The Goodyear Story

Charles Goodyear spent years and most of his family’s security chasing a way to make rubber stable in heat and cold, stumbled onto vulcanisation, and then spent the rest of his life litigating the patent while other people got rich off it — including the tyre company that later took his name without ever employing him. Korman’s telling is an inventor’s-obsession story and, underneath it, a case study in the gap between inventing something and capturing its value.

Why it’s on the list: One of the 46 titles on @mastersinvest’s 2025 reading list — not bold, so read but not singled out as very good.

Where I saw it: @mastersinvest’s “2025 Reading … so far” list, August 20, 2025. The full 46-title list is transcribed on 2025 Reading So Far… (tweet).

Connections

• 2025 Reading So Far… (tweet) — the list this came from.
• Patents — Goodyear’s patent fights are the spine of the second half of the book.
• Intellectual Property — an early, brutal illustration of invention without value capture.