You know their creations but these inventors aren’t proud of their handiwork.
Victor Gruen: The Shopping Mall
Designed to mimic town squares with shops and schools. Gruen despised what malls became.
John Sylvan: Keurig K-cup
10 billion non-biodegradable k-cups clutter landfills, something Sylvan is ashamed of.
Orville Wright: Co-inventor of the Airplane
Wright didn’t envision the airplane as a weapon. The role it played in both World Wars horrified him.
Philo Farnsworth: The Television
Television was meant to be an educational tool, but Farnsworth saw it as a time-wasting monster.
Robert Propst: The Office Cubicle
Companies bastardized the original cubicle idea, leading Propst to call them “monolithic insanity”
Anna Jarvis: Mother’s Day
The uber-commercialization of a well-intended gesture meant to honour all mothers infuriated Jarvis.
Mikhail Kalashnikov: The AK-47
250,000 people die yearly from AK-47 wounds. Before his death, Kalashnikov wrote saying he felt responsible.
J. Robert Oppenheimer: The Atomic Bomb
Speaking to Harry Truman in 1945, Oppenheimer said, “Mr. President, I feel I have blood on my hands”
Alfred Nobel: Dynamite
Nobel created the Peace Prize bering his name out of guilt for his deadliest invention.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee: The HTP Forward Slashes
Internet pioneed Berners-Lee thinks his “//” in web domains is an unnecessary and useless time waster