Are you like Edison or Tesla?

One of the great stories of engineering history is of Edison and Tesla.  Much virtual ink has been spilled in arguing over which was the better engineer, Edison or Tesla.  There's also a popular concept, at least among engineers and nerds, that Tesla was a genius and Edison was an evil villain who stole ideas and oppressed Tesla.  Tesla was forced to leave Edison's company and was never able to financially capitalize on his amazing inventions.  This thesis usually ends with the classic line that "Tesla died penniless and alone."

An interesting part of the story is their differing personalities and engineering styles.  These differences lead to conflict when they worked together and ultimately, they could not get along.
Edison was a great technology visionary and inventor.  He had strong business and communication skills, thus was able to raise money for his businesses and popularize his ideas.  He built a large team to research and development projects; completing thousands of experiments and optimizing a design.  He's the inventor of the light bulb and phonograph, founder of General Electric Corporation, holder of 1,093 patents.  He developed and improved the telephone and telegraph into everyday machines.

Tesla was a brilliant scientist and engineer.  He worked out amazing ideas and plans by himself and had a vision for inventions way ahead of his time.  He invented the AC motor, AC power transmission (the basis for modern power grids), radio, the remote control, hydroelectric power plants.  Some say he predicted solar energy, ocean wave energy, interplanetary communications and electronic satellites.  He was primarily interested in ideas, science and inventions.  He had little interest in business maneuverings to make money from his inventions.

TESLA STUDYING

The central story of Edison and Tesla's conflict is AC vs. DC power; the "War of the Currents."  Edison had developed and invested in a DC power distribution system for his lightbulbs and other electric-powered devices.  For electric motors, Edison favored DC current, which necessitated a long tube of magnets and linear motion for the mechanical power of the motor.  Tesla, while working with Edison, focused on AC power transmission and AC motors.  He postulated that a round structure with AC current was the best choice for motors.  Edison demanded that DC current was the best power system, while Tesla calculated that AC power was far superior for sending electrical energy over long distances.  The two clashed on this projected and ultimately could not work together.  In a few years Tesla joined Westinghouse, and won the war of the currents with AC motors and transformers.  History shows that Tesla was right about motors and power over long distances, and, to be fair, Edison was right that DC power is extremely useful for powering devices.

It is said that after Tesla proved the AC motor concept at Westinghouse, Edison still could have completed development of the AC motor at GE.  But he was too stubborn and continued working on the long, thin DC motor.  Meanwhile, Tesla helped Westinghouse grow into a massive, successful corporation.  Of course, Edison and General Electric found success with many other products and inventions.  So they both did well.

Let's dig into their personalities a bit more.  Edison was an optimizer and a driver.  He took ideas, experimented and improved them until they worked well.  He built a research and development group and pushed them to grind through many interations and make improvements until a product was viable.  He invented, or at least popularized, the modern corporate structure of research and development teams.  Tesla once said if Edison had to find a needle in a haystack, "he would simply pick up each piece of straw till he found the needle." (From Tesla, I assume this was not a compliment.)

EDISON EXPERIMENTING

Tesla was a brilliant scientist and futurist.  He could envision and invent things that few others could see.  His ideas were big and disruptive.  He was opinionated and eccentric.  He often worked alone with minimal notes, similar to the stereotype of a mad scientist.  With the aforementioned needle in a haystack problem, Tesla would likely think about it for weeks, and spend lots of money building equipment.  Then he would turn on the giant magnetic that he built, and instantly pull the needle out of the haystack.

Let's summarize their personality traits.

EDISON CHARACTERISTICS
What's good?
Optimizer, driver, build a team, make a product, make profit, persevere, able to persuade others to see his vision

What's bad?
Aggressive to make himself look bad and others look bad, stubborn, slow to admit he's wrong

TESLA CHARACTERISTICS
What's good?
brillant engineer and futurist, generator of big, disruptive ideas, technically correct most of the time

What's bad?
struggled to turn inventions into practical products, unwilling/unable to communicate his ideas to others, was not good at working in teams

So, which one do you identify with the most?  Which one do you wish you were more like?  How can we learn from each of them?

Imagine if Edison and Tesla found a way to work together well?  They could have built Edison-Tesla Corp; the combination of GE, Westinghouse and Motorola all rolled into one company.  Imagine if Edison supported Tesla's AC motor idea and pursued it when the concept was proven?  Imagine if Edison was a little more flexible with Tesla and allowed him to explore more of his ideas.  Imagine if Tesla was able to communicate the AC motor idea in a way that Edison could understand? Imagine if Tesla was able to make some explanations or side experiments, just to help Edison see the value of the AC motor?

If Edison and Tesla had found a way to work together, they could have built Tesla cars 100 years before Elon Musk !