Verizon's FiOS boxes talked to each other over the TV cable in the walls, and Entropic made the chips that let them. The San Diego company was a founding member of the Multimedia over Coax Alliance, or MoCA, and in 2007 it was the only high-volume supplier of MoCA chipsets. That meant a family could watch a DVR recording in any room. Entropic's revenue jumped from about $3.7 million in 2005 to $41.5 million in 2006.

Video Over Wires You Own

Entropic worked on MoCA technology from 2001 and shipped its home networking products in volume from 2006. The idea was simple. Most homes already had coaxial cable in several rooms, so nobody had to pull new wires. Entropic sold MoCA chipsets, broadband access chips, satellite TV chips and silicon TV tuners. In 2007 it bought RF Magic. Customers included Actiontec, Jabil and Motorola.

From $6 to MaxLinear

Entropic priced its IPO at $6 a share in December 2007 and listed on the Nasdaq Global Market as ENTR. It sold 8 million shares as the financial crisis began. Neither Entropic nor RF Magic had ever earned an annual profit. Entropic kept selling chips for cable and satellite boxes for seven more years. In April 2015 MaxLinear completed its purchase of Entropic, and Entropic's shares left Nasdaq.

Cover: The Whirlpools in Naruto Strait, Awa Province (Awa Naruto no fukei), Utagawa Hiroshige. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for whirlpools (entropy, swirling signals).