Edison: Large, Corporate Laboratories Not Amenable to Great Inventions
“Some time after his visit to the General Electric Laboratory, Edison, old free lance that he was, shook his head and declared that the ‘corporation laboratory’ would not do. The inventor was now a ‘hired person’ for the corporation, assigning to it all his patents; such men now worked in large groups and held many conferences. The ‘weight of organization’ was too great, Edison observed shrewdly; and the results, he predicted would not be as rich as in the case of individual inventors working in small organizations. In truth, inventive and development work at the great corporate laboratories of the United States between 1900 and 1940 has been judged unremarkable by scientists themselves. However, the richest results seem to have been reached where some leading personality, both inspired and tenacious, directed a small group toward the objective.” (p. 467)