Reuben Goldberg was born in 1883 in San Francisco. He studied art formally but earned a degree in engineering from UC Berkeley per his father's advice. He worked briefly as a design engineer for plumbing systems but disliked the work. Goldberg then became a cartoonist for the San Francisco Bulletin. He is best known for creating deliberately over-engineered machines to perform simple tasks, inspiring the term "Rube Goldberg machine". One example is a commercial where a machine completes the complex task of feeding a dog. Goldberg left a legacy of satirizing technological solutions and demonstrating them can be needlessly complex.