Bitcoin was created by a pseudonymous person or group operating under the name Satoshi Nakamoto. On January 3 2009, the first Bitcoin block was mined and Bitcoin was born. After periodic interactions with other Bitcoiners via online forums, Satoshi's final message to Bitcoin developers was on April 26 2011. The core ethos of Bitcoin is rules without rulers.
Satoshi's work is carried on by a committed and decentralized network of users, developers and miners. Some users choose to run a node (a pared-down computer which runs the Bitcoin software), further decentralizing the Bitcoin network. Developers create software updates that are then adopted across the network by consensus. Miners secure the network and bring newly-created Bitcoin to market.
Legendary investor Paul Tudor Jones speaks about the Bitcoin community in the following video clip: "Bitcoin has this enormous contingent of really, really smart, sophisticated people who believe in it. Crowdsourced all over the world. Dedicated to seeing Bitcoin succeed and it becoming a commonplace store of value, and transactional to boot."