Elevated innovation – the brakes that accelerated wealth?

Jason Spilkin | Co-Portfolio Manager | Credo | mail me |

Nobody likes a know-it-all. In Shirley Valentine, the British cult classic, a headmistress asks her class, “What is man’s greatest invention?” Answers fly – Sputnik, the Hoover, the aeroplane, the internal combustion engine. Shirley knows the answer but is ignored in favour of the usual teacher’s pets. Only when no raised hands remain does the headmistress relent: “Oh, very well, Shirley. You might as well get it wrong along with everybody else.”

Shirley doesn’t. “The wheel,” she says correctly, only to be met with laughter. The headmistress, humiliated, snaps back, “Someone must have told you!”

It’s an amusing scene, but Shirley was right. The wheel quietly transformed human progress, changing how we move, build, and lift. It reduced friction, extended distance, and enabled everything from carts to pulleys. It also set the stage for something less celebrated, but arguably just as essential to modern life – the elevator.

That’s where Otis comes in.

Elevating value

In 1852, Elisha Otis didn’t invent the elevator so much as make it safe, and therefore usable. His breakthrough, the “safety elevator”, introduced a braking mechanism – the overspeed governor, which used centrifugal force to halt the carriage if it moved too fast. Combined with guided rails, it eliminated the instability and danger that had made vertical transport impractical.

Without it, the modern city would not exist…

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