What are you supposed to feel about Aaron Swartz? He co-authored RSS, served on the W3C’s RDF Core Working Group, helped the wonderful John Gruber design the amazing Markdown, and developed and gave away software like rss2email that many of us use every day… and then he graduated high school. He went to Stanford, naturally, at which point his already fascinating blog, Raw Thought, began alternating even more maddeningly between precocious, annoying, honest to the point of painfulness, and legitimately brilliant. A year into Stanford he dropped out, created Infogami for Paul Graham‘s YCombinator, then teamed up with Reddit‘s founders, developed web.py, became a millionaire after Conde Nast bought Reddit, and then managed to get himself fired within a few weeks. He’ll turn 21 in November, and in early celebration it seems he and Brewster Kahle are turning the library on its ear. Announcing the Open Library….
So, what are you supposed to feel about Aaron Swartz? For me, personally, it seems to be a mix of jealousy, admiration, and gratitude. But mostly gratitude. Aaron, welcome to the library. How can I help you?
Thanks!
Thank you for the kind words. And I’m sorry for the annoying blog posts.
We’d love for your help and feedback.