One of my pet peeves is the deification of personalities who are really signposts. The one which bothers me the most is the glorification of Steve Jobs. If you read about his life, he was a poor husband and miserable father during the years when it really made a difference. And, yet, we cannonize him, because he was standing at the bus stop when the bus stopped . . and he got on.
The genius of computing, and intuitive human-based computing interaction, came from the hundreds of thousands of people who worked to make this happen both before and after Steve punched his ticket. At the moment that he got on the bus, there were hundreds of people in the line behind him who could have done the same . . and would have. He was just a signpost that humanity had reached this milestone.
The real impetus for this was not only the availability of higher education after World War II, but the increased ability for like minds to collaborate. This is also the reason for the current great technological step forward. The internet allows like minds to collaborate.
The names and faces are interchangeable. They are only signposts along the road.