Top 10 Innovators in Technology
Posted on November 4th, 2008 in Technology |
Technology has changed drastically over the years, from the invention of the world’s first PC, to the introduction Google and the Internet, and innovative developments of Apple Computer Inc. Here we list some of the leaders in the field of technology over the past few decades.
1) Bill Gates, Founder of Microsoft:
When speaking of resounding success and wealth, Bill Gates’ name automatically springs to mind. Bill Gates is an American business magnate and philanthropist who rose to fame after founding Microsoft with Paul Allen. Bill Gates has been on the world’s richest list several times, and is currently the third richest person in the world, and the second richest person in America, an honour he wishes he didn’t have.
While Gates was at Microsoft, he held positions of CEO and chief software architect, and remains the largest individual shareholder, with more than 8 percent of the common stock. In June 2006 Gates announced that he would be stepping down from full-time work at Microsoft to concentrate on philanthropy through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. 27 June 2008 was Gates’ last official full-time day at Microsoft. He remains as a part-time, non-executive chairman.
2) Steve Jobs, Co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Apple Computer Inc:
Steven Paul Jobs, co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc and former CEO of Pixar Animation Studios, is listed as one of the most powerful businesspeople. Jobs and Apple co-founder, Steve Woznick, created one of the first commercially successful personal computers in the late 1970s. Apple is well-known for the innovative and award-winning Macintosh computers, OS X operating system, and consumer and professional applications software. Jobs resigned from Apple in 195 and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company that specialises in the higher education and business markets. NeXT was bought over by Apple Computer Inc in 1997, where Jobs returned as CEO of the company, where he remains today.
3) Sergey Brin, Co-founder of Google:
Sergey Mikhailovich Brin is a Soviet-born American entrepreneur, known for co-founding Google, the biggest search engine in the world. Google is so popular, it is not only a noun, but a verb as well, with the phrase ‘google it’ meaning to search on the internet. Brin is the President of Technology at Google, and has a net worth estimated at $18.5 billion. This makes him and Larry Page the 26th richest persons in the world, and the fifth richest person in America. He is also the fourth youngest billionaire in the world.
4) Larry Page, Co-founder of Google:
Larry, born Lawrence Edward ‘Larry’ Page in 1973, is an American entrepreneur. He and Sergey Brin started Google, the largest and most popular web search engine in the world. Page was vice-president of Google Inc until 2001, when they hired Eric Schmidt to become Chairman and CEO. Page is one of the richest people in the world according to Forbes. He, along with Brin and Schmidt, has been named one of the leading figures on the web, ranking #1 in 2007. Page is also an investor in Tesla Motors, the company that developed the Tesla Roadster, a 220-mile range battery electric vehicle.
5) Tim Berners Lee, Inventor of the World Wide Web:
Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee is an English computer scientist, best known for inventing the World Wide Web. Berners-Lee and Robert Cailiau implemented the first successful communication between an HTTP client and server via the Internet on the 25 December 1990. Berners-Lee was ranked alongside Albert Hoffman in the Telegraph’s list of 100 greatest living geniuses. He is the director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the founder of the World Wide Web Foundation, and a senior researcher and holder of the 3Com Founders Chair at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).
6) Phillip Don Estridge, Developer of the First IBM PC:
Phillip Donald Estridge, more commonly known as Don Estridge, is known for leading the development of the original IBM Personal Computer (PC). He is often referred to as the ‘Father of the IBM PC’. Estridge was named Director of Entry Business Systems in 1981, which made him responsible for the introduction of the IBM Personal Computer. He later became general manager of Entry Systems, before being appointed IBM vice-president in 1984.
Don was serving as IBM vice-president when he and his wife died in a plane crash on the 2 August 1985. Since his death, Estridge has been honoured many times. In 1999 he was named as one of the people who ‘invented the enterprise’. The Don Estridge High-Tech Middle was also named after him.
7) Robert Noyce, Founder of the Microchip:
Nicknamed ‘The Mayor of Silicon Valley’, Robert Norton Noyce co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957, as well as Intel in 1968. He and Jack Kilby are credited for the invention of the integrated circuit, or microchip. Noyce was one of the first scientists to work in Silicon Valley, long before it even earned its name.
Robert Noyce, also hailed as the Thomas Edison and Henry Ford of Silicon Valley, was an inventor and entrepreneur who took business risks, piloted his own jets and skied steep mountains only accessible by helicopter.
Since his death in 1990, Noyce has been honoured numerous times. The Noyce Foundation, which tries to improve public education in mathematics and science, was founded in 1991 by his family. So even after death, his legacy still lives on.
8 ) Vint Cerf, Father of the Internet:
Born Vinton Gray ‘Vint’ Cerf, Vint is an American computer scientist, and the person most often referred to as ‘The Father of the Internet’. This nickname was earned after he co-authored one of the TCP/IP, the IP that allowed ARPA to connect various independent networks together to form one large network, namely, the Internet. Cerf boasts a long stream of honourary degrees and awards, including the National Medal of Technology, the Turing Award, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Cerf also worked as Vice-President and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google since September 2005.
9) Pierre Omidyar, Founder of eBay:
Pierre M.Omidyar is a French-born Iranian-American entrepreneur and philanthropist-cum-economist who founded the popular eBay auction site. eBay was launched on Labour Day in 1995 under the name ‘Auction Web’. eBay started out as a free service, but later started charging to cover Internet service provider costs. As of July 2008, Omidyar 178 eBay shares were worth approximately $4.45 billion, making him the 120th richest person in the world.
10) Shawn Fanning, Developer of Napster:
Shawn ‘Napster’ Fanning is a computer programming genius, responsible for developing Napster, the first popular peer-to-peer filesharing platform in 1998. After been motivated by his college roommate who was having trouble accessing MP3 files, Fanning spent the next couple of months trying to write a code for a program that could provide easier music downloads. In 2003, Fanning opened Snocap along with Jordan Mendelson and Ron Conway. This company’s objective was to be a legitimate marketplace for digital media. As of 2008, Snocap has been acquired by imeem.
27 Responses
What about all of the innovative minds dedicated to Linux/Unix and FOSS projects??
This is mostly just programmers who got in first with a clever idea. They’re not all top innovators because they invented one thing each which made it big. Only Steve Jobs on this list has been a (fairly) consistent innovator.
Some top innovators: Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, James watt, Benjamin Franklin- but no, they were before the internet, so they’re not important.
Linus Torvalds didn’t make the list?
Bill Gates an innovator? You seem to be confusing innovation with “getting rich by buying, borrowing, copying and stealing from true innovators”. Just name one single innovation which came out of BG’s head (and no - that stupid f”"”ing dog in Office doesn’t count!)
The guy who invented the internet should be on top! There is internets everywhere now.
Without internet the computer wouldnt have been used by so many people.
Regular people dont need a computer unless it has internet.
Hi Olav, they are not ranked in any order
Thanks to all for the comments
Gates and jobs are business geniuses - but far from being technology inventors!
wtf? no torvalds?
Hahahahaaha!! Gates and Jobs at 1 and 2? You sir know nothing about innovation. Gates has never innovated in his life. Everything Microsoft do is bought or stolen from elsewhere! Internet explorer was based on Netscape and Mosaic. Microsoft office was not the first office suite. DOS was a clone of CP/M. Even the layout for windows was based around earlier systems like Xerox PARC.
Get your facts straight before making stupid claims.
Steve: that’s not strictly true. He did code up a version of Basic in the early days of home computing - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_BASIC
Although he wasn’t the most amazing coder, he was the one that came up with the idea of software piracy, unsurprisingly, as is suggested in this letter that he sent out at the time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bill_Gates_Letter_to_Hobbyists.jpg
Read Steven Levy’s book called Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution - it’ll tell you an awful lot about what actually went on in the early days, and although it lionizes RMS a bit heavily, it’s a good, consistent and honest read.
Brin & Page, Fanning and Omidyar are the only innovators on this list. The others are inventors.
if you could read, he just commented earlier that they are in no particular order.
You lost me at Gates.
“Steve” innovation is not about getting something out of totally nothing, its about getting the best out of the available resources. you talk of DOS being a clone of CP/M, and I believe you saying CP/M was made straight from scratch, it wasn’t based on any idea (even not computer-based)????
Xerox invented the windows interface; this was lifted by Jobs at Apple.
Please, get it right.
All the “Gates Bashing” is sooo 90’s. If you all met him, the first thing you would do is wet your pants and offer to be his bitch. You know it’s true… yes it is… admit it!
terrible list over all. Should have been innovators in computers maybe, since its all computer and internet people. I would put alan turing on there, since he first thought of the computer. Gates and Job aren’t actually tech guys, didn’t make the stuff themselves. Should have Richard Stallman, and Linus Trovold, I would put them ahead of jobs and gates.
BILL GATES WHO GOT RICH CHEATING THE VERY PEOPLE HE SOLD HIS INVENTION TO, BY START VIRUSES. BY PUTTING HIS STEPPING BLOCKS INTO HIS MICROSOFT SYSTEM, EFFICTING ALL COMPUTERS, FIRST TIME WAS FREE, 2ND. TIME $29.95 PER COMPUTER. HE STOPPED AFTER 4 TIMES BECAUSE OF ME. I LET EVERYONE KNOW THE TRUTH ON ALL CONTINENTS. THIS IS WHAT YOU CALL SUCCESS, BUT NOW HIS HOME ON A ISLAND WILL BE ENGULFED BY THE OCEAN AND I’M THE ONLY ONE THAT HAS THE SOLUTION TO STOP ALL SEA WATER FROM ENGULFING ALL SEA- LEVELS CONTINENTS. HAVE A NICE DAY. MIKE MERRY CHRISTMAS
what about john bardeen? the inventor of the transistor…
haha what’s up with the playa haters
Ah, so the fact that someone would love to suck up to Bill Gates or can be bought with his money makes Bill Gates an innovator? I need to reiterate what was already said above: you seem to be confusing innovation with GETTING RICH by buying, borrowing, copying and stealing from true innovators.
I do not believe it is “Gates Bashing”. Steve is right. Bill Gates was great at taking other peoples ideas and incorporating them into Microsoft and then signing exclusive agreements with computer makers to install it on all PC’s. He innovated the very successful Microsoft “BOB”. That was his success. Everything else is copied. WordPerfect, Visio, Lotus 1-2-3, NetScape, DOS, Windows…all mere copies of what was already there. Bill Gates innovator…NOT!
For one, Linus Torvalds is a LOT less important to the FOSS world than Richard Stallman is.
And Dean, no. I’m not going to bash him, however I do not respect him as a business tycoon, or a propagator of technological advances (which I believe to have been incorrectly taken).
Honestly, the inventor of Napster and eBay are far less important than Richard Stallman [Free Software Foundation] and Robert McCool [Apache Software Foundation, inventor of Apache]
lol@Dean
But you’ve got to admit he’s right haha.
Oh and the definition of innovator is this
-innovator
n : someone who helps to open up a new line of research or
technology or art [syn: pioneer]
Soo not necessarily an inventor as most of you seem to be saying, at least the people you list were inventors. Getting rich off of something and hiring people to invent something technically makes you an innovator, your opening up the means for new research and/or technology. Well helping at least XD
What a crap list. And no mention on Linus?!? Or, as mentioned in other comments, the innovators who without which nothing else “innovated” on this list would work without like Tesla and Edison? It’s time that people learned the difference between a CEO and an innovator.
All these “innovators” stand on the shoulders of the true innovators, including Turing, Von Neumann, Eckert and Maunchley, the Bletchley Park Colossus, Claude Simmon, the IBM 700 (Fortran was developed n the 704) and 360 series, the PDP machines (on which unix and C were developed). The first open source group, SHARE, was convened in 1955.
I could go on and on, but I don’t think anyone on this list qualifies for the most innovative.
Why don’t you all stop whining and write your own list. Everyone is bitching and saying they could go on and on, so much is missing. While I may not agree with all of this list I respect that someone took the time to voice their opinion. Nice Work