Maybe we're in agreement. You fit my definition perfectly - success for sure (even your own wiki page), but never that massive breakout. And hindsight isn't great for predicting those once-in-a-lifetime convergences. Maybe Steve Jobs himself could have led your 70's era company to be Apple instead. Or maybe the happy set of coincidences would have played out differently and it would have been a moderate player but not the most valuable company in the world.
I too consider myself moderately successful (without quite your track record). I've also been close to those who do experience that next level of success. They are uniformly talented but their huge successes were once-in-a-lifetime. Some of them even tried to replicate and they achieved only moderate success the second time - what you'd expect of someone of their talent - despite their obvious advantages from having done it once before.
I too consider myself moderately successful (without quite your track record). I've also been close to those who do experience that next level of success. They are uniformly talented but their huge successes were once-in-a-lifetime. Some of them even tried to replicate and they achieved only moderate success the second time - what you'd expect of someone of their talent - despite their obvious advantages from having done it once before.