Fortune Names Steve Jobs 'Greatest Entrepreneur of Our Time

Steve Jobs tops Fortune's '12 Greatest Entrepreneurs of Our Time' list.

Though he could be abusive and mean-spirited to people who threw themselves into their work on his behalf, Steve Jobs has been our generation's quintessential entrepreneur. Visionary. Inspiring. Brilliant. Mercurial.

Perhaps the most astonishing fact about Jobs was his view that market research and focus groups only limited your ability to innovate. Asked how much research was done to guide Apple when he introduced the iPad, Jobs famously quipped, "None. It isn't the consumers' job to know what they want. It's hard for [consumers] to tell you what they want when they've never seen anything remotely like it."

Second on the list is Bill Gates, followed by Fred Smith.