Tim Paterson, of Seattle Computer Products, developed 86-DOS/QDOS as a clone of CP/M. Microsoft bought it out from under him for $75,000 in the early 1980s, immediately turning around and licensing it to IBM for their personal computer. Without him, MS-DOS wouldn't have happened.

Gary Kildall, one of the guys behind Digital Research, invented CP/M, one of the forerunners of MS-DOS for the 8-bit micro. Ultimately, Microsoft spent years trying to bury him and his company, doing shit like the "AARD code" (google it) and intentionally sabotaging his business.

Ken Thompson, one of the fathers of UNIX and by extension, the modern world of computing. This dude, along with Dennis Ritchie, developed the UNIX operating system, which spread way beyond Bell Labs, giving birth to things like BSD (Berkeley UNIX), AIX, Solaris, etc.

How about Dennis Ritchie? This dude was also responsible for the invention of UNIX, which gave birth to basically every modern computing concept we've got in 2019. Show some damn respect.

This guy's name is Andrew Tannenbaum. He invented a little operating system called "Minix". Minix was only really designed for academic purposes, it was never meant to overtake UNIX or DOS or anything like that. However, his OS inspired another one...

Linus Torvalds was 22 years old when he, inspired by the MINIX operating system, developed a new kernel he called "Linux". That was 1991. Today, in 2019, Linux runs on more devices than any other operating system.
Every Android phone, nearly every supercomputer, etc; all run it.

But let's give some respect to the old guard. This is Motherfucking Admiral Grace Hopper. She literally coined the motherfucking term "computer bug" because she's a literal badass like that.

I love the Admiral. She's a stone cold betty.

Going back to modernity here: This is Bjarne Stroustrup, he invented the C++ programming language, which is pretty much used in like, maybe 70-80% of popular programs available today? Without him, we'd still be clawing our way around the original C language, or something... worse

@stevewoz. Here we go. This guy's a real fuckin' champ. He practically invented the fucking Personal Computer. Before he invented the Apple I in 1976 there really wasn't anything like a "WYSIWYG" computer lying around. Computers were basically inaccessible to the layman.

Here's just a short list of people off the top of my head. Suffice it to say-- Jobs and Gates may have had their share of accomplishments, but they're literally minnows in a great sea of fish.

I put this in the replies but it deserves to be part of the actual tweet chain: SOPHIE WILSON, THE MOTHER OF ARM. Without her, your smartphone wouldn't have no damn silicon.

Also, she was the woman who invented the BBC Micro during her tenure at Acorn, which inspired a whole bunch of British youths to go into CompSci, I'm sure.

Suffice it to say-- the CompSci field doesn't belong to just one person, it belongs to so many people who have individually contributed little things here or there to the great apex of modern technology we find ourselves in.