"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."
-Thomas Edison
Edison made his fortune as a result of his willingness to get his hands dirty and get to work. He was in New York, looking for ways to make money to help his ailing mother. He noticed a group of people gathered around a broken stock ticker, and was probably astonished at their inability or unwillingness to try and fix it. He stepped up, examined it, replaced a loose spring, and voila! The owner of the ticker was so impressed he offered him a job to maintain all their mechanical equipment, for a hefty salary of $300 per month. According to this inflation calculator, that's roughly the equivalent of $5,000 per month in today's dollars. Not bad! Moreover, this new foray into stock tickers led to the sale of one of his stock ticker patents for $40,000. That's $665,000 in today's dollars! That chunk of capital funded his invention factory that changed the world.
Biographical and quote sources: biography.com and thomasedison.com.
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Wow. That story makes it seem so simple. Maybe it's because Edison was so darn genius, or because he was in the right place at the right time, or both... but my story differs SO much, and it's not for a lack of effort. Nevertheless, it was interesting.
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