> But the winners of the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics, John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain and William B. Shockley, who have been widely credited with inventing th

> But the winners of the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics, John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain and William B. Shockley, who have been widely credited with inventing the semiconductor, did not receive even a fraction of the wealth that their invention would help create. I don't know about Bardeen or Brattain, but this was not because Shockley was an altruist. The fact that he could not capitalize on his inventions like he thought he should was a source of frustration for him. Source: Conversation with someone he expressed frustration to.