Edited sentence: Alongside the myths of Einstein, Edison, Ford, Howard Hughes, Osborne placed a new variety of American hero.In the short run, it made it easier for the likes of Steve Jobs to find funding; and how much Jobs based his important public myth on Osborne's would be an interesting study.Osborne's financial success legitimized, in the public mind (and more important, in the investor's mind) the image of the computer innovator as swashbuckling poet and visionary