Well, I have a cynical take about the unique appeal of Common Lisp, but even cynicism aside Common Lisp is not going to lose to Racket in the "interesting compa

Well, I have a cynical take about the unique appeal of Common Lisp, but even cynicism aside Common Lisp is not going to lose to Racket in the "interesting companies" department, I think. Google Flights is still powered by Common Lisp. Clasp is somewhat interesting (and there is a Google Tech Talk about it, too). And instead of learning "How to Design Programs" from people with unclear experience in designing interesting programs, you can read a book full of small interesting programs written by someone with pretty clear track record of doing interesting things (https://github.com/norvig/paip-lisp https://github.com/norvig/paip-lisp).