[ravenstine]

Linus is the only one I can think of given his level of job security. Maybe Woz, but I don't think he doesn't seem to be a professional coder today. Perhaps Stephen Wolfram. Everyone else seems much more disposable than even B-tier rock/pop stars, relatively speaking. Bill doesn't count given he likely hasn't touched any code himself since the 1980s.

I've heard of multiple language and framework designers who failed to score a job when it really should have been a slam dunk. There might be rockstars among the foot soldiers of tech, but virtually none outside of that.