Many people believe that one of the surest ways to become rich is to become an inventor. And indeed many inventors have succeeded in accumulating personal wealth by selling their ingenuity.
But not all inventors are like that. In fact, some inventors end up empty-handed from the hard work they put in. This is due to various reasons, such as not having the capital to produce their findings, and their ideas or concepts being stolen before they can take a stand.
Well, here you will be met with 6 people who have geniuses but do not produce anything in the form of material. So make sure you read it to the end, okay?
1. Tim Berners-Lee
Without Tim Berners-Lee’s discovery, you probably wouldn’t be reading this article. Why? While working at CERN in the late 1980s, he wrote a proposal for a method of sharing hypertext documents over the Internet, creating what we know as the World Wide Web.
The network of websites has changed the way people live in the modern world, but unfortunately, Berners-Lee did not patent the concept. Instead, he released the protocol into practice, and it wasn’t long before everyone was using it.
He worked on the project to the fullest, albeit without getting paid a dime, and he eventually became a member of the Order of the British Empire in 2004.
2. Ron Klein
Ron Klein is one of the founders in the development of modern capitalism. He invented the magnetic stripe on the back of credit or debit cards as a scanning tool to withdraw money. The technology that Klein invented is similar to that of a reel-to-reel tape recorder. However, he never patented his magnetic stripe idea, so his invention was stolen by almost many companies.
3. John Walker
The idea of wooden lighters was actually invented in 1824 by an English chemist named John Walker. This discovery was made by accident when the sulfur paste was scratched on a rough surface and ignited a fire. However, Walker refused to patent his invention because he was concerned about the safety of his invention.
4. Daisuke Inoue
Karaoke is a modern industry that benefits many entrepreneurs, but it’s sad when the man who conceptualized and built the first karaoke machine never made a dime from his invention.
Daisuke Inoue was a drummer in a Japanese band bar, one day a man asked him to record a backing track so he could sing without the band, and karaoke was born.
In 1971, Inoue produced eleven Juke 8s, a standalone machine with an 8-track cassette player, microphone, and coin slot. He never patented the idea, and it wasn’t long before more sophisticated karaoke machines hit Tokyo.
5. Nick Holonyak, Jr.
Nick Holonyak is an engineer at General Electric. He worked with a group to get a diode to produce visible light. Holonyak suggested mixing gallium arsenide and gallium phosphide, but the idea was mocked by chemists.
But thanks to his ideas, the LED era was born. But Holonyak didn’t stop there, he worked at the University of Indiana to develop several other colored LEDs as well as the first quantum well laser (the kind used in CD players). And incandescent bulbs eventually went viral, even though he didn’t get royalties for every LED bulb that everyone bought.
6. Laszlo Biro
The Budapest-born inventor was a little frustrated with pen ink that took a long time to dry, so he developed it by making pigments that were thinner, and dried faster. What we know today as ballpoint pens, and first debuted in 1938. Unfortunately, his company ran into financial difficulties, eventually he was forced to sell his patents to Italian entrepreneur Marcel Bich.
Whatever the reason, they are proof that being an invention doesn’t always make a lot of money.