Well Tim Paterson for starters. He wrote their wildest hacks. Like this program that translated old CP/M binaries into i8086 code dynamically at runtime during the loading process, so that DOS could seamlessly transition people away from the Digital Equipment Corporation platform. Plus he wrote commands like `DEBUG` which like GDB normally require special kind of giftedness in order to create. What would Microsoft have been, if it weren't for unsung heroes like him?

Anders Hejlsberg, also the architect of turbo pascal, delphi, and j++ before c# and then typescript!

And hackerfromthefu isn't the only one who knew that by heart; I was going to supply you with the name when I noticed that someone already had. Not mr Hejlsberg's fault that you don't know his name, is it?

Yes I'm a huge fan!

I've followed his career for 2 decades using his tooling because he has the sense of style and expertise to create development tooling that was generations ahead of the competition, the best I've ever found from trying so many languages. He's also a really personable and humble genius based on the relatively few videos and interviews available. In my opinion he's the Michael Jordan of software, though he's more humble!

I've known of him for a bit longer, but soured on him a bit when he let himself be bought by the Evil Empire. Also, his uglier second take eclipsing the original annoyed me.

But, mellowing with age, I'm slowly getting over that. :-) (Also, Khan should just fucking have paid him better.)