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Garage startups were never the actual source of development. Inventors are always coming up with new ideas, but the ideas go nowhere until The Big Dog steals the idea. Synchromesh and fully automatic transmissions were both developed and produced in 1905, but neither succeeded until GM stole them in '29 and '40 respectively.

The idea of the transistor was around in the 1840s, and working semiconductor triodes were used in the late 1920s. It didn't go commercial until Bell Labs had the resources to develop the manufacturing methods in '47.

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