> William Shockley invented the transistor, but [didn't become a billionaire]

In fairness that wasn't for lack of trying. Shockley founded a semi-conductor company (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shockley_Semiconductor_Laborat...) and ran it so poorly that eight key people left (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight), founded their own company (Fairchild Semiconductor) and became enormously wealthy. Two of the eight then went on to found Intel and became even wealthier.

Yeah. The problem is that knowing how to invent something like the transistor, and knowing how to run a company, are two very different skill sets and backgrounds.