Warren Buffett. He went from role model to hero when he donated his fortune to someone else's foundation. No one does that. Steve Albini. I love his songs, but

Warren Buffett. He went from role model to hero when he donated his fortune to someone else's foundation. No one does that. Steve Albini. I love his songs, but he's a hero for how he thinks and writes about music and the music industry. His "The Problem With Music," his review of Slint's "Spiderland," and his "Remembering a Friend" (about Silkworm's Michael Dahlquist) could be Paul Graham essays. Judith Martin (Miss Manners). What PG wrote about Wodehouse and Austen applies to Martin, especially her early work, which is among the funniest, most sane, best written, and most useful writing I've ever encountered. Bill James (the baseball writer). More than anyone else, he taught me how to think and how to share my thoughts with others. S.R. Ranganathan. _The Five Laws of Library Science_ is fantastic. And his colon classification system is pretty great as well.