Only works if the engineer is also the company head. Otherwise they are looked on by those boardroom bumblers as glorified mechanics. (At the ripe old age of 25 I found myself VP of Engineering for Western Electric. Was quite proud of myself ...and came to loathe that job with a passion. Couldn't have been happier when my contract expired.)
This has been true for ages. People have thought of many things where it was years, or even centuries, before the technology existed to implement those thoughts.
Steam power was first demonstrated nearly 2000 years ago; it took 1800 years for someone to build a practical steam engine. The first submarine was demonstrated in the 1770s, 150 years later submarines were practical. With the geometric expansion of technology today we are bound to have some developments hitting the market before they are "ready for prime time". I've heard it said you must be the first, the best, or the cheapest, otherwise you're a footnote.
On a personal note, some of my income is still from two proprietary patents; the circuits were developed back in the 1920s, I made them work in the 1970s.