Maybe Bill Gates needs to burnish his legacy a bit with the kids. A survey released this week asked 1,010 young adults between the ages of 16 to 25 to name the greatest innovators of all time.

Thomas Edison, the “Wizard of Menlo Park” who developed the electric light bulb and motion picture camera, got the majority of the vote. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs came in second, followed by Alexander Graham Bell, Marie Curie and Mark Zuckerberg, according to the Lemelson-MIT Invention Index.

The inclusion of Jobs on the list isn’t surprising, especially since 40 percent of the respondents to an accompanying survey said they couldn’t live without their smartphones or tablet computers.

But the youngsters obviously don’t feel the same way about their Windows machines and Bill Gates who led the PC revolution throughout the 80s and 90s.

Now, arguments could be made on whether Gates’ innovation came more on the business end of things rather than the technology front, making key moves to purchase software that formed the basis of Microsoft.

However, the results of the Lemelson-MIT survey are pretty fascinating, especially given the emergence of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Of course, Facebook likely has transformed the lives of 16-to-25 year-olds more than most technology products, including those Windows-based computers sitting on desktops. That said, aren’t these the same folks that likely have an Xbox sitting under their TV?

[Hat tip to Mashable]

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