Nikola Tesla's brilliance too much for clueless VCs

Anyone who knows me well knows I've long been a huge fan of inventor Nikola Tesla. Tesla has grown in popularity in recent years thanks to Tesla Motors, recent efforts to build memorials in his name and smart techies who are inspired by his many disparate breakthroughs. 

With that in mind, this video is hilarious on so many levels. Tesla died a broken man, but he's got to be spinning in his grave at the thought of jumping through the ridiculous hoops facing modern-day inventors and creators.  

An innovative tribute to Nikola Tesla

If there's a person deserving of an innovative tribute, it's Nikola Tesla, an electrical engineer whose inventions more than 100 years ago laid the groundwork for modern communications. It was the rock group Tesla and their excellent debut album "Mechanical Resonance" -- a scientific term right up Tesla's alley -- that first inspired me to learn more about this mysterious inventor. I soon learned Tesla wasn't just anybody but an inventor to rival Da Vinci and Edison. 

Which brings us to Marco Tempest's "Nikola Tesla in Sound and Light," a mashup of projection mapping and a pop-up book that tells the remarkable story of an inventor so far ahead of his time that scientists are still studying his work for clues to new breakthroughs 70 years after his death. 

Tesla's story is remarkable enough -- he pioneered radio and electricity transmission to name just two breakthroughs, all the while battling swindlers and personal demons -- but Tempest's use of now-primitive technology from Tesla's heydey is a fitting medium to celebrate one of modern history's greatest minds.  

Are you listenining Hollywood? If you need some pointers, check out the "making of" documentary below.