Matt Ridley’s book How Innovation Works is brimming with background on so many of the innovations (if not all the major ones) in the last few centuries. The stories are well told and each one often provides the opportunity to stress a singular feature that led to success. But I liked this quote about Samuel Morse in the Computing and Communications chapter.
Morse’s real achievement, like that of most innovators, was to battle his way through political and practical obstacles. As his biographer Kenneth Silverman put it:
Morse’s claims for himself as an innovator rest most convincingly on the part of his work he valued least, his dogged entrepreneurship. With stubborn longing, he brought his invention into the marketplace despite congressional indifference, frustrating delays, mechanical failures, family troubles, bickering partners, attacks by the press, protracted lawsuits, periods of depression.
Everybody likes the winner. Everybody likes to talk about that one moment in time when the magic happened and the invention came to fruition. But if you want to know why things aren’t going so well. then you have to look at the obstacles. Where do people see stop instead of go?
We are not only told that Morse was dogged in his pursuit, but where he stumbled. He wrestled with the government- regulatory. There were production delays and mechanical failures- workforce. He was held back due to family- personal support. Business partnerships were stained- ownership. Lawsuits- property rights. He suffered from depression- health.
Once people become famous they seem to only be identified by that accomplishment. Yet they too maneuvered through many of these same markets. Take someone like Bill Gates. His father was an attorney and his mother was a business woman. He had access to excellent advice and full family support from the garage where he tinkered with his creation. His mother is said to have been instrumental in securing his first contract with Microsoft.
Someone may have the best idea in the world, but without access to support in all areas of life, the chances of implementation would be slim.
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