Scientist · Austrian Empire (now Croatia) / United States

Nikola Tesla

He dug ditches for $2 a day, licensed his AC motor to Westinghouse two years later, and spent his old age leaving hotels with unpaid bills.

01 / At a glance

Born: 10 July 1856, Smiljan, Austrian Empire (now Croatia)
Died: 7 January 1943, alone in his room at the Hotel New Yorker, New York, aged 86
Education: Technical College in Graz; left in December 1878 without a degree
After Graz: Draftsman in Maribor, 60 florins a month
Lowest point: Ditch digger, $2 a day, 1886
Big deal: Westinghouse licence, July 1888: $60,000 in cash and stock plus $2.50 per horsepower
Known for: AC induction motor, polyphase AC system, Tesla coil
Biggest bet: Wardenclyffe Tower, Shoreham, New York (begun 1901; work stopped around 1905–06)
Honours: AIEE Edison Medal (1916); the SI unit of magnetic flux density named the tesla (1960)
The question his life answers: What is a great idea worth if you can't make it pay?

Born on 10 July 1856 in Smiljan, a village in the Austrian Empire, now in Croatia. His father Milutin was an Orthodox priest.[1]
His mother Đuka never went to school but made her own tools and devices. "My mother was an inventor of the first order," he wrote.[1][2]
His father wanted him to join the clergy. "I longed to be an engineer but my father was inflexible."[2]
In 1873 he caught cholera and was in bed for nine months. Near death, he told his father: "Perhaps I may get well if you will let me study engineering." His father promised to send him to "the best technical institution in the world".[1][2]

He went to Graz on a scholarship in 1875. The dean wrote to his father: "Your son is a star of first rank." By his third year he was failing, and he left in December 1878 without a degree.[1]
His family did not hear from him after he left. A classmate found him in Maribor in January 1879, working as a draftsman for 60 florins a month. His father died in April 1879.[1]
He then worked at the Budapest Telephone Exchange (1881) and Continental Edison in Paris (1882), and moved to New York in June 1884 to work at the Edison Machine Works.[1]
He quit after about six months. Why is unclear. In his autobiography he said the manager promised him $50,000 for redesigning machines, but "it turned out to be a practical joke". His diary note: "Good By to the Edison Machine Works".[1][2]
In 1886 the investors in his first company, an electric lighting firm, dropped it to run a utility instead. That left him penniless, and he lost control of the patents he had assigned to it. He took electrical repair jobs and dug ditches for $2 a day. He later wrote: "My high education in various branches of science, mechanics and literature seemed to me like a mockery".[1]

Walking in Budapest's City Park and reciting Goethe, he later wrote, the idea for his motor "came like a flash of lightning". He drew the diagrams in the sand with a stick.[2]
Two businessmen, Alfred Brown and Charles Peck, set up the Tesla Electric Company with him in April 1887.[1]
He showed his AC induction motor to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in May 1888.[1]
In July 1888 Brown and Peck negotiated a licence with George Westinghouse for the motor and transformer designs: $60,000 in cash and stock plus $2.50 for every horsepower it produced.[1]

The financial panic of 1890 hit Westinghouse. Its new lenders wanted the Tesla royalty cut, and Tesla agreed to drop it.[1]
Westinghouse later bought the patent outright for a lump sum of $216,000.[1]
Westinghouse lit the 1893 Chicago world's fair with AC. Tesla advised on Niagara Falls, and Westinghouse won the contract to build the generators there.[1]
On 13 March 1895 a fire destroyed his lab, with notes, models and demonstration pieces. "I am in too much grief to talk. What can I say?"[1]

John Jacob Astor IV put in $100,000 for his wireless experiments. In March 1901 J. P. Morgan put in $150,000 for a wireless tower on Long Island.[1][3]
In December 1901 Marconi sent the letter S by radio from England to Newfoundland. Investors moved to Marconi, and Tesla's project stopped in 1905.[1]
He mortgaged Wardenclyffe to the owner of the Waldorf-Astoria to cover his bills at the hotel.[3]
He could not keep up the payments. From 4 July 1917 the tower was dynamited for scrap.[3]

By 1915 he was effectively bankrupt.[1]
Unpaid bills got him evicted from the St. Regis in 1923. He had to leave the Hotel Pennsylvania in 1930 and the Hotel Governor Clinton in 1934.[1]
From 1934 Westinghouse paid him $125 a month and covered his rent at the Hotel New Yorker.[1]
A taxi hit him in 1937 and he never fully recovered. He died alone in his room on 7 January 1943, aged 86.[1]
In 1960 the SI unit of magnetic flux density was named the tesla.[1]

Keep hold of what you invent. He signed his first patents over to investors and lost them.
Get paid in a way that survives a bad year. His royalty could have made him rich, and he gave it up during one crisis.
Make sure the money lasts until it works. Wardenclyffe ran out of funding and never became operational.
Back up your work. One fire destroyed his early notes, research material and models.
A bad job is not the end. Two years after digging ditches, he was licensing his motor to Westinghouse.

Tesla (2016) | Full Documentary | American Experience
PBS America
The full PBS American Experience film on his life (2016).
Watch on YouTube
Tesla, Chapter 1
American Experience | PBS
First chapter of the PBS American Experience Tesla film, on PBS's own channel.
Watch on YouTube
Idea and Illusion: The Rise and Fall of Nikola Tesla - W.B. Carlson - 11/12/2020
caltech
Tesla biographer W. Bernard Carlson's Caltech lecture on Tesla's rise and fall.
Watch on YouTube
Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age | Bernard Carlson | Talks at Google
Talks at Google
Tesla biographer W. Bernard Carlson on his book about Tesla, at Google.
Watch on YouTube