Mannerisms

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.