At first it seemed that Tesla's joining Edison was destined; both were so obsessed with bringing electricity to the people that they slept only hours every night, Edison taking short naps on the couch in his office and Tesla leaving Edison Machine Works at five in the morning to be back at 10:30 the same day. Their styles, however, were extremely different; Edison was self-taught, and relied on trial and error to perfect his ideas, believing that "invention is five percent inspiration and ninety-five percent perspiration." Tesla, on the other hand, had received a formal European education, and envisioned his inventions whole in his mind and then moved directly to construction. This seemingly effortless process must have irked Edison; when Tesla announced that the improvements Edison requested had been made and requested the money promised, Edison laughed in his face. He told Tesla that he had thought the renovations impossible, and therefore had offered an impossible sum of money in jest. "When you become a full-fledged American you will appreciate an American joke," Edison told Tesla. Tesla, infuriated, resigned immediately and took a job digging ditches to survive.
When Tesla's past and current employment became public knowledge, investors began to approach him, asking him for an improved method for arc lighting. At first he was hesitant because he had come to America to build and commercialize his alternating current motor, but they agreed to finance the Tesla Electric Light Company in return for his work on this project. Tesla set to work and created a new unique method of lighting that was both beautiful and efficient. However, the investors did not believe in Tesla's ideas about alternating current, and after the project they relieved him of his duties at the Tesla Electric Light Company. Although the only money Tesla saw from this was a pile of worthless stocks, the project got a lot of recognition, and A. K. Brown of the Western Union Company agreed to invest in Tesla's idea. Tesla quickly developed and assembled the components for the system of AC generation and transmission that is now used universally. Of the first motors built, Tesla said, "The motors I build there were exactly as I imagined them. I made no attempt to improve the design, but merely reproduced the pictures as they appeared to my vision and the operation was always as I expected." Tesla had finally found someone with enough faith in him to allow him to build the invention he had been holding in his head for years. Now the struggle to introduce it was about to begin.
