Very inspiring essay.

But:

> This was the closest thing I've had to a normal job, and I hereby apologize to my boss and coworkers, because I was a bad employee. ... Toward the end of the year I spent much of my time surreptitiously working on On Lisp, which I had by this time gotten a contract to publish.

Looks like he really was a bad employee. Not sure yet what conclusions I should draw from this.