Shannon was cursed by being the inventor of information theory. It seems like this wonderful thing; who wouldn’t want to invent information theory? But as an inventor, you’ll never top it. You’ll forever live in your own shadow. And for someone that enjoys inventing things, that’s... not a happy thing.
Nothing I've read about Shannon suggests that he felt "cursed" in his later life. Is there some reason to think otherwise, or is this just assuming that anybody who does something big early feels sad about it later?
In Shannon's case, given how fundamental his 1937 thesis was (you can use Boolean Algebra to design digital circuits), most other people might have been afraid of not being able to top that. My impression was that he was always looking forward to bigger things through his own work and through his students.
