"You can mine for gold or you can sell pickaxes." That's what startups in Silicon Valley are often told when they set off on their dream to create multi-billion dollar businesses and change the world. Unsurprisingly, many who hear this proverb decide to mine gold anyway.
Being on the bleeding edge is exciting. But I would argue that being behind-the-scenes and providing the tools for players on this bleeding-edge is much more reliably lucrative.
One such reliably lucrative supplier is Saxonburg, Pennsylvania-based specialized manufacturing company II-VI, Inc. (IIVI) [pronounced "two-six"]. The firm claims