1.他是一个好奇心极其强烈的人。
以下是他的原话：
When I was a kid, I thought a lot about what made me different from the other kids. I don"t think I was smarter than them and I certainly wasn"t more talented. And I definitely can"t claim I was a harder worker — I"ve never worked particularly hard, I"ve always just tried doing things I find fun.
当我还是个小孩的时候，我就在思考为什么我与其他孩子不一样。我不认为我比他们更聪明，当然也不是更有才能。而且我也不敢说我更勤奋——我从来没有非常努力地工作过，我只是总去做那些我觉得很有意思的事情。
Instead, what I concluded was that I was more curious— but not because I had been born that way. If you watch little kids, they areintensely curious, always exploring and trying to figure out how things work.
我最终得到的结论是我比其他孩子有更多的好奇心——但这可不是因为我天生如此。如果你去看那些小孩子，他们都极其好奇，总是在探索，试图弄明白事情的原理。
The problem is that school drives all that curiosity out. Instead of letting youexplore things for yourself, it tells you that you have to read these particular books and answer these particular questions. And if you try to dosomething else instead, you"ll get in trouble. Very few people"s curiosity can survive that.
可问题在于学校扼杀了这所有的好奇心。因为它不仅不让你自己去探索事情，还告诉你必须要读那些特定的教科书，回答那些特定的问题。而你如果尝试做其他的事情，你就会陷入麻烦。在这个过程中很少有人的好奇心能存活下来。
But, due to some accident, mine did. I kept being curious andjust followed my curiosity. First I got interested in computers, which led meto get interested in the Internet, which led me to get interested in building online news sites, which led me to get interested in standards (like RSS), which led me to get interested in copyright reform (since Creative Commons wanted to use similar standards). And on and on.
但意外的是我成功了。我依然保持好奇而且跟随着我的好奇心。最初我是对电脑感兴趣，这让我对互联网产生了兴趣，进而我开始喜欢建网站，这又让我对一些诸如RSS的规范产生兴趣，然后我又对版权改革感兴趣了（因为Creative Commons 想采用类似的标准）。就这样不断持续下去。
Curiosity builds on itself —each new thing you learn about has all sorts of different parts and connections, which you then want to learn more about. Pretty soon you"re interested in more and more and more, until almost everything seems interesting. And when that"s the case, learning becomes really easy — you want to learn about almost everything, since it all seems really interesting.
好奇心本身就是正反馈。你学到的每件新事情都有各种各样的联系，这让你想要学习更多。很快你就对越来越多的事情感兴趣，直到几乎所有事情都看起来很有趣。这时学习就变得很简单——你几乎想学习一切，因为它们真的很有趣。
I"m convinced that the people we call smart are just people who somehow got a head start on this process. I fell like the only thing I"ve really done is followed my curiosity wherever it led, even if that meant crazy things like leaving school or not taking a "real" job. This isn"t easy — my parents are still upset with me that I dropped out of school — but it"s always worked for me.
我坚信所谓的聪明人只是不知怎么在这条路上走的更早。我觉得我唯一的成功就是跟随我的好奇心，即使那意味着一些疯狂的事情比如退学或者没有真正意义上的工作。做到这些并不容易——我父母现在还对我辍学的事情感到失望——但这个法则对我一直有效。
2.他是一个内向的，但非常善于向其他人学习的人。
以下是他朋友的回忆
Aaron was quiet and introspective. He was an active listener.
Aaron不太爱说话，习惯审视自己。他是一个善于倾听的人。
He was very smart but never made me feel bad for not being as smart as him. He was patient in explaining things to me. He was creative -- in talking with him, I"d usually get a great idea I had not considered.
他非常聪明，但是从不会让我因为没他那么聪明而感觉不爽。 他给我解释东西的时候很耐心。他很有创造力——和他谈话我经常想到之前没考虑过的主意。
He was kind and thoughtful. He thought about the consequences of whatever we were talking about. He had a subversive side, but it had a purpose.
他很友善，考虑周到。无论我们讨论什么，他都会考虑结果。他有颠覆性的一面，不过是有目的的。
Despite being outspoken, he was introverted -- most of our interactions were because I wrote to him. He had great follow through. Always wrote back.
他虽然健谈，但也很内向。我们大部分的交流都是因为我给他发信息。他总是很好地回复我。
I did favors for him whenever I could. Not because he ever asked me for help, but because talking with him inspired me and made me want to help any way I could.
我总是尽可能地帮他，但这不是因为他请求我帮忙，而是因为和他谈话能够鼓舞我，使我想尽力提供帮助。
He was very, very sharp and I think this was because he really used to listen very thoughtfully to what other people said.
他的思维非常非常敏捷，我想这是因为他真的十分认真地听其他人说话。
I met him twice at the same conference a few years back. He was a bit away from the crowd and not too social although most people did know him at the event.
我几年前在一个大会上见过他两次。他有点远离人群，不太喜欢社交。尽管在场的大多数人都认识他。
3. 他因为编程而年少成名，然而二十岁之后志向已不在编程。
