Mais de 200 mil votos foram computados na enquete dos “49 Homens Mais Influentes” de 2008, realizada pelo site AskMen.com. Somente atrás do candidato democrata à presidência dos Estados Unidos, Barack Obama, veio Steve Jobs, CEO da Apple. Em terceiro lugar, o nadador olímpico Michael Phelps.

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The Steve Jobs premature-demise model gave many the opportunity to see into the future, and few liked what they saw. One unnamed exec said he believed that Steve Jobs’ death could drive Apple’s stock down by 25%.

No other CEO in the world is so intimately associated with his company’s products. Does anyone think of Subrah lyar while using a WebEx application? Who thinks of Steve Ballmer as their XBox powers up? But iPod and Jobs, Mac and Steve — one ceases to be without the other. After all, while in some ways, Steve Jobs may seem like the accidental CEO, an eccentric hippie in the right place and time, when in fact he’s as savvy as they get. Furthermore, his design aesthetic is impeccable: He blends form and function into visionary elegance, making products so hip and so useful, they divide the world into Apple owners and Apple enviers.

So if you have ever wondered which contemporary your grandkids will pester you about, wonder no more: Steve Jobs is posterity’s wet dream. We’re merely lucky enough to have known him when.

Outros três nomes fortes do mundo da tecnologia também constam na lista: Mark Zuckerberg, fundador do Facebook, está em 13º; Jonathan “Jony” Ive, vice-presidente sênior de design da Apple, em 23º; e Kevin Rose, criador do Digg, vem em 49º.

[Dica do Marcus Roberto, valeu!]