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Comment by _Microft | Hacker News Reader

The effect that some people's work eventually has on everyone's life can be just amazing.

In this case it enabled LED lighting for everyone. Transistors (Bardeen, Shockley), lasers or artificial fertilizer (Haber, Bosch) also come into mind.

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Agreed. Also, Norman Borlaug (the Green Revolution which prevented, or at least postponed, the famine we'd have been living in for 40 years now, thus saving a billion lives) and Stanislav Petrov (who refused to raise the alarm in 01983 that would have started a global thermonuclear war, thus saving three billion lives).

My personal favorite here is John B. Goodenough for lithium-ion battery chemistry.

What an amazing name!

Also for major contributions to the development of RAM.

Not bad. Or shall we say, good enough?

640K ought to be good enough

The Hall–Héroult process for electrolytic aluminum refining is pretty impactful. Many polymer synthesis processes are also very impactful day to day, starting with Bakelite (less relevant now).

Blue LEDs have enabled incredible power savings by making LEDs viable for lighting rooms and screens.

Peter Mansfield also comes to mind (MRI).

A more important question is, how well were they compensated? Most of the value are not captured by the original inventors.

To be fair, to a certain degree that's part of the deal in academia. Tenure is like an reverse insurance, everyone gets a salary, even if only few will be able to make significant contributions. And that's okay, because a lot of luck is involved in individual success in academia.

What do you mean by original inventor?

Company's gross went from 200 million USD to 800 million USD.

He got $180.

After a lawsuit, they settled for around 8 million.

Got a Nobel prize too.

Similar story around AIDS-denier Kary Mullis, who invented PCR. I think his employer sold the patent for >$1B. 1993 Nobel in chemistry.

I remember reading about him in Omni magazine.

Regarding the lawsuit, I believe you’re thinking of Nakamura.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuji_Nakamura

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