Some years ago I realized that I can just start sending emails to an OSS mailing list. Without introduction just starting to post as if I belonged there. I had already made some grammar fixes more than five years before that but I started to comment and critique submissions. And submitting my own patches. Now checking the mailing list is daily habit. Unfortunately I didn't have time to post the second version of a submission on the bus today (another documentation fix).
People, and especially in my culture, are very good at staying out of places where they do not belong through self-policing alone. Unfortunately to the point where at least I do get stuck in narrow patterns and never even consider certain opportunities.
There's not many geniuses without an ecosystem around them that produced them. And even if there are, how would we know about them if they weren't well connected enough to start mattering?
They also don't know much that you can probably make use of. They might think they do, and you might think they do, but they got there mostly through knowing how to talk to boards and investors, not by being able to engage deeply in expertise that is applicable to most people looking to make their way in the World - and if becoming a CEO of a major tech firm or President is the thing you need the help with, you probably know them or people like them already.
I've met quite a few famous people in tech over the years, particularly open source, and have had some short and some long conversations with many of them. I've found most people pretty approachable.
I also know through another side of my life quite a few people in the media and am an acquaintance of someone who is a household name in the UK. Through him, I've met famous sports people, writers, actors, etc., and through that and other networks I know people who have worked behind the scenes on major TV and theatre shows who have met hundreds of famous people.
The one thing that unifies all of them is obvious, but seemingly lost on a lot of people who "other" those whose names are known to them despite never meeting them: they're all just human.
They're not "other", they're us. Including everyone you see on TV, everyone you have read about in magazines, everyone you see on a stage.
They have to put up with being recognised and people dealing with them in strange ways (how would you really deal with a stranger asking for a selfie while you were eating dinner with your family in a restaurant?), but they still do all the things you and I do. As the old saying goes, they all have to put their trousers on one leg at a time in the morning.
I'd definitely encourage people to seek out experts (not just "famous people" unless those people are famous for expertise), and engage them as you'd want to be engaged about your expertise. You'll find most people will be approachable.
But emailing that specific list of people is unlikely going to get you much beyond a template reply from one of their army of assistants.
If someone want to interact with people like Linus Torvalds, they should be aware that in his case he publicly admitted the way he interacted with other was toxic[1]. To be clear, it’s no personal attack against him, it’s about the kind of interaction that can and does occur with largely celebrated figures in general. If anything at least in that case there is some recognition of the issue, though fair credit should probably given also to all people beyond the scene who certainly made tremendous effort for this to happen.
And things like popular micro-blogging platforms are notoriously known to cause interaction going toxic[2].
Just because something is possible doesn’t mean its a nice path to thrive for everybody.
To each their own judgment, but at least consider the tradeoffs.
[1] https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/after-years-of-ab...
I grew up on a island where there was maybe one or two other people who knew computers enough to know programming as a thing existed as a concept, but similarly to you, absolutely nothing else, and it gets very lonely and outright boring after a while.
I solved this (accidentally) by moving to another area, but isn't possible for everyone, then the closest you can get to that would be to bring people closer to where you are instead, or start up something small and reoccurring :)
I gave away an old PCB to a guy in gumtree. We got talking. He's now my 3D printer shop talk guy, and we meet at the pub every other month.
It's surprisingly easier to foster your own hacker space if you trade goods in those circles.
Best part is that Gumtree/Craigslist/Kleinanzeigen let you define a radius to meet these people, so they're all local
I'd advise against the "Im lonely..." angle in seeking out these connections, go more for the "hey I've got this thing you might want..." style patter, even if the former is true.
And always use protection.
Growing up rural, I had about zero people interested in technology around me, even less about programming. But, there was a few of those "curious people" who I talked to about computers and programming. They mostly had no idea, but they were interested, and engaging to talk about, they acted more like a wall to bounce the ball against, rather than actually mentoring me for programming, or whatever.
Anyways, these people, the curious ones, exists everywhere, even in rural areas, even in places with less than 1000 people. They tend to be seen maybe as eccentric, odd or weird, but you can talk to them about everything and anything, and you'll still probably learn something, if not about the subject, maybe about yourself or maybe about your new friend :)
jlundberg•1h ago
Daniel Stenberg is not on the list but he is also a very active programmer on social media like LinkedIn that you can interact with.
abc123abc123•31m ago