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https://github.com/julian/people-i-mostly-admire


https://github.com/julian/people-i-mostly-admire

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People I (Mostly) Admire

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Steve Levitt, an economist of Freakonomics and other fame (who appears below!) has a nice podcast called `People I (Mostly) Admire `_.



I listen to it occasionally, and on one such occasion I was reminded that I too have a list of people who I keep an eye on, follow their work, or else who are people who I have benefitted or learned a lot from.

I suppose using the word "admire" is a bit of a liberty, as nearly no one on this list is someone I have regular personal interactions with -- but nonetheless, in that spirit, I figured I would publish my list, for a few reasons:



* it's a better way of tracking this information than a Google Keep note, which was my previous method of choice

* someone (you!) may see the list and recommend someone who I might be missing out on

* someone (you!) may find someone on this list and enjoy their work

* I already do this for `music `_, `movies `_, `podcasts `_ and `books `_ (albeit in varying states of polish).

* someday maybe I'll automate collecting these peoples' thoughts into automated RSS feeds for myself, or some other easier way to track when something new comes from them



I try to avoid idolizing anyone in life, so what's below is definitely not a reflection of people who I consider "morally" good, and indeed people in my life who are not "famous" but who I have tremendous admiration for and who I have tried to emulate to become a better person are not on this list.

Similarly, I have *not* eliminated anyone below simply for hearing they have a flaw or have done something wrong, though with *sufficient* persuasion one can become disenamored with anyone, regardless of pertinence of the misdeed.

Somewhat hypocritically, I waver about including someone like Dan Ariely below (and have for the minute left him out), as much as I tremendously enjoyed his work and was really introduced to behavioral economics through it, there are sufficient question marks at this point to at least be sad at things have turned out.



Deceased people also don't appear here. Sorry Feynman.



I also don't think this list will be entirely static -- and one or two of the people on it are here even though I'm actually quite unfamiliar with their larger body of work -- but whatever small amount I am familiar with hooked me, so they're here.



So, the list in no order whatsoever, with only scribbles about what subject or area of expertise, or if neither, at least the context in which I encountered them:



* Federico Ardilla (Combinatorics, Combinatorics journal, DJing)

* Moon Duchin (Geometric group theory, gerrymandering)

* Kevin Buzzard (Lean theorem prover, Xena project)

* Terry Tao

* Leslie Lamport (Computer Science)

* Dan Luu

* Simon Willison

* Julia Evans

* Tai-Danae Bradley

* Grant Sanderson

* Stephen Fry

* Jon Stewart

* V.S. Ramachandran

* Gurpreet Dhaliwal (diagnostician)

* Bapu Jena (Freakonomics M.D.)

* Ira Glass

* Greg Wilson

* J Kenji Lopez-Alt

* Steve Levitt & Stephen Dubner (Freakonomics)

* Andrew Ng (Machine Learning)

* David Smerdon (Chess + Statistics)

* Tom Scott



At some point I'll try to link to at least one piece of content from each of the above, so that someone unfamiliar can decide whether they too are hooked.

Feel free to nag me to do so if you're interested.