[oddity]

The semiconductor world is very small by tech standards, and so there are correspondingly many fewer people at the management or upper IC levels that can coordinate large, consequential decisions and even fewer that become well known. Even ignoring attribution biases, it should be unsurprising that there are a few folks that seem to have outsized influence.

But I will say that there are many more people who are not well known outside of the semiconductor world, but are minor legends within it. Unfortunately, the development processes for hardware tend to go through enough hands to strip attribution and most hardware people tend not to talk in public about their accomplishments. Doesn't help that some of the main companies have been stagnant and absorbed in inner and outer turf wars for nontechnical reasons. It's not a great environment for stars to shine.

On top of that, most software people I've seen seem uninterested in understanding and dissecting the hardware enough to appreciate what they've done. If that's the case for software people, I have no hope for anyone else.