When I was a young high school kid, interested in AI, I emailed Marvin Minsky at MIT and he responded. I was very impressed that I got a response but unfortunately young enough not to save the email. I really wish I still had that!
Important by what measure? CEO of a major company? Movie star? Famous mathematician? Famous programmer? Entrepreneur? News anchor? Pulitzer prize winning journalist?
Yes, I've emailed and had responses from people matching all of those categories. (A sample includes Eric Schmidt, Jennifer Tilly, John Conway, Randal Schwartz, Paul Graham, Ann Curry, and Laurie Garrett.) Many of them remember me in turn. Several are in my phone. I've met people like this in many different ways, for many different reasons.
My advice is not to bug famous people simply because they are famous. But if you have a legitimate reason to contact someone, don't shy away because that person is well known in some circle.
Also remember that all fame is local. Some people know about the fame and are impressed. Others don't realize the person is famous and don't care. At the end of the day they are people like any other. But frequently busy, with many people trying to get a slice of their time. Most famous people don't like people fawning over them. (You don't want to know the exceptions. Really.) So if you do find yourself taking a slice of their time, get to the point quickly and stop there.
In 1993 I came across an email address that purportedly belonged to Douglas Adams, so I wrote and said that his nonfiction book "Last Chance to See" was even funnier than his fictional stories, and asked about the availability of a paperback edition.
There was no response until 1996, when he replied that a paperback had recently been published, wrapped in one of the worst covers he had seen in his entire career.
I got a response from Peter Norvig a few months back. I've also gotten responses from the some Danish members of parlaiment which you've probably never heard of.
Robert Morris, around 2004. I had an assignment that asked me to write about the Morris worm. So, I decided to shoot him an email with a few questions.
Needless to say, it made my semester (and not only because I got 20% extra credit on an assignment where that wasn't an option).
I guess "important" is all relative ... but I emailed John Carmack once and he wrote me back. When I look back at how simplistic my question was considering everything I now know it makes me appreciate his response even more.
Barbara Liskov of MIT who won the 2008 Turing award. The Turing award is computer science's equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Liskov's email style is direct, precise, and (yes) efficient. Just like her science.
I've gotten to meet most of the leaders in the casual / web games industry. I don't know how important any of them are in the grand scheme of things but there's some majorly cool guys who's accomplishments include working on games and sites many millions have loved - Jim Greer (Kongregate), Joel Breton (Addicting Games), Daniel McNeely (Armor Games), Sean Cooper (made Syndicate all those years ago!) for instance.
I've also written Greg Graffin. I actually wrote him in 2000 to tell them that their website was terrible and that I could do a better job on it. It turns out GG was maintaining it himself at the time and said he would talk to some people about letting me. It never went anywhere unfortunately but it is my best story.
[+] [-] akmiller|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drx|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] btilly|15 years ago|reply
Yes, I've emailed and had responses from people matching all of those categories. (A sample includes Eric Schmidt, Jennifer Tilly, John Conway, Randal Schwartz, Paul Graham, Ann Curry, and Laurie Garrett.) Many of them remember me in turn. Several are in my phone. I've met people like this in many different ways, for many different reasons.
My advice is not to bug famous people simply because they are famous. But if you have a legitimate reason to contact someone, don't shy away because that person is well known in some circle.
Also remember that all fame is local. Some people know about the fame and are impressed. Others don't realize the person is famous and don't care. At the end of the day they are people like any other. But frequently busy, with many people trying to get a slice of their time. Most famous people don't like people fawning over them. (You don't want to know the exceptions. Really.) So if you do find yourself taking a slice of their time, get to the point quickly and stop there.
[+] [-] Cowboy_X|15 years ago|reply
There was no response until 1996, when he replied that a paperback had recently been published, wrapped in one of the worst covers he had seen in his entire career.
[+] [-] j-g-faustus|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dstrus|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mixmax|15 years ago|reply
John Graham Cumming (http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jgrahamc) beats me by many lengths though: http://blog.jgc.org/2009/09/hello-john-its-gordon-brown.html
[+] [-] losvedir|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] srjk|15 years ago|reply
Needless to say, it made my semester (and not only because I got 20% extra credit on an assignment where that wasn't an option).
[+] [-] koenigdavidmj|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] glhaynes|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uptown|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jackrosenberger|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quux|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] albert_prada|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benologist|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mhd|15 years ago|reply
(If Usenet counts, Bjarne Stroustrup)
[+] [-] languagehacker|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krisneuharth|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cockbrand|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] powrtoch|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] ladon86|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jawee|15 years ago|reply