Jack Kilby

Jack Kilby is the inventor of the microchip (also called the integrated circuit).

The Texas Instruments laboratory was almost empty in July 1958 -- everyone took the traditional two-week vacation. Kirby, the new hire, had to stay behind to man the shop. There he enjoyed his solitude but also worked on something that would revolutionize the world. He had grown tired, as had many of his colleagues, of the miles of wiring inside a room-filled computer. So he did some shit and put everything on a single chip. In 1967 he co-invented the handheld calculator using the integrated circuit. At the time it could only add, subtract, multiply, and divide.

The impact of the microchip cannot be overstated. Without it we would not have gone to the moon in the '60s, used personal computers, listened to music on iPods, or any of that good stuff.