Thomas Edison — "I Found 10,000 Ways That Won't Work"

Thomas Edison left school after three months; the boy his teacher gave up on was educated by his mother. From a basement full of experiments came the incandescent lamp, the phonograph, motion pictures — over a thousand patents shaping modern life.

His filament hunt is synonymous with obsession: thousands of materials tested, scouts dispatched worldwide — one of the answers, memorably for us Japanese, being bamboo from Kyoto. And then the famous reply, when asked about his failures: "I have not failed. I've just found ten thousand ways that won't work."

Not bravado — a precise description of experimental thinking. Each way that won't work removes one candidate; it is solid progress. Whether you call it failure or data determines whether you can continue ten thousand times.

Our factory's three hundred prototypes a year are likewise a collection of ways that won't work — barely an opening chapter beside Edison's ten thousand.

What do you work for?