Ask HN: Who's your role model? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Who's your role model?

43 pointshaack57 comments

Who is your role model and why? I'll allow fictional and people no longer alive.

I dont have one. There are some people who have some good traits and habits that I would like to acquire, but I dont get the role model thing. To me it is about process rather than person. "This guy has a great way of doing X" rather than "I want to be like this specific person".

Fabrice Bellard [1,2] should be on this list. Author of QEMU and FFMPEG among other open source projects that have been useful to a lot of people. Also, author of jslinux [3].

[1] http://bellard.org/

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabrice_Bellard

[3] http://bellard.org/jslinux/

My dad. He came from a small background with lots of brothers and sisters. He got to university and earned a degree in EE (only engineer in his town at that point). Supported his family and did whatever he could for his family. He never showed me any weakness even when his own father died. He has led a very disciplined and amazing life. I just wish I could do/achieve 1/10th of his life.

Cosma Shalizi (http://www.stat.cmu.edu/~cshalizi/), ever since I discovered this link some 16 years ago: http://bactra.org/notebooks/

Thank you for the notebooks link.

Can't recommend these notebooks enough. They cover an incredible variety of statistics, physics, and other topics. They're lucidly written and well cited. He's definitely an inspiration to keep reading and understanding.

John Carmack. He's consistently at the edge of technology - whether it is game engines or avionics. His insights are excellent and can often be used in other areas of engineering / software development.

He's a great speaker too, he'll discuss topics I am not at all familiar with but the context he wraps them in makes them easy to intuit. He also has a very intense passion for his work and his ability to dissect problems into their primitives leads him to really elegant solutions (0x5f3759df! [1]).

If it weren't for John I would have absolutely no interest in VR... but with his involvement it's hard to not be at least a little curious.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root

But the Wikipedia page does not really attribute the derivation of that constant to Carmack. Rather "...he demurred and suggested it was written by Terje Mathisen".

Carmack is one of my role models as well, but 0x5f3759df while neat did not originate from him, as it states multiple times in the Wikipedia article you cite.

From the same article you linked:

> John Carmack, co-founder of id Software, is commonly associated with the code, though he actually did not write it.

I didn't say he developed it. He used it 3-4 years before it became widely known and was responsible at least in part for its proliferation.

Finding your way to an elegant solution does not mean you created that solution. In 1999, Google had 8 employees. Not every algorithm was available at his fingertips. He had to care, seek, and find that solution to use it back then, which might not seem like much now. That's a manifestation of his caring about his craft; not inventing an algorithm.

I've come to realize Jean Luc Picard is. Not exclusively, but when coming to my approach managing people, he simply oozes through. Patrick Stewart more broadly, a greatly insightful person.

But again, not exclusively; I am not a huge Star Trek fan, yet am a huge fan, nor am I into the idea of replicating someone else, as you are you and not them. Perhaps it was formative years, watching the show as a young teenager, that left a seed there.

I find case studies and examples of situations are key. If you've not heard of it, and are managing people, I also hugely recommend a resource in our century: http://manager-tools.com a lot of good applicable examples to a wide range of potential people problems and opportunities there.

I assume you are referring to the management book I still own:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Make-So-Leadership-Lessons-Generatio...

Thanks, that's amazing. I'd never really shared the above before, and had no idea this book existed. I'm buying it now!

I greatly admire Donald Knuth. He's humble, dedicated to his work in a healthy way, and has fascinating outside interests in organ music, for example.

Most of all, I see in him the playful attitude about computer science that Alan Perlis referred to: "I think that it's extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing."

I'd say my father is my role model, as hokey as that sounds. He's an intelligent man and has spent most of his life driving a truck. But, that's what he wants to be doing. I'd like to ensure that I spend my life doing what I want to do.

Rich Hickey. He's brilliant and is arguably the best deeply technical speaker I have ever seen/heard.

I second that.

Came here to say Rich. I attribute a large percentage of my programming skill solely to his talks.

Honorable mentions:

- Nathan Stott (worked with me early in my career and taught me to love Javascript)

- Michael Lopp (aka Rands in Repose)

- Gary Bernhardt

- José Valim

- Joe Armstrong

- Yehuda Katz

- My dad (who taught me patience and the value of hard work)

- Harvey Specter

- Thomas Ptacek (whose consulting wisdom I cannot appreciate enough)

Jesus Christ is the only one that won't disappoint me. All the other great people I'll freely take the good parts and forget their mistakes.

true dat - double true

There are several people who are very inspiring and important to me.

- Paul Graham and Eliezer Yudkowsky

The 2 most clever people that I am aware of. I admire the way they write and think, and want to learn to do that as well.

- Owen Cook(Tyler) from RSD

This is the perfect model of a man that I wish to be. Driven, charismatic, intelligent, just generally awesome. This is how I want to behave and be like.

- Louis CK, Dan Harmon(creator of the shows Community and Rick and Morty) and Randall Munroe(the author of xkcd)

I have enormous respect and love for comedy, just something about the way comedians think is incredibly attractive to me. It takes a lot to be as brilliantly creative as these guys, and I want to learn to think like that.

Others:

Richard Feynman, Kevin Mitnick, Frank Abagnale, Richard Branson - based on their autobiographies, these guys lived cool lives.

Elon Musk - I don't know what kind of person he is, but based on what he does - he is as cool as it gets.

Fictional:

- Walter White, Gregory House

Brilliant person willing to do whatever it takes to achieve his goal, not giving up in desperate situations, acting rationally despite the emotions.

- Barney Stinson

Haha this dude is awesome.

- Hank Rearden

Basically a definition of a badass person, created to be the role model for people like me.

- Harry from HPMOR

Not much to explain here, he is also basically a definition of a cool person.

Others: Harvey Specter, Frank Underwood, Ari Gold, Hank Moody. And Tony Stark I guess =)

You might be interested in su3su2u1's teardowns of HPMOR [1] or at least his review of the finished story [2]. The main takeaway is that MOR!Harry does not, in fact, employ any "Methods of Rationality", usually leaping to "obvious" conclusions without any experimental evidence whatsoever. The author then opts to make the fictional universe fit these conclusions instead of the other way around. Not only that, but most of the science/rationality references are either wrong, incomplete or not applicable to the situation. So despite having entertained me most of the time, HPMOR is not what I would call a praiseworthy piece of writing.

[1] http://su3su2u1.tumblr.com/tagged/Hariezer-Yudotter/chrono [2] http://su3su2u1.tumblr.com/post/113649628443/hpmor-full-revi...

Definitely Elon Musk, he's a real engineer and we both share the same interests, aviation and electric vehicles

I don't know if I consider him my role model, but I definitely think what he is doing is amazing. And I love reading about him and his interests.

Elon Musk is a freaking alien.

His list of accomplishments is ridiculous-- Paypal, SpaceX, Tesla and those yet-to-be-realized like hyperloop. He's not a role model he's someone to be downright jealous about! (Sarcasm!)

Seriously though to be involved in that many successful ventures it has to be more than just luck.

I actually like to think that he is an alien lost on earth trying to build a spaceship to go back home. With Paypal, Tesla and SpaceX, he is just bootstrapping what he needs to build to go back home.

Alan Watts taught me to flow and see,

Elon Musk taught me to grow and be,

Ayn Rand then helped break the self-illusions, (Ironically!)

Will Durant showed the path to break many delusions.

Makes me feel like I'm in the Santa Cruz mountains, under some redwoods, listening to a creek gurgle by. Nice imagery, man.

Buckminster Fuller. The epitome of an "outside-the-box" thinker--regardless of how cliché that is nowadays. Reading what he wrote and listening to his talks changed my world-view. He also changed the way I view/approach/solve problems in my day-to-day work.

He's also a quotation goldmine:

“make the world work, for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller

Chris Coyier

I enamored the man for his work and his experience with developing truly innovative work while still pursuing an active "side project" go-getter-ness via Codepen. But after seeing his appearance on Envato's "Made By" series, I could not have chosen a better role model. He is exactly what I want to be in the future. Calm and Collected and revered as an expert in my field.

Here is the video for those who are interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRmbVOI6oIM

Linus Torvalds [0]

Richard Stallman [1]

Linus for Linux; I'd be lost without that kernel.

Richard for GNU; I'd be lost without GNU GCC and Emacs.

Both of them for looking at technology and wanting more, and not being satisfied with the culture that existed at the time.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman

John Muir, for teaching people how to appreciate and preserve the few precious natural wonders we have left, and how to discover our own spirituality within them.

Joel Spolsky and I haven't even read most of his writings. Whatever I have read have appealed to me. Plus he seems like a cool dude.

Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is pretty cool. I like his transparency. He writes really useful things. His writing about salary negotiation is probably the single most useful thing I've ever read. Lots of other stuff he's covered I hope will be relevant to me in the coming years (B2B sales).

Superhans from Peep Show.

I have a huge admiration for people who, with a strong character, pushed the boundaries of their time and invented revolutionary things while no one believed in them and even when some tried to hamper their research. This may apply to most inventors and explorers but for me, personally, Galileo Galilei and Alan Turing stand out.

If a "role-model" means what I understand it is (Person who had a role in society that you dream of having), then yes, they are my role-models.

Grace Hopper - I love her personality and admire her career.

Leonardo da Vinci - An independent self learner who was accomplished in art and engineering. I'd say Renaissance Men in general are pretty high up on my list of admiration. I like the idea of not focusing on one discipline, learning as many ideas and specialties as I can, then combining them in new ways. To always be curious.

George Costanza

From a software development perspective - Brad Fitzpatrick

From a business perspective - Elon Musk

From a humanities perspective - Gandhi

I admire so many great people but I never forced my self to be like them , I am going in my own way

Napoleon Hill.

If you look past the mantras you'll see a psychology of selling and the need for connections.

Everything you do is selling; the way you look, what you eat, how you communicate and how you work, you are selling yourself to the world hoping to get more back in return.

Fred Rogers (aka Mister Rogers). I watched him on TV occasionally as a child, but it wasn't until I was an adult, and started reading about him and watching interviews with him, that I realized what an amazing person he was in real life.

Probably Bill Gates. He was the first person that struck me as wildly successful (this was in the mid 90s). For some reason his success really resonated with me and helped me realize, at an early age, the importance of delayed gratification.

I do not know if it counts as a role model, but I choose to let me inspire on a regular basis by:

Seth Godin, Paul Graham, Swiss Miss, James Altuhcer, Rob Walling & Mike Taber / Startup For the Rest of us, Zen Founder

My father who works for 18 hours a day and Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam - the Missile Man and Former President of India. I recently met him.

for a long time I would say ive had a hard time answering that question, but at the moment I think I would pick Casey Neistat. His motivation and creativity is an inspiration for me. https://www.youtube.com/user/caseyneistat

No role model.

I push myself to work as hard as I can and do right by other people. You don't need a role model for that.

Rich Hickey teached me how to program. Alan Watts teached me how to live.

I tend to use the good parts of whoever happens to be right in front or right next to me to build my role model.

Bill, from The Bigdil

Richard Branson.

Sheldon Cooper

Richard Feynman.

I knew him at Caltech. He tutored me in Quantum Mechanics.

A few things I learned from him: you cannot bullshit a good scientist. If you can't explain it to an undergraduate you don't understand it yourself. Experiment rules - if experiment says it's not true then it isn't, despite what theory might say - and he was a theoretician!

Everyone who knew anything about him revered him as a god because he made it plainly apparent he regarded it as more important to teach Physics than to understand it himself. He must have come to that conclusion late in life, as I recently learned that as a young Cornell professor he was quite irresponsible towards his students.

Wally.

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