But I can certainly understand where somebody has a public image that can be damaged by some random poster, so I'm with pg to some extent. I think a better question would be about this whole hero worship idea in general. Guys like Woz are great hackers, no doubt about it. But are they really worth the elevated platform many of us put them on? I don't think so. I don't read pg essays because hey, it's another pg essay! I read some of them because they were helpful.
So I can understand the frustration many people feel when it looks like they are being sold on reading blog material simply because of the hype surrounding somebody's name. Quite frankly, I find that useless to me personally. So make the comment about _that_, and not some particular person.
The interesting undercurrent in this discussion is that the technical world is very much a reputation, name-dropping, hero worship kind of place. As much as we all understand the importance of finding and servicing users in our startups, let's be honest: teams are going to get rewarded by both the investment community and the marketplace based on PR factors. That makes an attack like this one even worse, cause it hits somebody right in the pocketbook.
I've noticed that a surprising number of people live two lives-- one on the internet and one in person. I can respect a decision to live like that, even if the behaviors differ between the online and offline lives, even if the two lives are separate. Now, I don't exactly condone this behavior, but I think anyone should have the right to do it. Forcing everyone to forgo anonymity prevents some people from doing that, because it fuses the online and offline lives.