Illumina acquired Solexa, and shipped the first Genome Analyzer (the ancestor of the HiSeq). Clive Brown was a central figure at Solexa during their rise and acquisition, and has been at Oxford Nanopore for the last few years (he's the one who gave the talk).

There's a lot of hype in genomics, but Brown is one of the few who has delivered, which is part of the reason why MinION is getting the benefit of the doubt. Very exciting announcement.