With Jobs gone, we need a new hero-inventor to worship. Such is life.
Seriously though, when I was a kid I would read about "famous scientists of old" every night. They were my rockstars. Edison, Watt, Lister, the list goes on. I had a book about them, their lives, their inventions. Everything. I must have read that book a thousand times before I was 14.
Then one day when I was 18 I visited the London technical museum. In it was a Watt exhibit. It said "Watt bought a lot of patents, he invented a few small things, but his main innovation was leasing steam engines instead of selling them."
It was then that I realized all those scientists of old I worship weren't scientists at all. They were good engineers. Excellent integrators of other people's inventions and work. Magnificent funders of scientists' work.
But most of all they were businessmen. Because it doesn't matter who invents a thing, what matters is who uses the thing to bring actual change to people.
It doesn't matter who invented the lightbulb. It matters who invented the electricity grid so people could actually use lightbulbs in their homes.
Seriously though, when I was a kid I would read about "famous scientists of old" every night. They were my rockstars. Edison, Watt, Lister, the list goes on. I had a book about them, their lives, their inventions. Everything. I must have read that book a thousand times before I was 14.
Then one day when I was 18 I visited the London technical museum. In it was a Watt exhibit. It said "Watt bought a lot of patents, he invented a few small things, but his main innovation was leasing steam engines instead of selling them."
It was then that I realized all those scientists of old I worship weren't scientists at all. They were good engineers. Excellent integrators of other people's inventions and work. Magnificent funders of scientists' work.
But most of all they were businessmen. Because it doesn't matter who invents a thing, what matters is who uses the thing to bring actual change to people.
It doesn't matter who invented the lightbulb. It matters who invented the electricity grid so people could actually use lightbulbs in their homes.