“Well, Kapany, what do you have to show me?

“I pulled up the single chair in the lab, placed it with the best sight line to the screen, and urged him to sit.

“Ready, I asked.

“Yes, yes, he said, feigning impatience.

“I closed the door, shut off all the lights, and in a single, final effort, I switched on the light source. And there it was. On the screen. Like an optometrist’s chart but with only a single line of large letters, as clear as it could be: F...I...B...R...E.”

Kapany had proved that ultimately, what it comes down to is persistence.

“Doggedness is an important attribute in a field where, by most measures, only a fraction succeed,” Kapany writes.

This was an attribute that followed him through his life.

In 1961, Kapany along with his wife moved to Woodside on the San Francisco Peninsula and today one of the wealthiest communities in the US, where he founded Optics Technology Inc. successfully taking it public in 1967. He was the first Sikh Indian to take a company public in Silicon Valley. The San Francisco Examiner, in February 1969, described him as the most dashing corporate officer in the area. Subsequently, he founded Kaptron Inc. in 1973, which was later acquired by AMP Inc.