Well the point I was trying to make was that people become famous when they can be linked to something that a lot of people care about. We see this in the entertainment industry where it's easy to associate a blockbuster film with the stars or directors of the film.

This is not typically the case in the software industry where the Blockbuster software so to speak are produced by Companies and not lone programmers. That is to say the company is the face of the software.

I used Microsoft Word (maybe I should have used Office) because it's an example of a software application where the company that makes it is well known and I thought if it were possible for one person to create an application with as large an impact as Microsoft Office has had in the world then surely that person would be remembered.

One notable exception to the rule I think is Linus Torvalds. He still remains the face of linux although what linux is today is due to contributions from a large number of people.