I lucked my way into a lunch with Michael somewhat under 10 years ago and had a chance to pick his brain, and of course express gratitude for his writing which

I lucked my way into a lunch with Michael somewhat under 10 years ago and had a chance to pick his brain, and of course express gratitude for his writing which had an influence on me when I was younger. What I found really remarkable, though, was he also picked my brain -- a junior programmer with no notable accomplishments, working on not very interesting problems. And when I bumped into him on a couple occasions after that, he remembered what I worked on and would ask how it was going.