Couple questions

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As any famous person you must answer the following questions:

Q.How much do you believe fate or luck contributed toward your success? Q.How did being a U.S. citizen help you achieve your dreams? Q.What was your happiest moment in your life? Q.What is your biggest mistake in life?

Thanks

-- John Golfman, July 28, 1997

Answers

Now that http://photo.net/photo/ has been written up in the Wall Street Journal (about 10 days ago) I guess I qualify as a famous person....

Fate and luck are responsible for 99% of my success. It is no accident that someone like Bill Gates with rich white American parents had the capital and connections to start a company and become a rich white American person himself. Similarly, it is no accident that someone like me, born into the suburban Jewish American home of two Harvard graduates, would eventually wind up living in a Harvard Square condo and attending a fancy American university.

I'm not sure that I remember what my dreams were. With five or six Web servers to watch, it is tough to live except reactively. Certainly being a US citizen exposed to 100,000 hours of television advertising helped form my dreams of being surrounded by material possessions and a supermodel wife.

Happiest moment? I'm sure that it was spent with a dog and a girlfriend but the problem is I can't remember which dog and which girlfriend. Ouch!

Speaking of ouch, I think I've made too many mistakes to figure out which one was the biggest. Certainly reflection on this mournful subject would not be possible without crying and/or suicide.

-- Philip Greenspun, August 11, 1997