Where does Jobs stand among iconic CEOs?

And Jobs’ technological innovations,among them the Mac computer,iPod,iPhone,and iPad,have brought him the same one-name recognition as Carnegie,Ford,Gates,Murdoch,and others.

But 50 years from now,will the Nano be considered as revolutionary as the Model T?

“What Ford did for the automobile — just look at the suburbs and highways that developed from him,the assembly lines. Ford had a tremendous effect,” said Mike Carrier,a professor at Reuters School of Law in New Jersey.

“I would put Jobs up in that category in terms of how he revolutionized our concept of music,of phones,of the computer,of literally everything.”

But others say the jury is still out on the lasting influence of Jobs’ creations,given the breakneck pace of technological innovations and the fickleness of consumers. Motorola’s Razr,for example,was thought to be revolutionary just a few years ago.

“I’m not sure how all these innovations will stack up in the long-term,” said Peter Cappelli,a management professor at the Wharton School of Business.

When Jobs first started out more than three decades ago,there were some who thought he would not make it.

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld,associate dean of the Yale School of Management,remembers vividly how Jobs awkwardly introduced himself to Polaroid CEO Ed Land during a lunch at Michela’s in Cambridge,Massachusetts in 1985.

“He came over to Ed to thank him for his wisdom in marrying progressive management with technological advancement,” Sonnenfeld said. “After he left,Ed shook his head and said,‘That guy is never going to make it. He doesn’t get technology. He’s just a salesman.’”

Jobs is a salesman,one of the most successful of the last half century. But the magnitude of his technological brilliance — The New York Times pointed out that his name appears as inventor on 313 patents — and his penchant for theatrics place him on a historical spectrum somewhere between Thomas Edison and Walt Disney.

“There are few CEOs who can compare to Jobs in terms of breadth of activities,length of time in command,and connection with consumers,” said Harvard Business School professor Anita Elberse.

Part of Jobs’ mystique is owed to a confluence of factors either unique to him or to our times. The attention paid to CEOs by financial analysts and the media far exceeds what it was during Henry Ford’s day.