Westinghouse Air Breaks If anyone knows the story of how George Westinghouse got his start, they may be able to see similarities in the Biocloud start.
Basically George westinghouse invented an airbreak system that allowed train operators to apply the breaks to all the cars simultaneously from the operator cabin.
prior to that the trains employed "breakmen" who would jump from car to car applying breaks when told to. This was a slow and very dangerous process and resulted in approx. 5000 deaths per year to "breakmen". In addition it also was a threat to the general public due to the long stop time of the trains.
The airbreak almost seemed like a no brainer that every train builder and operator would adopt right?
NOPE.
it took time for the train builders and operators to adopt this technology. Most were fine with the deaths that the existing train breaks caused and were not about to shell out $50 000 to equip trains with the new break system when it cost them $5/week for "breakman".
Then George Westinghouse did demonstrations on an existing train and applied the breaks just before the train ran over a fallen cart and horse which peaked some interest and got his first big order.
Still it wasnt until a large trane crash in NYC that more operators and builders started including the new air break system.
Eventually the government mandated it and George Weston became a very rich man.