The question

Which teacher, parent, coach or friend most made you who you are, and what did you learn from them?
RK
Ray Kurzweil

Inventor and futurist; developer of the first omni-font optical character recognition system

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
There were some high school teachers. I remember a math teacher, Mr. Ewen — actually a math teacher in eighth grade, Mrs. Matwell, who got excited about my ideas and wanted to listen to them. My mother actually was kind of a fan of my ideas and would listen to them. Marvin Minsky I actually communicated with in high school and came to visit him, came up to Boston, and to my delight, took me, a high school student, as seriously as he would take a professor. I mean, that is his approach. He treats everybody the same. I think he really doesn’t care if somebody’s a professor or a high school student. He’s very excited with ideas and very honest with his reactions. But that encouragement was important to me.

Academy of Achievement interview source ↗

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Jensen Huang Co-founder, president and chief executive of NVIDIA
they worked hard. They work hard today. So they passed along a lot of life lessons by working hard.
Recorded Patrick Collison, Stripe Sessions 2024, 2024 source ↗
Sonia Sotomayor Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 2009–present
I think I have been mentored by many extraordinary judges in my career, but there’s one in particular that probably changed the course of my life on the court. And that’s Justice John Paul Stevens and the one year we overlapped.
Recorded Lindsey Powell, University of Wisconsin, PBS Wisconsin, 7 September 2016 source ↗
Arthur Ashkin Physicist; Nobel laureate in physics for the invention of optical tweezers
I married her because she is smart!
Recorded Hilary Brueck, Business Insider interview at Ashkin's home, 26 January 2019 source ↗
Denton Cooley Cardiothoracic surgeon; founder of the Texas Heart Institute
The man who inspired me most, I think, was Dr. Alfred Blalock, who was professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins. He was a rather simple man with a burning curiosity. It was through his curiosity that he made many real contributions to medical science. I didn’t think he was an especially brilliant man, I just admired him for his curiosity, and for his perseverance.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview source ↗

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