史上50大商业对手：爱迪生vs.特斯拉

    师傅受到慢待，会比地狱之火还要可怕。1884年，举世闻名的发明家托马斯•爱迪生在他的纽约办公室和一位才华横溢的年轻工程师见了面，后者名叫尼古拉•特斯拉。他来自塞尔维亚，此前几年一直在爱迪生的巴黎分公司研究直流电。当时，爱迪生的直流电设备处于主宰地位。但特斯拉想出了一个新方法来使用交流电。和直流电不同，交流电可以长距离输送大量电力。据特斯拉称，爱迪生直斥他的想法是浪费时间，更别提使用高压电所具有的危险性。

    特斯拉为爱迪生设计出了几款产品，期待着后者能兑现给他5万美元奖金【约相当于今天的100万美元（627万元人民币）】的承诺。但特斯拉在1885年春天提及此事时，爱迪生却告诉他那只不过是个玩笑。特斯拉随即辞职。

    特斯拉开始自立门户，还获得了专利，甚至引起了匹兹堡工业大亨乔治•威斯丁豪斯的注意。威斯丁豪斯一直在悄悄地开发交流发电站。了解了特斯拉的技术后，威斯丁豪斯收购了他的专利，用西屋（Westinghouse）公司的力量为特斯拉提供支持。大战接踵而至。

    听到威斯丁豪斯涉足电力行业的消息，爱迪生哂笑不已。但很快，爱迪生就开始用令众人吃惊的演示来贬低交流电。为了让别人相信他的话，爱迪生电死了一些狗、牛和马，甚至还有一头大象。随后，他又倡导把交流电用在美国第一把执行死刑的电椅上。首例电椅死刑于1890年8月在纽约奥伯恩执行。这次死刑历时8分钟，而且尝试了两次才完成，场面极为可怖。对此，威斯丁豪斯只是冷冷地回应说：“用斧子执行都比这个强。”

    最终，特斯拉的交流电技术获得了胜利，而直流电和交流电之争成了美国历史上最重要的企业战争之一。1892年，爱迪生通用电气公司（Edison General Electric）和汤姆森-休斯顿电气公司（Thomson-Houston）强强联手，由它们合并而成的通用电气（GE）处处和威斯丁豪斯为敌。爱迪生和特斯拉辞世之后的很长一段时间里，两人的宿怨依然未消。直到20世纪80年代，通用电气正确地选择了杰克•韦尔奇担任首席执行官，威斯丁豪斯却在继任者问题上连犯了四次错误。20世纪90年代末，通用电气成为世界上价值最高的公司。而原来的西屋公司则已不复存在，现在这家同名公司的规模还不到通用电气的十分之一。

    获胜者：尼古拉•特斯拉（财富中文网）

    Hell hath no fury like a mentor scorned. In 1884 world-renowned inventor Thomas Edison welcomed a brilliant young Serbian engineer named Nikola Tesla into his New York office. Tesla had been working on direct current (DC) electricity in Edison's Paris division for a few years. Edison's DC apparatus reigned supreme at the time. But Tesla had conceived of a new method using alternating current (AC), which, unlike DC, could transmit significant amounts of power over long distances. According to Tesla, Edison dismissed his ideas as a waste of time, not to mention dangerous given the high voltage involved.

    Tesla designed several products for Edison, expecting to receive a promised $50,000 bonus for his efforts (about $1 million today). But when Tesla asked for his reward in the spring of 1885, Edison told him it had been a joke all along. Tesla quit.

    He struck out on his own, securing patents and catching the interest of Pittsburgh industrial titan George Westinghouse. Westinghouse had been quietly developing power stations using AC. Learning of Tesla's technology, he acquired his patents, putting the business might of the Westinghouse corporation behind the inventor. And the war came.

    When he heard that Westinghouse was moving into the electricity business, Edison ridiculed him. But it wasn't long before Edison was holding shocking public demonstrations to discredit AC power. To make his point, he electrocuted dogs, cows, horses, even an elephant. He then put his name behind an effort to use AC to power the first electric chair. The execution -- which took place in Auburn, N.Y., in August 1890, lasted eight minutes and required two attempts -- was a grisly affair. Westinghouse responded dryly, "They could have done it better with an axe."

    Ultimately Tesla's AC technology won the war, but the inventors' rivalry morphed into one of the greatest corporate battles in American history. A mega-merger of Edison General Electric and Thomson-Houston in 1892 created GE (GE, Fortune 500), which went toe-to-toe with Westinghouse. Long after Edison and Tesla died, their feud carried on until, in the 1980s, GE chose the right CEO (Jack Welch), while Westinghouse chose four successive wrong ones. By the late 1990s, GE was the most valuable company on earth. The original Westinghouse was no more; the current company with that name is less than one-tenth GE's size.

    Winner:Nikola Tesla