My immediate thought on this comment was of was Steve Jobs but I’ve backed off a bit. The man seems to have been a bit of an asshole to some, the stories are numerous, but in some ways he seems different.

I think mostly because he didn’t seem devious, or self serving, just blunt and his mission was to the company or product more so than to himself.

Steve’s overriding mission was to the customer. He used his own taste as a proxy for customer goals.

Hi died relatively young and before the general tech backlash, which is why people look back at him fondly. Had he lived, he would've been taken down many notches. I mean, rich asshole who verbally abuses and berates his staff, upgrades his Benz every six months so he doesn't need a license plate like the plebs AND parks exclusively in the disabled spot? That was never gonna fly.

> Better to be a thomas edison than a tesla

A great example of why America is in social and political decline. The base nihilism of the con man figure is now the quintessential American aspiration.

Truly, a man that died penniless while spouting rather fanciful and discredited claims of superweapons (earthquake machines, intercontinental death rays, for two) is clearly the man to emulate.

Yes. Who would want to be the genius who discovered a revolutionary paradigm in energy transmission and created numerous world-changing inventions when you could be the rich asshole who ripped him off?

And also who claimed to have invented a telephone that talked to the dead[0], btw.

[0]https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/dial-a-ghost-on-thomas...

Truly, the psychopath torturing animals with live current in public is the man to emulate!

Never happened, that's an urban legend

>Eventually, Edison’s team would kill 44 dogs, six calves, and two horses in their quest to discredit alternating current.

https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/the-cruel-animal...

Okay, I might have to mea culpa here, as I thought it was a reference to the infamous Topsy the elephant, which Edison was not involved with.