I agree. After talking this much about complexity, it is rather simplistic of him to praise Ritchie over Jobs in terms of impact.
On the one hand, I can imagine where the computing world would be without the work that Jobs did and the people he inspired: probably a bit less shiny, a bit more beige, a bit more square. Deep inside, though, our devices would still work the same way and do the same things.
Well, actually you can't imagine what computing world would have been like unless you assume technology develops in a purely deterministic manner, in the absence of any market or cultural influences. There is a name for this line of thinking: hindsight bias[0].
Also, in the presence of this level of complexity and different layers, comparing people's impact would be necessarily subjective and rather reductionist in that, a la computers a bit less shiny, a bit more beige, a bit more square sans Jobs. This would do disservice to the legacies of both Ritchie and Jobs.
On the one hand, I can imagine where the computing world would be without the work that Jobs did and the people he inspired: probably a bit less shiny, a bit more beige, a bit more square. Deep inside, though, our devices would still work the same way and do the same things.
Well, actually you can't imagine what computing world would have been like unless you assume technology develops in a purely deterministic manner, in the absence of any market or cultural influences. There is a name for this line of thinking: hindsight bias[0].
Also, in the presence of this level of complexity and different layers, comparing people's impact would be necessarily subjective and rather reductionist in that, a la computers a bit less shiny, a bit more beige, a bit more square sans Jobs. This would do disservice to the legacies of both Ritchie and Jobs.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias