---
title: Exemplars
subtitle: People who inspire
---

## Inspiring

* [Jim Gilliam](http://www.jimgilliam.com/) (like [Ze Frank](http://www.zefrank.com/) with a cause)
* [Michael Phillips](http://www.lithiumcreations.com/about-the-author/)
* [Alberti](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Battista_Alberti)
* [Lorenzo Medici](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenzo_de'_Medici)
* Steve Jobs: an inspiration since I was 10
* [Charles Marohn](http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2010/11/22/confessions-of-a-recovering-engineer.html)
* [Connie Picciotto](http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/feature/wp/2013/05/02/connie-picciotto-has-kept-vigil-near-the-white-house-for-32-years-why-and-at-what-cost/)
* Laungi Bhuiya
* [Katalin Karikó](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/nov/21/covid-vaccine-technology-pioneer-i-never-doubted-it-would-work): gave up personal progress for science progress
* [Oleksandr Kamyshin](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60755198): businessperson who [stepped up in crisis](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60755198); I hope I would act similarly but moreso hope I never find out

## Important

* Alan Turing: gave us general purpose computing
* Grace Hopper: added the abstraction layer of programming
* [Douglas Engelbart](http://dougengelbart.org/): added that programs could be usable
* [Andrew Carnegie](http://www.carnegie.org/sub/about/biography.html): "…the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding."
* Thomas Jefferson: One of the most important sponsors of the liberty I enjoy today.
* Émile Baudot: inventor of digital communications
* Tommy Flowers: inventor of purely-electronic "programmable" computing in the face of skepticism
* [Edward Snowden](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden)
* [John Muir](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Muir): defender of wilderness
* Pauli Murray: moved US towards civil rights
* [Ruth Bader Ginsburg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Bader_Ginsburg): defender of civil liberty and advocate for open dialogue and diversity
* [Margaret Sanger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger)
* [Ida Craddock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Craddock)
* [Ida Tarbell](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Tarbell): heroine of the fourth estate
* [Ida Wells](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/obituaries/overlooked-ida-b-wells.html): another heroine of the fourth estate
* [Greta Thunberg](https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/): humanity's conscience

## Worth reading

* [Zeynep Tufekci](https://twitter.com/zeynep)
* Daniel Dennett
* Danny Hillis
* Stephen Jay Gould
* Kurt Vonnegut
* H. L. Mencken
* [George Lakoff](http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/people/lakoff): brings linguistic theory to laypeople in useful ways.  Sometimes oversimplifies, especially about embodied cognition.
* [Amanda Hess](http://amandahess.org/)
* Gore Vidal

## Historical

* Thaddeus Stevens
