Perhaps because everything is built on top of everything, so an interesting story can always be made of someone responsible for the building blocks. Thought ex

Perhaps because everything is built on top of everything, so an interesting story can always be made of someone responsible for the building blocks. Thought experiment. I remember FOV2GO (very cool project), but the iPhone was arguably integral to its creation. Was it though? I'm sure the members of the iPhone team would think "yes" (as 99% of the actual manifest technology is iPhone in this device), but the "creator" might think "no" (as the last 1% is what differentiates it). The "true" answer here is not important, rather the understanding that everyone probably overestimates the value of their own contribution, and underestimates the value of others' contribution. Especially because when you discover/invent something that afterwards seems obvious (arguably the most important discoveries/inventions), then it seems silly to give someone credit for it. The Oculus guys may think of the FOV2GO stuff as "obvious" in retrospect, and the actual hard work being the device they shipped with the better sensors and associated toolkit. If I now choose to make an Oculus competitor to take on Facebook, should I pay the original Oculus team "to give thanks"? Should I pay the professor? I think a lot of people at this point would say "no", which is strange because it doesn't seem like a different case than Oculus vs. professor.