Rubber used to be useless…

0:00 See, all natural rubber has a critical weakness.

0:02 It's extremely sensitive to temperature changes.

0:05 It melts when it gets too hot and it

0:07 freezes and becomes brittle when it gets too cold.

0:11 This made the coats and [music] shoes practically useless during the hot summer.

0:15 So, customers returned their items en masse.

0:18 [music] Then, things went from bad to worse.

0:21 One day, the Roxbury manager visited the warehouse.

0:24 When he opened the door, he didn't see their [music] newest products.

0:27 Instead, he was met with a foul smell

0:30 and a molten gooey mess that covered the entire [music] warehouse.

0:34 In fact, when we ordered some raw rubber,

0:36 we were in for [music] a similar nasty surprise.

0:41 Aw.

0:41 That is disgusting.

0:43 The summer heat [music] melted their rubber products and they started rotting.

0:47 The sludge stank so badly the manager had

0:49 the employees [music] secretly bury it at night.

0:53 But later in that horrible summer,

0:55 the manager got a visit from a man named Charles.

0:58 Charles' previous business had gone bankrupt and he was deeply in debt.

1:02 He stumbled upon a rubber life preserver

1:05 and he thought he could make a better valve.

1:08 He pitched the Roxbury manager on his new design hoping to pay back his lenders.

1:12 The manager was impressed but couldn't buy Charles' work.

1:16 He showed Charles the warehouse full of rotten rubber.

1:19 Rubber had potential but in its current form, it was just too problematic.

1:24 However, he said if anyone could figure out how

1:26 to make rubber stable in a wider temperature range and non-sticky,

1:30 well, then that person would stand to make a ton of money.

1:33 So, Charles was determined to become that person.