Genies - Geniuses

 Last week's edition of Die Zeit, a very good German weekly newspaper, featured 9 "geniuses who have changed our lives." Probably prompted by Steve Jobs's death, it might interest you to see who they named and why...some might surprise you:

1. the founder of IKEA, Ingvar Kamprad
2. the inventor of the birth control pill [Anti-Baby-Pille], Carl Djerassi
3. famous chef Jamie Oliver
4. the founders of Aldi, Karl and Theo Albrecht
etc. (see list below)

sure, they changed the way we buy furniture, drink coffee, and how we define "friends"...but "geniuses"?

I wonder which ones would be different on an American list... I am sure "birth control" wouldn't be #2, and not many people know who Jamie Oliver is...or the founders of Aldi...It struck me as a somehow very German list, although the presence of Starbucks, Facebook, Apple, Ikea and Harry Potter do show the processes of globalization...