Mark: A police officer is shot at point-blank range. The bullet doesn't hit a vest; it hits his flashlight, and he walks away. That flashlight wasn't a government-issued super-gadget. It was invented by an immigrant machinist who started with just $150 and twenty English words. Michelle: Hold on, a flashlight stopped a bullet? That sounds like something out of a movie. That can't be real. Where does a story like that even come from? Mark: It's very real, and it comes from a fascinating and, I should say, a pretty provocative book. Today we’re diving into Who Built That: Unsung Heroes of American Innovation by Michelle Malkin. Michelle: Oh, Michelle Malkin. Okay, I know the name. She’s a very well-known conservative commentator. That adds a whole layer to this. Mark: It absolutely does. And she’s very upfront about her motivation for writing it. The book is a direct response to President Barack Obama's famous 2012 remark, "If you've got a business—you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen." Malkin uses these incredible stories of invention to champion the power of individual ingenuity over government-led innovation. Michelle: I see. So it’s part history lesson, part political treatise. That makes the stories even more compelling because they're being used to make a very specific point. I have to admit, you've got me hooked with the bulletproof flashlight. Let's start there. Who was this inventor?

Mark: His name is Tony Maglica, the creator of the Maglite flashlight. And his story is the embodiment of the "American Dream" that Malkin puts at the center of her book. He wasn't born into wealth or privilege. He was born in New York, but his mother took him back to her home country, Croatia, right before the Great Depression and World War II. Michelle: Wow, what timing. So he grew up in Europe during the war? Mark: Exactly. On a tiny, impoverished island called Zlarin. The book paints a harrowing picture. He and his mother faced constant hunger, hiding in forests to escape bombings. He watched German soldiers round up villagers, fearing they would be executed. It was a childhood defined by scarcity and survival. Michelle: That’s terrifying. It’s hard to imagine going from that to becoming a successful American inventor. How did he even get back to the U.S.? Mark: His mother pushed him. She saw no future for him there and encouraged him to return to the country of his birth. So in 1950, at the age of 20, he arrived in America. And this is the part that gets me: his total starting capital was $150 and a vocabulary of about twenty English words. He was a machinist by trade, but he had to take odd jobs, sleeping on a cot in a garage, just to get by. Michelle: That is the classic immigrant story. The grit and the struggle. But a lot of people have that story. What was it about him that allowed him to break through? Mark: Obsession. An absolute, relentless obsession with quality. He eventually saved up enough to buy a small lathe and started his own one-man machine shop in a garage in Los Angeles. He wasn't trying to build a billion-dollar company; he was just trying to make the best possible precision parts for his clients. He had this motto: "Why would you want to be associated with something that wasn’t the best?" Michelle: I like that. It’s a simple but powerful philosophy. So how does he get from making machine parts to inventing the Maglite? Mark: It was an evolution. He was making parts for other companies, and he saw the poor quality of the flashlights that were on the market at the time. They were flimsy, unreliable plastic things. As a machinist, he knew he could do better. He envisioned a flashlight built like a high-quality tool: durable, dependable, made from anodized aluminum. He tinkered and tinkered, perfecting every single component himself. Michelle: So he's the perfect example of this "tinkerpreneur" that Malkin talks about. He’s not some famous CEO or a venture-backed wunderkind. He’s a hands-on guy in a workshop, literally tinkering his way to a better product. Mark: Precisely. And that product, the Maglite, became legendary, especially with law enforcement and first responders. Which brings us back to that story from the beginning. It was December 4, 1992, in New Caney, Texas. A police officer responded to a domestic violence call. He and his sergeant kicked in the door, and the officer shone his Maglite down a dark hallway. Michelle: And he saw the subject? Mark: He saw the subject pointing a rifle directly at him. He started backing out, but the man fired. The bullet hit the officer right in the center of his chest. Michelle: Oh my god. Mark: But it didn't hit his body. It struck the Maglite he was holding. The flashlight absorbed the full impact of the .22-caliber rifle round. It was destroyed, but the officer was completely unharmed. The police department sent a letter to Maglite, crediting the flashlight with saving his life. Michelle: That is absolutely unbelievable. A testament to his obsession with quality. It wasn't just a slogan; it literally saved someone's life. Mark: And it's not an isolated incident. The book includes another incredible story from 9/11. An electrical contractor was working in the World Trade Center when the towers were hit. The power went out, the emergency lights failed, and the corridor filled with thick, choking dust. Total darkness, total chaos. Michelle: I can't even imagine the panic. Mark: He and about 25 other people were trapped. They couldn't see, they could barely breathe. But he remembered he had two Mini Maglites in his briefcase. He pulled them out, turned them on, and shone them against the wall. It was the only light they had. That small beam of light was enough to guide the entire group through the darkness to an exit, and they all escaped just before the building collapsed. Michelle: Wow. That gives me chills. A tiny, everyday object making the difference between life and death in one of the most catastrophic moments in modern history. Mark: And that’s the core of Malkin's argument in this part of the book. She calls it "the miracle of the mundane." These aren't flashy, high-tech gadgets from a government lab. This is a tool built by an immigrant who believed in quality, manufactured in America because he was fiercely patriotic, and it ended up becoming a beacon of hope in our country's darkest hour. Michelle: It’s a powerful narrative. And it makes you wonder about the system that allows someone like Tony Maglica to even have that opportunity. He couldn't have done that on his island in Croatia. Mark: Exactly. And his story also highlights another key theme: his fierce defense of his patents. He spent over $100 million in his lifetime fighting companies that tried to create cheap knockoffs of his designs. He believed, "You have to defend what is yours and what is right." This brings us to the book's bigger argument about the system that allows people like him to succeed. Michelle: Right, it's not just about one brilliant person. The book argues there's an entire invisible architecture supporting them. What's a good example of that?

Mark: A perfect example, and one the book dedicates a whole chapter to, is the story of how our homes and cities got electricity. It’s a story most people think they know, but they usually only know one name: Thomas Edison. Michelle: Sure, Edison invented the lightbulb. That’s what we all learned in school. Mark: He did, and he was a genius. But his system for delivering electricity, Direct Current or DC, had a major flaw. It couldn't travel very far. You'd need a power plant every square mile or so, which was incredibly inefficient and expensive. The real revolution came from a partnership between two other giants: George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla. Michelle: Okay, I know Tesla’s name, of course. He’s become this cult figure online, the misunderstood genius. But Westinghouse is a bit more of a fuzzy name for me. Mark: George Westinghouse was an industrialist, an engineer, and an entrepreneur, much like Tony Maglica but on a much larger scale. He was a practical problem-solver. Tesla was the visionary, the brilliant physicist who conceived of a completely different system: Alternating Current, or AC. Michelle: Okay, break it down for me. Why was AC so much better than Edison's DC? Mark: In simple terms, AC could be "stepped up" to a very high voltage to travel long distances over thin wires with minimal power loss, and then "stepped down" at the other end to a safe voltage for use in homes and factories. Think of it like this: DC is like trying to water a huge farm with a thousand garden hoses, each connected to its own spigot. AC is like using a massive, high-pressure aqueduct to carry all the water for miles, and then branching off into smaller pipes wherever you need it. It was just a vastly more elegant and scalable solution. Michelle: That’s a great analogy. So Tesla had the brilliant idea, but he needed someone to actually build the aqueduct. Mark: Precisely. Tesla was a genius, but he wasn't a businessman. Westinghouse was. He saw the potential in Tesla's patents for the AC motor and other devices, and he bought them. He essentially became the venture capitalist for Tesla's genius. He brought the industrial might, the engineering teams, and the financial backing to turn Tesla's theories into a workable, commercial system. The book calls their collaboration a "Perfect Partnership." Michelle: But Edison didn't just roll over and accept this, right? I seem to remember the "War of the Currents" was pretty nasty. Mark: It was brutal. Edison, seeing his DC empire threatened, launched a massive smear campaign to convince the public that AC was dangerous and deadly. This is where the story gets really dark. He and his associates publicly electrocuted stray dogs, cats, and even a circus elephant named Topsy, all to "prove" the dangers of Westinghouse's AC. Michelle: He electrocuted an elephant? That’s horrible! It sounds less like business competition and more like a mob hit. Mark: It was a vicious fight for the future of energy. But the ultimate showdown came at Niagara Falls. For decades, people had dreamed of harnessing the immense power of the falls, but no one knew how. A commission was formed to find the best way to do it, and it became a battleground between Edison's DC and the Westinghouse-Tesla AC system. Michelle: So this was the ultimate test case. Whoever could power Niagara would win the war. Mark: Exactly. And Westinghouse won. His company was awarded the contract to build the massive hydroelectric power plant at Niagara Falls. It was a monumental engineering feat. In 1895, they flipped the switch, and for the first time, the power of Niagara was converted into electricity and sent 25 miles away to light up the city of Buffalo, New York. It was a triumph that proved the superiority of AC and changed the world forever. Michelle: That’s an incredible story of vision and scale. And it perfectly illustrates that second theme. Maglica is the lone inventor, but Westinghouse and Tesla show that sometimes innovation requires a powerful partnership, massive capital, and the industrial capacity to build something world-changing. Mark: And the patent system was at the heart of it. Westinghouse's entire venture was built on the legal protection of Tesla's ideas. Without patents, he would never have invested the millions of dollars it took to fight Edison and build the Niagara plant. It’s the same principle that allowed Tony Maglica to defend his flashlight design.

Michelle: So we have these two incredible stories. One of a lone 'tinkerpreneur' surviving war and poverty to create a life-saving tool, and another of a powerhouse partnership that tamed Niagara Falls and electrified the world. What's the thread that connects them? Mark: The thread is the American system that Malkin is championing in this book. It’s a system that, at its best, protects an individual's idea with a patent, like Maglica's, allowing them to profit from their own mind. But it also allows for massive capital investment and collaboration to scale a revolutionary idea, like Westinghouse and Tesla's. Michelle: So it’s about protecting both the small inventor and the big industrialist. Mark: Yes, because they need each other. The book's core argument is that this "invisible hand" of self-interest, guided by the rule of law and the protection of intellectual property, ultimately creates immense public good. It results in everything from a flashlight that saves a life in a dark alley to a power grid that lights up an entire nation. It’s a celebration of that uniquely American blend of individual grit and free-market dynamism. Michelle: It really makes you look at the mundane objects around you completely differently. The bottle cap on your drink, the air conditioner cooling your room, the toilet paper in your bathroom—which the book actually has a whole chapter on, believe it or not. Mark: The miracle of the mundane. Michelle: Exactly. It makes you ask that question from the title: Who built that? And the answer is almost always more fascinating and more human than you could ever imagine. It’s a powerful question to carry with you. Mark: It really is. And we'd love to hear from you, our listeners. What's an everyday invention you've never really thought about? Who do you think built it? Let us know on our social channels; we're always curious to hear your thoughts. Michelle: This was a great one. A lot to think about. Mark: This is Aibrary, signing off.