The Michael Jordan of Hacking

Because you can't tell a great hacker except by working with him, hackers themselves can't tell how good they are. — Paul Graham

Great hackers can't reliably rank themselves, and outsiders can't see the difference at all — you can only tell by working with someone. So this site asks the only people who'd know: other hackers. You name the best hacker you've ever worked with. They, in turn, name theirs. Follow the chains, and the names that keep getting nominated start to surface.

If there is a Michael Jordan of hacking, no one knows, including him. — Paul Graham

Cast your nomination

Done. Send this to the person you nominated — their name will already be in the “Your name” field so they can pass it on:

Top contenders

Local maxima — people nominated as best, who haven't yet named someone better. Counts include transitive nominations: if A → B → C, then C has 2.

    FAQ

    So, this is just a spammy way to collect email addresses?
    Not at all! Emails aren't even collected. We let the person doing the nominating contact the person who was nominated and provide text they can copy-and-paste to them, for this exact reason.
    Hackers, like the guys who break into government computer systems?
    Here we're using the term hacker in the original, MIT sense: “someone who explores limits, tinkers with systems, and creates clever, benign pranks (hacks) that showcase ingenuity, wit, and technical skill.” (handbook.mit.edu/hacking)
    Won't this just suffer from ballot-box stuffing — someone creates a ton of fake names to nominate themselves?
    The contenders are likely somewhat prominent. If someone is getting tons of votes that just don't make sense, I'll invalidate that data. This is just for fun and knowledge, not selecting the next world leader.
    What about cycles? A nominates B, B nominates A?
    Thinking like a hacker, welcome home! Cycles become invisible (mostly). A cycle results from valuing politeness or modesty over honesty. I say ‘bah’ and wave my hand dismissively at anyone doing so.
    And this is all totally private, you'll keep our names and nominations secret and secure?
    NO! Each of the leaders is shown with a chain of their nominations and a link to report it as suspect. If someone contacts me that incorrect data was entered pretending to be them, I'll update it. Currently I'm not making the nomination data public, but I'll review them if there seems to be fake data and I may release them if there's ever any reason to publicly analyze them. Hopefully no one will take this so seriously that they give any reason for this.
    I'm on this list. What is it supposed to do for me?
    I dunno. Bragging rights? If you're on this list and someone is paying you a salary, maybe send them a link to this and ask for a raise?
    I'm on this list and I want off. Remove me!
    Send me an email (john.champaign@gmail.com) with whatever proof you can that that's you and I'll remove you. Are you sure it isn't someone with the same name as you? I'd be somewhat surprised at a world-class hacker being so upset at having their name on a list.
    Who the heck are you? Are you the Michael Jordan of hackers?
    John Champaign, just a run-of-the-mill MIT postdoc and Computer Science PhD. Definitely not a contender (the first thing I did after making this page was nominate the best hacker I've ever worked with, who's certainly better than me).