Programmable logic used to be implemented by a bipolar fuse technology which involved blowing connections on a logic array to customize it.
Then a bright spark suggested replacing the bipolar fuse-based technology with CMOS switches.
The bright spark went along to the inventor, and biggest supplier, of fuse-based programmable logic and suggested they adopt his technology.
He was laughed out of their offices.
So the bright spark went and founded his own start-up company to pursue his CMOS switch technology for programmable logic, but the company ran intro financial trouble, and the guy from the fuse-based company who had rejected the idea of CMOS switches came in and took over the running of the start-up company.
The start-up company then spawned a massively successful business of programmable logic based on CMOS switches which became the programmable logic industry's mainstream technology.
MORAL: Timing Is Everything.
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