Stanford University senior Dakin Sloss is executive director of California Common Sense, a Stanford-based nonprofit that works toward using technology to build a more transparent and efficient state government. Before participating in a panel on e-government’s future, he copped to being a romantic, and an admirer of Roger Federer, Aristotle, and Steve Jobs.

Q. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

A. Listen, because most value in the world is created by talking and working with other human beings, and it’s very hard to do that if you don’t know what those humans want.

Q. Describe yourself in five words as less.

A. Passionate, curious, romantic, interesting.

Q. What’s something you wish you had the nerve to do but never did?

A. I have a lot of nerve so there’s not really a lot of regrets I walk around with. If there’s something I want to do, I do it—assuming it’s appropriate.

Q. Who were your childhood heroes?

A. Roger Federer. It’s incredible what he did with the sport of tennis in just perfecting something so thoroughly. It’s always inspired me and kind of guided me. And Aristotle—I love his ideas.

Q. What person, living or dead, would you want to sit down and have a beer with?

A. Steve Jobs did incredible things for the world and for himself, and the way he combined those two is very interesting to me and something I strive for.

Q. What’s your favorite thing about Palo Alto?

A. Definitely the Peninsula Creamery, a phenomenal old-style diner with the best milkshakes in the Bay Area.

*Photo by Brian Smeets.