In the late 1970s, I worked at a small company called Aph. They did contract work developing single board computers. I did a couple myself. They built all their own tools, software, assemblers, etc., all of which were first class. One employee (the famous Hal Finney) even wrote a Basic interpreter in assembler.
In fact, they had everything they needed to build a consumer computer. It was all better than what Apple had.
The thing we lacked was vision. We coulda been billionaires! We lacked a Steve Jobs.
That's the thing: how many others tried and failed that have all but been forgotten? Small successes and small failures accumulate exponentially over time. Maybe in some parallel universe those guys became the multi-billion-dollar company and Apple never went anywhere...
My takeaway is to not underestimate the value of a great leader. There's lots of talent, I know easily a dozen just among my friends who could have built a competitive computer and the software for it. I built two single board computers myself of my own design, and I didn't even know electronics (the components were designed to almost fall together).
But there's an enormous gap between that and knowing what to build, how to pull it all together to make a product, and sell that product. That takes vision.
In fact, they had everything they needed to build a consumer computer. It was all better than what Apple had.
The thing we lacked was vision. We coulda been billionaires! We lacked a Steve Jobs.