Intellectuals are made by fools

I don't understand what you mean by "fooled experiences" The closest I can get to is "failed experiences". Anyway, your theory holds true in most cases, modern society is a system where most of the people around you are stepping stones to happiness.

I think your statement might partly be summed up by a quote, maybe not original, from Otto Von Bismark who was, if I remember correctly, at the time the German Naval Commander in World War 1. "The wise man learns from the mistakes of others; the fool from his own." I think what you are saying about product development applies to many areas, particularly in fields like electronic engineering where it is fairly simple to take a design someone else has done, add a few extras, simplify a few things, replace older technology components with newer ones & modify it to fit into ones own design or stand it alone & then take the credit for the whole lot!