> I'd really love to see a contribution from a single brilliant programmer that generates a billion in profit. While I am not answering your question directly,

> I'd really love to see a contribution from a single brilliant programmer that generates a billion in profit. While I am not answering your question directly, Jeff Dean and Shel Kaphan come to mind, in their key, fundamental roles of building massive scalable systems - information search and retail selling, respectively. http://research.google.com/pubs/jeff.html http://research.google.com/pubs/jeff.html http://www.geekwire.com/2011/meet-shel-kaphan-amazoncom-employee-1/ http://www.geekwire.com/2011/meet-shel-kaphan-amazoncom-empl...