Edison being the guy who ripped off Tesla?
Yet, somehow it's popular to want to emulate Steve Jobs and rant about how mean Edison was to Tesla.
Edison's major inventions represented a difference in kind, not in degree, that drastically changed things for humanity. Think of how different life is as the result of recorded sound, the concept of an electric company or light bulbs for home use.
Job's products were often well designed incremental changes. Apple made computers consumer friendly, but they didn't invent the technology. They didn't invent the global telecommunications network that makes the iPhone useful either.
Edison was an Inventor with a capital I. Jobs was a truly great corporate executive.
My comment wasn't really meant to directly compare the two's accomplishments or contributions, just to point out that a lot of the popular criticism of Edison is somewhat unfair and could be equally applied to figures that (at least in popular history) have been borderline deified.
But, the ones that I attributed, at least half of them, I know to have had extensive work by Edison himself.
Edison, if I recall correctly, invented the screw-in electrical connector, the permanently sealed bulb, and a certain type of carbon filament. That's why when Edison refused to license his patents to Westinghouse for the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, the lights were stoppered instead of permanently sealed, with dual bayonet bases. They burnt out constantly, and that resulted in the contract being underbid, but the power to the fair was Westinghouse alternating current rather than Edison direct current, so it was a minor victory in the current war.
No, Edison did not invent the light bulb. But of all the people who contributed innovations to it, he was probably the best at manipulating public perceptions.