent the effects mentioned above.
Just for the record, I am not a lawyer, so feel free to correct me anywhere I missed a detail. My dad is, though (Oklahoma, Ohio, and Federal bar (USAF)), and we've discussed this at length. He's disgusted with the legal industry, too. :-)
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca
These days Swan is airbrushed out of the story in the States.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
ARM are a smallish bunch of guys based in the UK, they "think" for a living, then sell the ideas to the rest of the industry.
So IP based companies can work, and leave the heavy lifting to others.
In the world of outsourcing this is a common model, and ARM are probably the best examples of how to be an ideas company.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi