[throw0101a]

> While the design is nice, it doesn't seem -that- earthshattering that it was done in four days.

And yet it may have needed a genius to desgin and write something so simple. UTF-8 was not the first multi-lingual encoding system; here's an entire list of them, worked on by a lot of probably very smart people:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Character_encodings

It only seems 'obvious' in hindsight:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias

Edit: A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. — Antoine de Saint-Exupery