Thomas Edison’s Entrepreneurial Resilience Losses Lead to Legacy
The ability to overcome failure is the mark of a true business leader.
If you rely on the version of Edison’s life found in most school textbooks, he was a maverick in the science world and one of history’s most prolific and celebrated inventors. While that narrative is certainly indisputable, a deeper examination of the man’s life and career uncovers just as many potentially devastating failures as pivotal successes. For example, let’s examine how Edison recovered from a substantial financial loss in the late 1800s. An avid user of iron in many of the 1,000-plus patented inventions credited to him in his lifetime, he became concerned once the cost of the mineral began to rise. Looking for a long-term solution to escalating expenses, he invested millions of dollars and several years into creating and operating his own iron mine near Ogdensburg, New Jersey. Already grappling with production costs, the self-financed endeavor suffered a fatal blow when the emergence of
operations in the Midwest, which used less expensive iron ore, drove down the price of the mineral nationwide. This change left Edison to suffer the worst economic failure of his lifetime. Undeterred, Edison moved forward, finding inspiration from a surprising source. Before the collapse of his iron mine, he helped finance its operation by selling waste sand to area cement companies. Seeing the market potential in cement, he retained some of the equipment used at the mine and launched The Edison Portland Cement Company. The pivot paid off, as the company ultimately became a more financially sound investment and led to Edison becoming one of the most significant influences behind the widespread use of cement in our nation’s infrastructure.
Whether you manage a startup venture or lead a successful international corporation, your success is likely driven by resilience … and a willingness to fail. While the latter may seem counterintuitive, history is replete with intrepid individuals who refused to surrender their ambitions after one or more personal or financial setbacks. Few people exemplify this truth more than the Garden State’s own Thomas Edison.
The lesson? In the world of entrepreneurship, there is opportunity in all adversity.
JET Worldwide Enterprises Inc. Neuroscience Drives Safety
“As a current professor of neurology at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University and a former associate professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, New York, I study how the brain simultaneously integrates information across the visual and somatosensory systems (i.e., what we see and what we feel). “JET Worldwide Enterprises Inc. (“JWEI”) has developed a first-of- its-kind, quantitative fall-prediction app, called CatchU ® , based on over 15 years of neuroscientific research. Our vision is to raise awareness of fall risks, prevent falls before they happen and improve the well-being and lives of older adults and all people. Our mission is to become the standard of care for quantitatively predicting falls in older adults. “When I participated in the Westchester County Biosciences Accelerator, I was connected with a mentor who was a former vice president at Johnson & Johnson and later became a board member at JWEI. She has a longstanding collaborative
relationship with Philip Crowley and suggested that I reach out to him to discuss the legal needs for our venture. “Although I didn’t think that I required legal assistance before joining the accelerator, I quickly learned that I needed to consider ways to protect intellectual property and collaborate with my then-institution, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, upon launching JWEI. Before long, I was meeting with Phil regularly to discuss goals for establishing a C-Corp company and securing an exclusive license with Einstein. His sage advice was instrumental in helping craft that agreement. “Phil is a hardworking, dedicated and passionate lawyer who deeply appreciates the importance of science, medicine, health and people in general. His experience and expertise speak for themselves. I feel honored to be able to work with Phil.” –Jeannette R. Mahoney, Ph.D.
2 — CROWLEYLAWLLC.COM
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