While I like Linus as much as anyone, he had a large impact in a small field. Even then both linux and git are community projects first and foremost, Torvalds is just the BDFL but the projects would continue very well without him.
Almost nobody can name influential luminaries outside their field. Who outside the field of fiber communications has ever heard of Kao and Hockham? How many HN commenters could tell what Reynold Johnsons' team invented without having to google it? Those are just some examples from software-adjacent fields that we all use every day. Imagine how many fields there are out there that you'd never think of.
In any case, what you mention as "counting" is a very narrow approach. If you mean "has to appear before congress for questioning" then having a lot of money helps. There are hundreds if not thousands people doing impactful work that you will never read about. There is not enough time in the day to keep up with all the work done in modern society but that does not make their work "count" any less.
Almost nobody can name influential luminaries outside their field. Who outside the field of fiber communications has ever heard of Kao and Hockham? How many HN commenters could tell what Reynold Johnsons' team invented without having to google it? Those are just some examples from software-adjacent fields that we all use every day. Imagine how many fields there are out there that you'd never think of.
In any case, what you mention as "counting" is a very narrow approach. If you mean "has to appear before congress for questioning" then having a lot of money helps. There are hundreds if not thousands people doing impactful work that you will never read about. There is not enough time in the day to keep up with all the work done in modern society but that does not make their work "count" any less.