Fair, but that money is a linchpin. Having the vision to see a commercial application and the will to fund its development into a real product is equally pivotal to the bringing about of a thing —- even if we engineers sometimes struggle to see it that way.
Apples investment track record in the 90s differs with your opinion that they were future seeing oracles who brought pre-ordained projects into existence. Hell they even sold their shares in ARM 5 years later, so they obviously didnt think that much of it.
https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/high-tech-gadg...