[ebrenes]

The degree of controversy is obviously diminished when someone has been successful. But I'll take a stab at the last question...

As for controversy with LEGO's founder: 1. Structuring the company around "doing good" instead of profitability and other more "corporate values". Google gets flack for this to this day, and LEGO almost went broke following this tenet until they revamped the corporate structure to follow profitability instead. 2. Use of plastics instead of wood, deviating from the company's original product base. Surely, that's what paved the way for LEGO, but I'm sure it was somewhat controversial switch in some circles, not least of which were carpenters and some employees. 3. LEGO's many legal battles and use of patents might be construed as controversial in some circles.

More to the point of the OP, it's hard to be a visionary if your view does not in any way shape or form deviate from the norm. Deviation from the norm is what sets the visionary apart, hence it's some times said that visionaries are controversial, because this deviation from the norm more often than not causes controversy in the areas in which they are deviating.

[dalke]

"Doing good" is a standard crafter/engineer approach, so it's not like that alone is visionary. My Dad's phrase "do your best or don't do it at all." Was he a visionary?

He wanted the whole world to be Christian, and went to Ecuador to work as a missionary. Did that make him and my Mom (and my dad's parents (also missionaries) and various other of my extended family) visionaries? What about all of the Mormons who do their two years of missionary work?

Consider also all the people who were visionary, tried something, and failed. In part, perhaps, because their vision wasn't tenable. You don't hear about all of those visionary chefs who had a new idea for a restaurant, only to find out that it wasn't profitable.

Add all those up, and there are a lot of visionaries in the world. Enough that the non-visionaries are the exception.