<p>In many cases, all that’s necessary is to be in an emerging field where there are few practitioners. Other times, luck is the major factor. It’s good remembering that many of the major corporations of today were founded decades ago, some before the 20th century: Mercedes-Benz (1881), Ford Motor Company (1903), Standard Oil (1870), IBM (1911), Hewlett-Packard (1939), AT&T (1885), General Electric (1878), etc.</p>
<p>Take telecomms for example: back in 1885, there were several individuals trying to invent something resembling a telephone but the field was “big” enough and the practitioners were so few that anyone who could “crack” it would become famous, and indeed, Alexander G. Bell did just that. In contrast, the telecomms field nowadays is saturated with thousands of individuals working on small aspects of different products and the general public is rarely aware of who worked on what (e.g. the iPhone was designed by 5 EEs and CEs (whose names escape me atm) and not by Steve Jobs himself).</p>