What's odd to me is the focus on specific individuals. For one thing, why not Dean/Ghemawat facts, at least? I always hear they participate on an equal basis; or does Dean carry Ghemawat like Sherlock carries Watson?
Furthermore, when I actually read things about such universally-held geniuses, the hype often contrasts sharply with the moderate, logical introspections of the geniuses themselves. (Not always, like I vaguely recall of Nietzsche; but most often in my personal experience.) Quite often, the hype even patronizingly dismisses the person's own claims as mere humility. (As with Hume's coverage of Newton in his history of England.) And it often beats up on people who quite reasonably had issues with the person (as I hear with Socrates' spouse Xanthippe).
When one hears breathless accounts of someone's superpowers, a logical first reaction is, "Cool, how can I attain that?" I wish it were otherwise, but the hype is always misleading for this end.
As far as I can tell, it's storytelling. The hype fits in a certain dramatic constraint, like with profit-seeking movies which naturally can't portray too pedestrian a reality. In Dean's case, one of my suspicions is that US "nerd" audiences are more able to vicariously fantasize themselves as a "Jeff Dean" than a "Sanjay Ghemawat". Which, if true, would say something about the lack of imagination and homogeneity of such fantasizers.
(And maybe these people serve as mainstream characters everyone's supposed to be in awe of, but it just wouldn't fit within current society if everyone could follow their interests. Who'll serve you at the store and mop office floors?)
Anyway, sorry for the long random wondering about silly topics; clearly I'm procrastinating.