Intel had such a person. Patrick Gelsinger, mentored by Andy Grove. But Intel's Broad ( Andy Bryant ) decided he was never going to be CEO and so ultimately left Intel. BK became CEO, and the rest is history.
> There are hundred's of billionaires
So why couldn't a non-brilliant billionaire team up with a brilliant non-billionaire to make cool shit happen? Or a capital-raising syndicate? Isn't that how capitalism is supposed to work?
Unfortunately it's the baby in 1 month with 9 mothers problem.
Just like SpaceX is killing it vs Blue Origin where one was on a relative shoe string and the other basically as much cash as it could reasonably spend, throwing money at a problem usually isn't the solution to the problem. Magic Leap also comes to mind in this category.
That is what the original commenter meant. If there are Elons out there with no money, they could band together to go to a VC, but then the risk taking process is skewed, because the brains and brawn are distributed.
There are hundred's of billionaires, wealthy from selling their companies. How many of them thought about building a company like SpaceX, literally putting their whole fortune on one thing, which at the time, had no clear chance of success.
There are many, not potential, but actual Elons out there. Only one has the right circumstances buoy him to the place where his visions come to fruition. And those circumstances include every factor in the spectrum, from personal traits, ideas, capabilities, etc to social, economic and cultural factors.
Almost all of technological change, one that spearheads mankind's next push into the great, is driven by people with will the size of mountains. It is their will that shakes the foundations, bull dozes the old, constructs the bigger, faster, higher new.
And Intel probably lost such a person.