# Which great inventor was the best businessman?

> Having the idea is one job. Owning it, pricing it and keeping the factory open is another, and these sixteen were wildly uneven at the second one.

*By YPB Team · Published September 1, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/which-great-inventor-was-the-best-businessman*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Nikola Tesla** — score 1000/1000
   Tore up his AC royalty contract with Westinghouse and died owing money to a New York hotel.
2. **Thomas Edison** — score 898/1000
   Built a research lab as a business, held 1,093 US patents and founded the company that became General Electric.
3. **Henry Ford** — score 898/1000
   Did not invent the car; invented the moving assembly line and the price point that put America on wheels.
4. **Isaac Singer** — score 659/1000
   Did not invent the sewing machine but invented hire purchase to sell it.
5. **John Deere** — score 659/1000
   A blacksmith whose self-scouring steel plough turned into a company still farming the Midwest.
6. **Alfred Nobel** — score 571/1000
   Ran a dynamite empire across twenty countries and spent the proceeds on a prize.
7. **George Westinghouse** — score 467/1000
   Made his first fortune from the railway air brake, then bet it all on alternating current.
8. **King C. Gillette** — score 467/1000
   Worked out that the money was in the blades, not the razor.
9. **Samuel Colt** — score 467/1000
   Built interchangeable-parts manufacturing and one of the first global arms brands.
10. **Cyrus McCormick** — score 467/1000
   Sold his mechanical reaper on credit to farmers who had none, and built International Harvester.
11. **Elisha Otis** — score 467/1000
   Demonstrated his safety brake by cutting the rope himself, and sold the vertical city.
12. **Guglielmo Marconi** — score 343/1000
   Turned radio into a shipping and naval service business before anyone else saw the market.
13. **George Eastman** — score 343/1000
   Sold cameras cheap and film dear, and invented the consumer photography business in the process.
14. **Charles Goodyear** — score 343/1000
   Discovered vulcanised rubber and died about $200,000 in debt.
15. **Werner von Siemens** — score 343/1000
   Founded an electrical firm in a Berlin backyard that is still a global industrial giant.
16. **Alexander Graham Bell** — score 190/1000
   His 1876 telephone patent became the foundation of the largest company in the world.

Tags: historical-figures, science, inventors