Stories like this remind me of all the smart, greedy people that continue working in secrecy to protect revolutionary ideas that never reach more than 10 users. One of these is for example Chaum's ecash, never reached the public because he was focused on finding the way to monetize it selling it to banks. We lost 40 years of innovation thanks to it, then CASHU and FEDI arrived providing ecash on bitcoin to the masses.

The ability to leave the ego aside, work in public and build for the benefits of the whole is the key for the ideas to succeed.