<i>Then again a lot of cool tech came from monopolies playing around excess profits (Bell Labs, Xerox, etc.).</i><p>But notoriously, a lot of cool tech that was developed at Bell Labs, Xerox, and Kodak ended up being so severely misunderstood by upper management there that outside companies were the ones to develop and sell products based on the new technology, while efforts to do so in house were practically or actually discouraged. These include such game changers as Object Oriented Programming, WYSIWYG word processing, Graphical User Interfaces, and Digital Cameras.<p>However it happens, Apple is good at taking R&amp;D, no matter where it originally happened, and creates game changing products out of it. One could argue that this is baked into the very DNA of the company. (Two of the oldest examples: Microprocessors ==&gt; Personal Computing, and Graphical User Interfaces.) If you like, think of Apple as the anti-Xerox. It&#x27;s not the company that spends tons of cash on internal R&amp;D, misunderstands it, then winds up being unable to capitalize on it. It&#x27;s the company that can take anyone&#x27;s R&amp;D or idea, understand the essentials of it, then executes great products.<p>Why be the company that invents something, when you can instead be the company that profits from it?