The OP straddles the fine line between genuineness and trolling, but anyway, "So - why do you guys listen to him ?" a combination of (1) expertise - PG is c

The OP straddles the fine line between genuineness and trolling, but anyway, "So - why do you guys listen to him ?" a combination of (1) expertise - PG is considered a "top 1%" Lisp hacker - has written some of the best books on lisp. (2) worldly success without selling out/ doing nasty things (Viaweb and its sale) (3) original thinker and excellent communicator ( his essays) (4) has an attitude of "giving back to the community" by (a) reaching out and actively engaging the community and (b) working hard to enable others to attain successes similair to his own, from the position of someone who has "walked the path". (YC) and (5) (as someone noted before) seems to be a genuinely nice and helpful guy. This combination of these is very rare. It is interesting to compare PG to another hacker, Peter Norvig. In my (admittedly limited) perception, Norvig " scores" as well as PG on points 1-3 and 5, but not so much on point 4 (which is all right, different folks and all that). Norvig seems to be more remote and inaccessible and more "wizardly". ( NB: I am not saying this is true, I am talking of perception. Peter Norvig is a very friendly, very nice guy) Matz/Guido/Kernighan .. all these folks seem to have more detached online personas, though they all embody the expert + nice factors. I think the key to PG's popularity is in the combination of excellence/expertise and his "help others be successful" actions. PS: I don't agree with the "cult" description - a cult is where the leader is essentially worshiped (PG is admired, there is a difference) and his sayings are uncritically accepted (PG gets pushback and criticism on YC)