My friends know that I love stories about how just one good idea can support a family for a generation, maybe more. I'm thinking of the guy who learned how to keep Boston cream pie from going sticky in the pan. Or the one who stitched up the sides of a piece of soft cloth, put it together with a can of polish and sold it to the hotel chain as a shoeshine kit. Or the guy who bought real estate along Route 19 back when it ran through a cow pasture.
Here's another. My friend Russell trained as a chemist. By his own count, he has 36 patents. But for practical purposes, he has only one: the Pink Panther. That's right folks, Russell is the man who provided the Pink. He was employed by a big chemical company: he conjured up just the color they wanted.
American companies, of course, barely thank you for that kind of thing: you get a pat on the head, maybe a crisp new dollar bill. Russell had the good sense to work for a European firm, where the practice was to cut the inventor in for 10 percent of the take. The project occupied, Russell admits, only a moment in his long professional life. The checks kept coming for about 17 years. "I've always said," says Russell, saying, "I only worked about two weeks in my entire career."
Here's another. My friend Russell trained as a chemist. By his own count, he has 36 patents. But for practical purposes, he has only one: the Pink Panther. That's right folks, Russell is the man who provided the Pink. He was employed by a big chemical company: he conjured up just the color they wanted.
American companies, of course, barely thank you for that kind of thing: you get a pat on the head, maybe a crisp new dollar bill. Russell had the good sense to work for a European firm, where the practice was to cut the inventor in for 10 percent of the take. The project occupied, Russell admits, only a moment in his long professional life. The checks kept coming for about 17 years. "I've always said," says Russell, saying, "I only worked about two weeks in my entire career."
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