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].
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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).
[+] [-] jib|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghh|11 years ago|reply
[1] http://bellard.org/
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabrice_Bellard
[3] http://bellard.org/jslinux/
[+] [-] simplegeek|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anatoly|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bglazer|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zgniatacz|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] liquidmetal|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nerdy|11 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] zhte415|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] nextw33k|11 years ago|reply
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Make-So-Leadership-Lessons-Generatio...
[+] [-] craftsman|11 years ago|reply
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."
[+] [-] scrabble|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tehcodez|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notduncansmith|11 years ago|reply
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)
[+] [-] talles|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swah|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oonny|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] netsurfer912|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] rayalez|11 years ago|reply
- 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 =)
[+] [-] 0xndc|11 years ago|reply
[1] http://su3su2u1.tumblr.com/tagged/Hariezer-Yudotter/chrono [2] http://su3su2u1.tumblr.com/post/113649628443/hpmor-full-revi...
[+] [-] crystalclear506|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nerdy|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] monroepe|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RefactoringDao|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] pmdulaney|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] decasteve|11 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] Stephn_R|11 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] christianbryant|11 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] cjfont|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] carrotleads|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nhayden|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] collyw|11 years ago|reply