Ask YC: Who are YOUR heroes?

At the moment...Ernest Gallo. We'll see how that pans out come morning.

EDIT:

My real list:

1. Nietzsche. Some others have mentioned him. Too often he's thought of as a proto-Nazi, and maybe he is, at least in terms of attitude. But every reading lends to the belief that above all else he's an endlessly untapped pool of thought.

2. Debussy. I'm increasingly convinced that he is Beethoven/Bach/Mozart's superior. Each among the latter wrote endless meadering or cliche'd passages. Debussy produced consisent note-by-note perfection, combined with experimentation. He, however, has no "great works". They all stand about the same, even La Mer.

3. Rachmaninov. Reached some of the greatest possible heights, though he is full of mistakes and lapses. The Paganinni variations sits on a pedestal along with the 9th, Brahms' requiem, and Bach's Bm mass.

4. Chopin. A composer of limited scope and a laughable arranger, still has the incomparable distinction of writing the world's greatest melody, in the E flat major etude. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-idMTyc0AY

5. Rochefoucauld. The perfect man.

Nietzsche

David Foster Wallace

Ted Kaczynski

Stephen Bohne: My social studies teacher in High School. His was a restless mind, always teaching, always learning, and always challenging us to greater things. He got in trouble a lot.

Mark Jones: My mentor as a nurse. Up until him, I'd been surrounded by up-tight nurses who worried about more about a bed bath or a clean patient room while the patient was dying. I could tell a lot of stories about Mark. Like the day he cut his underwear off himself and threw them at another nurse while doing CPR without missing a beat. Or, the day he was doing chest compressions in one hand and starting an IV in the other. Again, not missing a beat. He taught me that the most important thing was to take good care of the patient and have fun doing it.

Francis Schaeffer: For teaching me that I didn't have to check my mind at the door to be a Christian.

Paul Graham (But not in a creepy or a suck up kinda way). His communicating how the startup world works and how wealth creation works really changed me. I was raised in the Banana Republics of Central America during the 70's and 80's, and really had no idea how the US worked, and how the whole money thing worked. Paul's writings on the subject 4-5 years ago started me on a journey to where I am today. I'm grateful for that. He also taught me to give back. It's important.

- Richard Branson

- Bear Grylls

- Bill Gates (for philanthropy - note that this is coming from a die hard Mac and Linux user)

- Carl Sagan

- Richard Dawkins

(If it was limited to the tech sphere, then Joshua Schachter and Michael Arrington.)

Richard P. Gabriel Noam Chomsky Bakunin Richard Stallman