I once emailed Woz about some trivial question about the old Apple machines. He emailed me right back with an apology about how he was too busy to answer all these kinds of emails and then in the next sentence, answered my question anyway.

Different story. I once asked a question to the author of 7-Zip to include it in a software and received in return a link to the FAQ!

And even when Woz isn't responsive himself, it seems he makes sure his emails get answered. I emailed him once a few years ago -- I forget about what -- and his wife replied with a kind, detailed note.

When I was a kid, I was interested in game development & I found the e-mail address for someone at Infogrames that developed the Alone in the Dark game and said I was a young and learning game development and asked a bunch of questions. Surprisingly the contact whose e-mail address I found corresponded with me a few times about questions I had about developing video games. I somehow doubt that kind of thing would happen today but I'd probably be proven wrong. I then wrote it up as a Q&A and put it on my Geocities website :-)

I love stories like this. A few months ago, my daughter was born and was named after the main character in a Philip Pullman series. He tweeted a welcome message to her! https://twitter.com/PhilipPullman/status/946678534776516608 One of the weirdest, most amazing internet moments for me.

My wife (then girlfriend) got John Carmack to email me for my birthday in college.

That's a very considerate thing to do. Cute!

They’re busy people and in many cases very influential (and probably also wealthy), but famous people are still people at the end of the day. As a fan of few people in this world, when I do get the chance to meet them, I try to approach them as a human first and a famous person second. Another way to look at that is: great every stranger you’d like to make a connection with with the same respect you’d treat your heroes. If you go up to them and start freaking out because you’re actually talking to them...how do you think that feels for them?

I’ve always thought that it wouldn’t be that fulfilling to be famous, because you’d lose the opportunity to do things like go out to a normal restaurant with your family and have dinner without people acting weird around you constantly. Paparazzi are one thing, fans and stalkers another.

TL;DR don’t be the person who makes being famous suck, and you’ll probably get a lot more out of having an interesting conversation with someone you look up to vs just getting an autograph.

Reminds me a bit of the outer world experience of walking around GDC, where you'd see the big names just wandering around. Talking with lots of big names like Dustin Browder, Tim Schafer and Noah Falstein. Always a delight talking and hearing experiences of these people. Perhaps one day I'll meet Carmack.

I would imagine that with all the work that their jobs demand, they would be happy to do something not related to work.