WAITING FOR THE GREAT IDEA MIGHT BE A BAD IDEA In all, only three of the visionary companies began

life with the benefit of a specific, innovative, and highly suc cessful initial product or service a great idea : Johnson & Johnson, General Electric , and Ford. And even in the GE and Ford cases, we found some slight dents in the great idea theory. At GE, Edison s great idea turned out to be inferior to Westin ghouse s great idea. Edison pursued direct current (DC) system, whereas Westinghou se promoted the vastly superior alternating current (AC) system, which eventuall y prevailed in the U.S. market.29 In Ford s case, contrary to popular mythology, H enry Ford didn t come up with the idea of the Model T and then decide to start a c ompany around that idea. Just the opposite. Ford was able to take full advantage of the Model T concept because he already had a company in place as a launching pad. He founded the Ford Motor Company in 1903 to capitalize on his automotive engineering talent his third company in as many years and introduced five models (Mo dels A, B, C, F, and K) before he launched the famous Model T in October of 1908 .30 Jim Collins. Built to Last (Kindle Locations 753-762). HarperCollins US.