He was an towering intellect and positively influenced any situation he was placed in - the odometer, the mapping of the gulf stream, counterfeit detection for paper bills are so far removed from his background in publishing, and later role as statesman - I can't think of anyone since who had such an striking impact; certainly no contemporary leaders who will be remembered so fondly 200 years from today.
We ask for people to be more and more specialized. But problem-solving skills are a lot more universal than the specialization frenzy of today assumes.
I think the biggest hurdle to having universal geniuses nowadays is being allowed to work on problems where you're not certified or specifically educated on them in some sense.
We don't just let anybody have a crack at a problem anymore. How can you work on an odometer if you're not an automotive engineer? How can you work on anti-counterfeit measures if you're not a fraud expert?
IMO problem-solving abilities don't merely work well across disciplines, you might actually be able to detect similarities between problems across domains if you've worked on both domains.
But we can't let that happen. Stay in your lane.
It was quite interesting. He was talented and accomplished in many ways.
His famous letter to a young man on the pros and cons of marriage vs. choosing a mistress was interesting and highly controversial, probably both at that period, and also in later decades and centuries.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Benjamin+Franklin+essay+to+a...
A few of the search results:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advice_to_a_Friend_on_Choosi...
https://web.viu.ca/davies/H320/Franklin.advice.mistress.htm
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-03-02-00...
I found his style very modern - it reads really well even today.
I remember reading his Autobiography as a young student and I was thinking - well, if this is the kind of people who where the Founding Fathers, then no wonders US became a world superpower.
Another recommended read would be the 'newer' version - by another big thinker, inspired by Franklin - Charlie's Munger 'Poor Charlie'a Almanack':
1) seeding his former apprentices with funding in exchange for a small amount of equity in their new printing ventures, 2) forming non-profit organizations to address public needs (such as subscription libraries, fire departments, and street sweepers) 3) forming groups of like minded tradespeople who were interested in improving themselves and their communities through ventures like 1) and 2)
...then one might even say that Benjamin Franklin was a kind of 18th century YCombinator
I'm curious to know when Y Combinator did this.
I also learned a lot of interesting history they don't teach in school, like how he was involved with an effort to form an alliance between the English colonies and the Iroquois Confederacy for the defense of North America but the collective colonial governments rejected the alliance and favoured bringing in overseas troops to conquer the Iroquois instead. He was a really smart guy as well as a self-righteous pompous prick, and he would certainly not have fit into today's USA what with his "radical left" "socialist" "woke" views. Not sure he fit into his contemporary society either because of those views.