Armstrong was
the more impressive in actually putting the tube to
 work. 
 DeForest is painted rather blatantly as nothing less than a slimeball
 by the T.H. Lee chapter cited by the previous web site:
 
http://www-smirc.stanford.edu/papers/chapter1.pdf
 In legal proceedings attempting to claim credit for the superhet,
 DeForest made a perfect idiot of himself.  He didn't have a clue. 
 
     We call people like that "executive management" nowadays.