When I was young, an "inventor" was some kind of genius. They were supposed to exist somewhere in real life, just like Albert Einstein had existed somewhere out there as the quintessential scientist.
So as a kid, I did not want to be Gladstone Gander and have an easy life. I wanted to be Gyro Gearloose, and work miracles.
When I first started studying at a technical university I may still have had this romantic idea about invention. I was hoping to create beautiful, efficient, maybe tailless aircraft. By the time I finished, I was completely cured.
Right in my first year, it dawned on me that airplanes, in particular commercial airliners which were the focus in Delft, look the way they do for a very good reason.
Tailless airplanes have been tried many times. They suck, for various reasons. Canards are based on a folk idea about induced drag which is a complete fallacy.
Airplanes are completely covered by hatches because they need to be inspected and maintained continuously. They are filled with electrical and other systems which add to their weight, cost and complexity, but which are desperately needed to keep them safe and bring them home.
In short, airplane design is not an art. It is a profession. You can learn it. In fact, you have to learn it. If you don't, you are intellectually lazy and a danger to others, and you need to be kept away from anywhere near an aircraft design shop.
I then realized that this is the way of the world. An "inventor" is someone who believes to be the first person in the world to have had a crushing new insight. This is completely silly. Every new idea has been had gazillions of times by gazillions of others. If the world does not use that particular idea, then nine times out of ten it is because that idea is fatally flawed.
Science and technology can only be advanced if you are prepared to do your homework. The first thing to do is find out who had the same idea before you, and why they failed. Then, maybe, you can add a tiny bit of progress on top of what others have accomplished so far. Newton famously said that if he had seen further than others, it was because he was "standing on the shoulders of giants". Unfortunately, this was a nasty sneer at his nemesis Robert Hooke, who was a man of slight stature.
To me, the quintessential irresponsible "inventor" was Buckminster Fuller .
A good runner-up in the aviation world would be Burt Rutan , but there is no dearth of individuals who try to hide flaws in their designs of which they are well aware, without any regard of the damage they do to others.