I think the name George Mitchell and Harold Hamm should be synonymous with Edison, Jobs, Gates, Ford etc.
Yes, they got rich, but they all do. These few actually changed our lives, and the world’s. But outside their industry Mitchell and Hamm are nobodies.
Lots of jobs are created because individuals lay their money, hard work and reputations on the line. Yes, many get wealthy in the process but many, too, go broke. The profit motive is crucial to a free society. Sarah Palin knows it. I wish SOMEONE in Washington would know it, too.
Leigh Price should be in there, too. He was the USGS geochemist who recognized that the oil generated in the Bakken had stayed in the formation, and was providing estimates of billions of barrels in place as early as 1993. His work was one of the foundations of the Bakken boom.