Americans are innovative, particularly those who do not go to college. College tends to teach you what things are impossible. Learning how to make do or do without tends to teach one how to think and innovate.
The following story demonstrates what I mean: in the 1920s a graduate student at Princeton wrote a thesis on why it was physically impossible to build radio tuning coils small enough to create an automobile radio.
A self-taught man, not knowing it was impossible, went ahead and did it.
“...Tuning coils in the radio frequency stage of a set were rather large and [Bill] Lear knew how to reduce their size by using Litz wire. Wire braided from many fine strands has a large surface area giving it high conductivity at radio frequency. Lear borrowed $5,000 from his friend Algot Olson to make machines to wrap the strands, braid the wire, and wind the coils. The industry was set up in the basement of his mother’s old house on 65th street, and done with assistance of Don Mitchell, a railroad electrician. Lear called the company, Radio Coil and Wire Corporation. They took an order of 50,000 coils from Eugene F. McDonald of Zenith Electronics when they demonstrated them. These small coils were one-quarter the size of coils with solid wire.”
Yes, it is the Lear of Lear Jet fame. Bill Lear never graduated from high school, yet he was a lifelong inventor. And the fellow from Princeton? I can never remember his name!
Well said.
That illustrates exactly the greatness of America and Americans. Its how we are wired to think and to believe in ourselves.
When children in other parts of the world are asking “Why?” a child in America playing with his toy rockets and chemistry set is asking “Why Not?”
Culture, religion, politics, hierarchy, cronyism absolutely inhibits innovation.
great story, thank you for sharing
There are many examples of inspiring stories like this. But I tend to think these are the exceptions rather than the rule. And I'm willing to bet most of the people doing the design and engineering at Learjet have college degrees in Engineering.
And the same is true at Bill Gate's Microsoft. While Bill Gates never finished college, his company is full of the best and brightest who came from the best institutions in America and across the world.
And while there are the Bill Lear's, there are also many like Andy Groves, who got his Ph.D in Engineering and co-founded Intel Corp.
People who haven't gone to college can be innovative, but I think its stretch to say they are MORE innovative. Most marketable patents are developed in corporations and college institutions. And they are produced by people with advanced college degrees.
I do agree, that some innovations are best done outside of a college setting. Bill Ruger, for example, did something innovative by building gun parts out of cast steel instead of forged steel. But I hardly think that is comparable, in the grand scheme of things, to tens of thousands of engineers developing a smaller and smaller CPU at Intel.