steve jobs was a salesman. that's the beginning and end of him. he was a very good salesman, arguably the best, certainly one of the best, but that's all he ever was. he had no talent for coding. no ability to engineer. no knack for design. but he could sell. really, really well. he gets the credit for coding, engineering, and designing what others actually accomplished. of course, he rabidly took that credit from those others, and was successful in doing so. so now he's credited with creating our technological present. for making it beautiful. for making it elite and out of reach of the rabble.
the reality distortion field which made all of this possible was possessing a firm grasp of the primary tool of modern marketing: the skill to convince us of our essential worthlessness before offering redemption through buying the product they're selling.