Craig Venter's sudden passing has triggered many writings about his life and work. I'm overdue on my own personal reflections, and am breaking them into three thematic pieces. While I only met him a few times and never one-on-one, his career had an enormous impact on mine. So I am going to write a series of posts this week reviewing, in a very personal way, Venter's enormous impact on genomics and synthetic biology. I'm sure I won't do it proper justice, and I won't be surprised if my memory plays tricks on me - please do point out any egregious errors of fact and feel free to contest my opinions if you feel they are unfounded.