….if you've heard this one before. From a story that ran in the Investor's Business Daily last week:
In 1929, Sarnoff secretly hired Vladimir Zworykin, an engineer and head of TV research at Westinghouse, where he worked on an electronic scanning system for a prototype TV.
The Russian immigrant soon hopped from Philadelphia to San Francisco to meet Farnsworth.
Strapped for cash and hoping Westinghouse would invest in his firm, Farnsworth agreed to the visit. He didn't know Zworykin was on an intelligence-gathering mission for Sarnoff.
During his three days on the West Coast, Zworykin picked up Farnsworth's prized invention, the world's first electronic TV camera, and marveled at the work.
"He calls it fascinating and remarks that he didn't think it could be done," Schatzkin said.
Farnsworth's reply? "We didn't know it couldn't be done, so we just went ahead and did it."