Not to underestimate Mr. Ottens' contribution, but as the article notes, he was the "head of product development at the Belgian Hasselt branch of the Eindhoven company Philips" - so I guess he didn't single-handedly invent both the Compact Cassette (as it was called initially) and the Compact Disc, I think it was more of a group effort under his leadership...

Yes, it's a bit like a Steve Jobs situation.

In a Dutch eulogy I read yesterday it has the anecdote of him showing a wooden block that would fit in the inside pocket of his jacket and decided for the team: this is how small the music cassette should be. He also quickly negotiated with Sony when they started to copy the design to make Philips' design the universal standard.

Edit: Found this quote in Cassette: A Documentary Mixtape (2016): "You can credit me with a few ideas. But the designers developed the device. I haven't done anything special. "

But did he walk around the office eating pretentious fruit?

https://youtu.be/E3s-qZsjK8I

It's normal to credit leaders with the team's effort though. Just about anything is a team effort, but credited to the leader, at least for public announcements.

The leader gets more credits because he often gives direction.