While not wanting to downplay the marketing and design genius of Steve Jobs who created a brand identity so strong that for a while, "smartphone" became synonym

While not wanting to downplay the marketing and design genius of Steve Jobs who created a brand identity so strong that for a while, "smartphone" became synonymous with "Apple", Steve Jobs really stood on the shoulders of giants in terms of innovation. Without the Alan Turings, John von Neumanns, Edgar Dijkstras, Donald Knuths, the researchers at XPARC and Bell Labs, etc., there would never have been a Steve Jobs. He does play a role, but not nearly one as big as all those people that came before him. Some people like to push for progress for progress's sake; others mostly to make money out of it (not saying this is bad!). The latter get more rich but it doesn't mean they're more important.