Needless to say, historians now believe that Edison himself did not make any truly original inventions. His light bulb, for instance, essentially cribbed Joseph Swan's incandescent lamp and Lewis Latimer's filament. (204p)
From William Duggan, translated by Kwon O-yeol, How Do You Claim the Future? (BusinessMap)
"If I find 10,000 ways that don't work, I haven't failed. I'm not discouraged. Because every rejected wrong attempt is another step forward." "In the world of commerce and industry, everybody steals. I've stolen plenty myself. I know how to steal. But they don't know how to steal." Both of these are Thomas Edison's words. He's describing his method of 'creation.' The author brings these two quotes together like this: "First we 'steal' from others, and then we make new combinations. If that fails, the search starts again and we try another combination. This process continues until we find a successful combination." The author says this is different from 'trial and error.' It's not mere trial and error but a 'repeating process of hunt–combine–try.' A useful way of expressing the 'process of creation' that we can refer to when we're making something.
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