“They become indentured to the idea of punctuality. That begins to spread. By 1880 or so, there is a change in society where you are now expected to be punctual, you are expected to be places.”
In 1876, two Swiss spies came to America and conducted some of the most covert and consequential industrial espionage in history. It changed the course of the global watch industry forever. Aaron Stark, a former Apache pilot and economics professor, chronicles the story his new book, Disrupting Time: Industrial combat, espionage, and the downfall of a great American company. In this podcast with Sinead O’Sullivan, Stark talks about the story, the history of watches, and what it says about the nature of innovation.
