author stringclasses 11
values | title stringlengths 1 899 ⌀ | url stringlengths 18 120 | text stringlengths 10 1.26M | word_count int64 1 199k |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Paul Graham | Where to See Silicon Valley | http://paulgraham.com/seesv.html | | |
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| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
October 2010
Silicon Valley proper is mostly suburban sprawl. At first glance it doesn't seem there's anything to see. It's not the sort of place that has conspicuous monuments. But if... | 1,081 |
Paul Graham | High Resolution Fundraising | http://paulgraham.com/hiresfund.html | | |
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| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
September 2010
The reason startups have been using [more convertible notes](http://twitter.com/paulg/status/22319113993) in angel rounds is that they make deals close faster. By making... | 721 |
Paul Graham | What Happened to Yahoo | http://paulgraham.com/yahoo.html | | |
|
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
August 2010
When I went to work for Yahoo after they bought our startup in 1998, it felt like the center of the world. It was supposed to be the next big thing. It was supposed to be w... | 2,058 |
Paul Graham | The Future of Startup Funding | http://paulgraham.com/future.html | | |
|
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
August 2010
Two years ago I [wrote](http://www.paulgraham.com/googles.html#next) about what I called "a huge, unexploited opportunity in startup funding:" the growing disconnect betwee... | 3,887 |
Paul Graham | The Acceleration of Addictiveness | http://paulgraham.com/addiction.html | | |
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July 2010
What hard liquor, cigarettes, heroin, and crack have in common is that they're all more concentrated forms of less addictive predecessors. Most if not all the things we describe as addictive are. And the scary thing is, the process that created them is accelerating.
We wouldn't wan... | 1,281 |
Paul Graham | The Top Idea in Your Mind | http://paulgraham.com/top.html | | |
|
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
July 2010
I realized recently that what one thinks about in the shower in the morning is more important than I'd thought. I knew it was a good time to have ideas. Now I'd go further: n... | 1,178 |
Paul Graham | Organic Startup Ideas | http://paulgraham.com/organic.html | | |
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| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
April 2010
The best way to come up with startup ideas is to ask yourself the question: what do you wish someone would make for you?
There are two types of startup ideas: those tha... | 1,013 |
Paul Graham | Apple's Mistake | http://paulgraham.com/apple.html | | |
|
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
November 2009
I don't think Apple realizes how badly the App Store approval process is broken. Or rather, I don't think they realize how much it matters that it's broken.
The way ... | 2,156 |
Paul Graham | What Startups Are Really Like | http://paulgraham.com/really.html | | |
|
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
October 2009
_(This essay is derived from a talk at the 2009 Startup School.)_
I wasn't sure what to talk about at Startup School, so I decided to ask the founders of the startup... | 5,156 |
Paul Graham | Persuade xor Discover | http://paulgraham.com/discover.html | | |
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September 2009
When meeting people you don't know very well, the convention is to seem extra friendly. You smile and say "pleased to meet you," whether you are or not. There's nothing dishonest about this. Everyone knows that these little social lies aren't meant to be taken literally, just as ev... | 1,309 |
Paul Graham | Post-Medium Publishing | http://paulgraham.com/publishing.html | | |
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September 2009
Publishers of all types, from news to music, are unhappy that consumers won't pay for content anymore. At least, that's how they see it.
In fact consumers never really were paying for content, and publishers weren't really selling it either. If the content was what they were s... | 1,781 |
Paul Graham | The List of N Things | http://paulgraham.com/nthings.html | | |
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September 2009
I bet you the current issue of _Cosmopolitan_ has an article whose title begins with a number. "7 Things He Won't Tell You about Sex," or something like that. Some popular magazines feature articles of this type on the cover of every issue. That can't be happening by accident. Edit... | 1,457 |
Paul Graham | The Anatomy of Determination | http://paulgraham.com/determination.html | | |
|
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
September 2009
Like all investors, we spend a lot of time trying to learn how to predict which startups will succeed. We probably spend more time thinking about it than most, because w... | 1,517 |
Paul Graham | What Kate Saw in Silicon Valley | http://paulgraham.com/kate.html | | |
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August 2009
Kate Courteau is the architect who designed Y Combinator's office. Recently we managed to recruit her to help us run YC when she's not busy with architectural projects. Though she'd heard a lot about YC since the beginning, the last 9 months have been a total immersion.
I've been... | 824 |
Paul Graham | The Trouble with the Segway | http://paulgraham.com/segway.html | | |
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July 2009
The Segway hasn't delivered on its initial promise, to put it mildly. There are several reasons why, but one is that people don't want to be seen riding them. Someone riding a Segway looks like a dork.
My friend Trevor Blackwell built [his own Segway](http://tlb.org/#scooter), whic... | 387 |
Paul Graham | Ramen Profitable | http://paulgraham.com/ramenprofitable.html | | |
|
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
July 2009
Now that the term "ramen profitable" has become widespread, I ought to explain precisely what the idea entails.
Ramen profitable means a startup makes just enough to pay... | 1,855 |
Paul Graham | Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule | http://paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html | | |
|
| | "...the mere consciousness of an engagement will sometimes worry a whole day."
� Charles Dickens
---
July 2009
One reason programmers dislike meetings so much is that they're on a different type of schedule from other people. Meetings cost them more.
There are two types of... | 1,182 |
Paul Graham | A Local Revolution? | http://paulgraham.com/revolution.html | | |
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April 2009
Recently I realized I'd been holding two ideas in my head that would explode if combined.
The first is that startups may represent a [new economic phase](highres.html), on the scale of the Industrial Revolution. I'm not sure of this, but there seems a decent chance it's true. Peop... | 1,347 |
Paul Graham | Why Twitter is a Big Deal | http://paulgraham.com/twitter.html | | |
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April 2009
[Om Malik](http://gigaom.com/2009/04/03/google-may-buy-twitter-or-not-but-why-is-twitter-so-hot/) is the most recent of many people to ask why Twitter is such a big deal.
The reason is that it's a new messaging protocol, where you don't specify the recipients. New protocols are ra... | 155 |
Paul Graham | The Founder Visa | http://paulgraham.com/foundervisa.html | | |
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April 2009
I usually avoid politics, but since we now seem to have an administration that's open to suggestions, I'm going to risk making one. The single biggest thing the government could do to increase the number of startups in this country is a policy that would cost nothing: establish a new c... | 414 |
Paul Graham | Five Founders | http://paulgraham.com/5founders.html | | |
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April 2009
_Inc_ recently asked me who I thought were the 5 most interesting startup founders of the last 30 years. How do you decide who's the most interesting? The best test seemed to be influence: who are the 5 who've influenced me most? Who do I use as examples when I'm talking to companies ... | 765 |
Paul Graham | Relentlessly Resourceful | http://paulgraham.com/relres.html | | |
|
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
March 2009
A couple days ago I finally got being a good startup founder down to two words: relentlessly resourceful.
Till then the best I'd managed was to get the opposite quality... | 1,014 |
Paul Graham | How to Be an Angel Investor | http://paulgraham.com/angelinvesting.html | | |
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March 2009
_(This essay is derived from a talk at[AngelConf](http://angelconf.org).)_
When we sold our startup in 1998 I thought one day I'd do some angel investing. Seven years later I still hadn't started. I put it off because it seemed mysterious and complicated. It turns out to be easie... | 3,959 |
Paul Graham | Why TV Lost | http://paulgraham.com/convergence.html | | |
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March 2009
About twenty years ago people noticed computers and TV were on a collision course and started to speculate about what they'd produce when they converged. We now know the answer: computers. It's clear now that even by using the word "convergence" we were giving TV too much credit. This ... | 1,540 |
Paul Graham | Can You Buy a Silicon Valley? Maybe. | http://paulgraham.com/maybe.html | | |
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February 2009
A lot of cities look at Silicon Valley and ask "How could we make something like that happen here?" The [organic](siliconvalley.html) way to do it is to establish a first-rate university in a place where rich people want to live. That's how Silicon Valley happened. But could you sho... | 1,920 |
Paul Graham | What I've Learned from Hacker News | http://paulgraham.com/hackernews.html | | |
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February 2009
Hacker News was two years old last week. Initially it was supposed to be a side project--an application to sharpen Arc on, and a place for current and future Y Combinator founders to exchange news. It's grown bigger and taken up more time than I expected, but I don't regret that bec... | 2,871 |
Paul Graham | Startups in 13 Sentences | http://paulgraham.com/13sentences.html | | |
|
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
Watch how this essay was [written](https://byronm.com/13sentences.html).
---
February 2009
One of the things I always tell startups is a principle I learned from Paul Buchheit... | 1,347 |
Paul Graham | Keep Your Identity Small | http://paulgraham.com/identity.html | | |
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February 2009
I finally realized today why politics and religion yield such uniquely useless discussions.
As a rule, any mention of religion on an online forum degenerates into a religious argument. Why? Why does this happen with religion and not with Javascript or baking or other topics peo... | 882 |
Paul Graham | After Credentials | http://paulgraham.com/credentials.html | | |
| [](https://s.turbifycdn.com/aah/paulgraham/after-credentials-20.gif)
December 2008
A few months ago I read a _New York Times_ article on South Korean cram schools that said
> Admission to the right university can make or break an ambitious young South Korean.
A parent added:
> "In ... | 2,394 |
Paul Graham | Could VC be a Casualty of the Recession? | http://paulgraham.com/divergence.html | | |
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December 2008
_(I originally wrote this at the request of a company producing a report about entrepreneurship. Unfortunately after reading it they decided it was too controversial to include.)_
VC funding will probably dry up somewhat during the present recession, like it usually does in ba... | 1,361 |
Paul Graham | The High-Res Society | http://paulgraham.com/highres.html | | |
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December 2008
For nearly all of history the success of a society was proportionate to its ability to assemble large and disciplined organizations. Those who bet on economies of scale generally won, which meant the largest organizations were the most successful ones.
Things have already chang... | 1,531 |
Paul Graham | The Other Half of "Artists Ship" | http://paulgraham.com/artistsship.html | | |
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November 2008
One of the differences between big companies and startups is that big companies tend to have developed procedures to protect themselves against mistakes. A startup walks like a toddler, bashing into things and falling over all the time. A big company is more deliberate.
The gra... | 1,317 |
Paul Graham | Why to Start a Startup in a Bad Economy | http://paulgraham.com/badeconomy.html | | |
|
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
October 2008
The economic situation is apparently so grim that some experts fear we may be in for a stretch as bad as the mid seventies.
When Microsoft and Apple were founded.
... | 1,126 |
Paul Graham | A Fundraising Survival Guide | http://paulgraham.com/fundraising.html | | |
|
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
August 2008
Raising money is the second hardest part of starting a startup. The hardest part is making something people want: most startups that die, die because they didn't do that. B... | 4,847 |
Paul Graham | The Pooled-Risk Company Management Company | http://paulgraham.com/prcmc.html | | |
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July 2008
At this year's startup school, David Heinemeier Hansson gave a [talk](http://www.omnisio.com/startupschool08/david-heinemeier-hansson-at-startup-school-08) in which he suggested that startup founders should do things the old fashioned way. Instead of hoping to get rich by building a val... | 1,271 |
Paul Graham | Cities and Ambition | http://paulgraham.com/cities.html | | |
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May 2008
Great cities attract ambitious people. You can sense it when you walk around one. In a hundred subtle ways, the city sends you a message: you could do more; you should try harder.
The surprising thing is how different these messages can be. New York tells you, above all: you should ... | 3,625 |
Paul Graham | Disconnecting Distraction | http://paulgraham.com/distraction.html | | |
|
_Note: The strategy described at the end of this essay didn't work. It would work for a while, and then I'd gradually find myself using the Internet on my work computer. I'm trying other strategies now, but I think this time I'll wait till I'm sure they work before writing about them._
May 2008 ... | 1,176 |
Paul Graham | Lies We Tell Kids | http://paulgraham.com/lies.html | | |
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May 2008
Adults lie constantly to kids. I'm not saying we should stop, but I think we should at least examine which lies we tell and why.
There may also be a benefit to us. We were all lied to as kids, and some of the lies we were told still affect us. So by studying the ways adults lie to k... | 5,268 |
Paul Graham | Be Good | http://paulgraham.com/good.html | | |
| [](https://s.turbifycdn.com/aah/paulgraham/be-good-20.gif)
April 2008
_(This essay is derived from a talk at the 2008 Startup School.)_
About a month after we started Y Combinator we came up with the phrase that became our motto: Make something people want. We've learned a lot since th... | 2,962 |
Paul Graham | Why There Aren't More Googles | http://paulgraham.com/googles.html | | |
|
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
April 2008
Umair Haque [wrote](http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/haque/2008/04/i_agree_and_i.html) recently that the reason there aren't more Googles is that most startups get bought be... | 1,350 |
Paul Graham | Some Heroes | http://paulgraham.com/heroes.html | | |
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April 2008
There are some topics I save up because they'll be so much fun to write about. This is one of them: a list of my heroes.
I'm not claiming this is a list of the _n_ most admirable people. Who could make such a list, even if they wanted to?
Einstein isn't on the list, for examp... | 2,706 |
Paul Graham | How to Disagree | http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html | | |
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March 2008
The web is turning writing into a conversation. Twenty years ago, writers wrote and readers read. The web lets readers respond, and increasingly they do--in comment threads, on forums, and in their own blog posts.
Many who respond to something disagree with it. That's to be expect... | 1,558 |
Paul Graham | You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss | http://paulgraham.com/boss.html | | |
| [](https://s.turbifycdn.com/aah/paulgraham/you-weren-t-meant-to-have-a-boss-20.gif)
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
March 2008, rev. June 2008
Technology tends to separate normal from natural. Our bodies weren't... | 2,546 |
Paul Graham | A New Venture Animal | http://paulgraham.com/ycombinator.html | | |
| [](https://s.turbifycdn.com/aah/paulgraham/a-new-venture-animal-20.gif)
March 2008, rev May 2013
_(This essay grew out of something I wrote for myself to figure out what we do. Even though Y Combinator is now 3 years old, we're still trying to understand its implications.)_
I was annoy... | 1,995 |
Paul Graham | Trolls | http://paulgraham.com/trolls.html | | |
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February 2008
A user on Hacker News recently posted a [comment](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=116938) that set me thinking:
> Something about hacker culture that never really set well with me was this � the nastiness. ... I just don't understand why people troll like they do.
I've t... | 904 |
Paul Graham | Six Principles for Making New Things | http://paulgraham.com/newthings.html | | |
| [](https://s.turbifycdn.com/aah/paulgraham/six-principles-for-making-new-things-20.gif)
February 2008
The fiery reaction to the release of [Arc](arc.html) had an unexpected consequence: it made me realize I had a design philosophy. The main complaint of the more articulate critics was that A... | 1,176 |
Paul Graham | Why to Move to a Startup Hub | http://paulgraham.com/startuphubs.html | | |
| [](https://s.turbifycdn.com/aah/paulgraham/why-to-move-to-a-startup-hub-20.gif)
October 2007
After the last [talk](webstartups.html) I gave, one of the organizers got up on the stage to deliver an impromptu rebuttal. That never happened before. I only heard the first few sentences, but that ... | 1,471 |
Paul Graham | The Future of Web Startups | http://paulgraham.com/webstartups.html | | |
|
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
October 2007
_(This essay is derived from a keynote at FOWA in October 2007.)_
There's something interesting happening right now. Startups are undergoing the same transformation ... | 3,416 |
Paul Graham | How to Do Philosophy | http://paulgraham.com/philosophy.html | | |
| [](https://s.turbifycdn.com/aah/paulgraham/how-to-do-philosophy-20.gif)
September 2007
In high school I decided I was going to study philosophy in college. I had several motives, some more honorable than others. One of the less honorable was to shock people. College was regarded as job train... | 4,740 |
Paul Graham | News from the Front | http://paulgraham.com/colleges.html | | |
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September 2007
A few weeks ago I had a thought so heretical that it really surprised me. It may not matter all that much where you go to college.
For me, as for a lot of middle class kids, getting into a good college was more or less the meaning of life when I was growing up. What was I? A s... | 2,229 |
Paul Graham | How Not to Die | http://paulgraham.com/die.html | | |
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| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
August 2007
_(This is a talk I gave at the last Y Combinator dinner of the summer. Usually we don't have a speaker at the last dinner; it's more of a party. But it seemed worth spoili... | 1,993 |
Paul Graham | Holding a Program in One's Head | http://paulgraham.com/head.html | | |
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August 2007
A good programmer working intensively on his own code can hold it in his mind the way a mathematician holds a problem he's working on. Mathematicians don't answer questions by working them out on paper the way schoolchildren are taught to. They do more in their heads: they try to unde... | 1,876 |
Paul Graham | Stuff | http://paulgraham.com/stuff.html | | |
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July 2007
I have too much stuff. Most people in America do. In fact, the poorer people are, the more stuff they seem to have. Hardly anyone is so poor that they can't afford a front yard full of old cars.
It wasn't always this way. Stuff used to be rare and valuable. You can still see eviden... | 1,295 |
Paul Graham | The Equity Equation | http://paulgraham.com/equity.html | | |
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July 2007
An investor wants to give you money for a certain percentage of your startup. Should you take it? You're about to hire your first employee. How much stock should you give him?
These are some of the hardest questions founders face. And yet both have the same answer:
1/(1 - n) ... | 1,140 |
Paul Graham | An Alternative Theory of Unions | http://paulgraham.com/unions.html | | |
| [](https://s.turbifycdn.com/aah/paulgraham/an-alternative-theory-of-unions-20.gif)
May 2007
People who worry about the increasing gap between rich and poor generally look back on the mid twentieth century as a golden age. In those days we had a large number of high-paying union manufacturing... | 524 |
Paul Graham | The Hacker's Guide to Investors | http://paulgraham.com/guidetoinvestors.html | | |
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April 2007
_(This essay is derived from a keynote talk at the 2007 ASES Summit at Stanford.)_
The world of investors is a foreign one to most hackers--partly because investors are so unlike hackers, and partly because they tend to operate in secret. I've been dealing with this world for man... | 6,253 |
Paul Graham | Two Kinds of Judgement | http://paulgraham.com/judgement.html | | |
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April 2007
There are two different ways people judge you. Sometimes judging you correctly is the end goal. But there's a second much more common type of judgement where it isn't. We tend to regard all judgements of us as the first type. We'd probably be happier if we realized which are and which ... | 763 |
Paul Graham | Microsoft is Dead | http://paulgraham.com/microsoft.html | | |
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April 2007
A few days ago I suddenly realized Microsoft was dead. I was talking to a young startup founder about how Google was different from Yahoo. I said that Yahoo had been warped from the start by their fear of Microsoft. That was why they'd positioned themselves as a "media company" instead... | 1,310 |
Paul Graham | Why to Not Not Start a Startup | http://paulgraham.com/notnot.html | | |
|
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
March 2007
_(This essay is derived from talks at the 2007 Startup School and the Berkeley CSUA.)_
We've now been doing Y Combinator long enough to have some data about success ra... | 6,307 |
Paul Graham | Is It Worth Being Wise? | http://paulgraham.com/wisdom.html | | |
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February 2007
A few days ago I finally figured out something I've wondered about for 25 years: the relationship between wisdom and intelligence. Anyone can see they're not the same by the number of people who are smart, but not very wise. And yet intelligence and wisdom do seem related. How?
... | 3,772 |
Paul Graham | Learning from Founders | http://paulgraham.com/foundersatwork.html | | |
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January 2007
_(Foreword to Jessica Livingston's[Founders at Work](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590597141).)_
Apparently sprinters reach their highest speed right out of the blocks, and spend the rest of the race slowing down. The winners slow down the least. It's that way with most sta... | 840 |
Paul Graham | How Art Can Be Good | http://paulgraham.com/goodart.html | | |
| [](https://s.turbifycdn.com/aah/paulgraham/how-art-can-be-good-20.gif)
December 2006
I grew up believing that taste is just a matter of personal preference. Each person has things they like, but no one's preferences are any better than anyone else's. There is no such thing as _good_ taste. ... | 3,645 |
Paul Graham | The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups | http://paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html | | |
|
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
October 2006
In the Q & A period after a recent talk, someone asked what made startups fail. After standing there gaping for a few seconds I realized this was kind of a trick question.... | 5,637 |
Paul Graham | A Student's Guide to Startups | http://paulgraham.com/mit.html | | |
|
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
October 2006
_(This essay is derived from a talk at MIT.)_
Till recently graduating seniors had two choices: get a job or go to grad school. I think there will increasingly be a ... | 6,477 |
Paul Graham | How to Present to Investors | http://paulgraham.com/investors.html | | |
| [](https://s.turbifycdn.com/aah/paulgraham/how-to-present-to-investors-20.gif)
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
August 2006, rev. April 2007, September 2010
In a few days it will be Demo Day, when the startups we... | 2,867 |
Paul Graham | Copy What You Like | http://paulgraham.com/copy.html | | |
| [](https://s.turbifycdn.com/aah/paulgraham/copy-what-you-like-20.gif)
July 2006
When I was in high school I spent a lot of time imitating bad writers. What we studied in English classes was mostly fiction, so I assumed that was the highest form of writing. Mistake number one. The stories tha... | 963 |
Paul Graham | The Island Test | http://paulgraham.com/island.html | | |
| [](https://s.turbifycdn.com/aah/paulgraham/the-island-test-20.gif)
July 2006
I've discovered a handy test for figuring out what you're addicted to. Imagine you were going to spend the weekend at a friend's house on a little island off the coast of Maine. There are no shops on the island and ... | 775 |
Paul Graham | The Power of the Marginal | http://paulgraham.com/marginal.html | | |
|
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
June 2006
_(This essay is derived from talks at Usenix 2006 and Railsconf 2006.)_
A couple years ago my friend Trevor and I went to look at the Apple garage. As we stood there, h... | 6,083 |
Paul Graham | Why Startups Condense in America | http://paulgraham.com/america.html | | |
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May 2006
_(This essay is derived from a keynote at Xtech.)_
Startups happen in clusters. There are a lot of them in Silicon Valley and Boston, and few in Chicago or Miami. A country that wants startups will probably also have to reproduce whatever makes these clusters form.
I've claime... | 4,794 |
Paul Graham | How to Be Silicon Valley | http://paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html | | |
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May 2006
_(This essay is derived from a keynote at Xtech.)_
Could you reproduce Silicon Valley elsewhere, or is there something unique about it?
It wouldn't be surprising if it were hard to reproduce in other countries, because you couldn't reproduce it in most of the US either. What d... | 3,687 |
Paul Graham | The Hardest Lessons for Startups to Learn | http://paulgraham.com/startuplessons.html | | |
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April 2006
_(This essay is derived from a talk at the 2006[Startup School](http://startupschool.org).)_
The startups we've funded so far are pretty quick, but they seem quicker to learn some lessons than others. I think it's because some things about startups are kind of counterintuitive. ... | 4,855 |
Paul Graham | See Randomness | http://paulgraham.com/randomness.html | | |
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April 2006, rev August 2009
Plato quotes Socrates as saying "the unexamined life is not worth living." Part of what he meant was that the proper role of humans is to think, just as the proper role of anteaters is to poke their noses into anthills.
A lot of ancient philosophy had the quality ... | 604 |
Paul Graham | Are Software Patents Evil? | http://paulgraham.com/softwarepatents.html | | |
|
March 2006
_(This essay is derived from a talk at Google.)_
A few weeks ago I found to my surprise that I'd been granted four [patents](http://paulgraham.infogami.com/blog/morepatents). This was all the more surprising because I'd only applied for three. The patents aren't mine, of course. ... | 4,671 |
Paul Graham | 6,631,372 | http://paulgraham.com/6631327.html | | |
|
March 2006, rev August 2009
A couple days ago I found to my surprise that I'd been granted a [patent](http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,631,372.PN.&OS=PN/6,631,372&RS=PN/6,631,372). It issued in 2003, b... | 701 |
Paul Graham | Why YC | http://paulgraham.com/whyyc.html | | |
|
March 2006, rev August 2009
Yesterday one of the founders we funded asked me why we started [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com). Or more precisely, he asked if we'd started YC mainly for fun.
Kind of, but not quite. It is enormously fun to be able to work with Rtm and Trevor again. I miss... | 384 |
Paul Graham | How to Do What You Love | http://paulgraham.com/love.html | | |
|
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
January 2006
To do something well you have to like it. That idea is not exactly novel. We've got it down to four words: "Do what you love." But it's not enough just to tell people that... | 4,767 |
Paul Graham | Good and Bad Procrastination | http://paulgraham.com/procrastination.html | | |
|
December 2005
The most impressive people I know are all terrible procrastinators. So could it be that procrastination isn't always bad?
Most people who write about procrastination write about how to cure it. But this is, strictly speaking, impossible. There are an infinite number of things y... | 1,851 |
Paul Graham | Web 2.0 | http://paulgraham.com/web20.html | | |
|
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
November 2005
Does "Web 2.0" mean anything? Till recently I thought it didn't, but the truth turns out to be more complicated. Originally, yes, it was meaningless. Now it seems to have... | 3,420 |
Paul Graham | How to Fund a Startup | http://paulgraham.com/startupfunding.html | | |
|
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
November 2005
Venture funding works like gears. A typical startup goes through several rounds of funding, and at each round you want to take just enough money to reach the speed where ... | 8,947 |
Paul Graham | The Venture Capital Squeeze | http://paulgraham.com/vcsqueeze.html | | |
|
November 2005
In the next few years, venture capital funds will find themselves squeezed from four directions. They're already stuck with a seller's market, because of the huge amounts they raised at the end of the Bubble and still haven't invested. This by itself is not the end of the world. In ... | 1,598 |
Paul Graham | Ideas for Startups | http://paulgraham.com/ideas.html | | |
|
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
October 2005
_(This essay is derived from a talk at the 2005[Startup School.](http://startupschool.org))_
How do you get good ideas for [startups](start.html)? That's probably th... | 3,982 |
Paul Graham | What I Did this Summer | http://paulgraham.com/sfp.html | | |
| [](https://s.turbifycdn.com/aah/paulgraham/what-i-did-this-summer-20.gif)
October 2005
The first Summer Founders Program has just finished. We were surprised how well it went. Overall only about 10% of startups succeed, but if I had to guess now, I'd predict three or four of the eight startu... | 2,594 |
Paul Graham | Inequality and Risk | http://paulgraham.com/inequality.html | | |
|
August 2005
_(This essay is derived from a talk at Defcon 2005.)_
Suppose you wanted to get rid of economic inequality. There are two ways to do it: give money to the poor, or take it away from the rich. But they amount to the same thing, because if you want to give money to the poor, you h... | 2,864 |
Paul Graham | After the Ladder | http://paulgraham.com/ladder.html | | |
|
August 2005
Thirty years ago, one was supposed to work one's way up the corporate ladder. That's less the rule now. Our generation wants to get paid up front. Instead of developing a product for some big company in the expectation of getting job security in return, we develop the product ourselve... | 605 |
Paul Graham | What Business Can Learn from Open Source | http://paulgraham.com/opensource.html | | |
|
August 2005
_(This essay is derived from a talk at Oscon 2005.)_
Lately companies have been paying more attention to open source. Ten years ago there seemed a real danger Microsoft would extend its monopoly to servers. It seems safe to say now that open source has prevented that. A recent s... | 4,388 |
Paul Graham | Hiring is Obsolete | http://paulgraham.com/hiring.html | | |
| [](https://s.turbifycdn.com/aah/paulgraham/hiring-is-obsolete-20.gif)
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
May 2005
_(This essay is derived from a talk at the Berkeley CSUA.)_
The three big powers on the Intern... | 4,823 |
Paul Graham | The Submarine | http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html | | |
|
April 2005
"Suits make a corporate comeback," says the [_New York Times_](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/14/fashion/thursdaystyles/14peacock.html?ex=1271131200&en=e96f2670387e3636&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland). Why does this sound familiar? Maybe because the suit was also back in [February](http:/... | 2,417 |
Paul Graham | Why Smart People Have Bad Ideas | http://paulgraham.com/bronze.html | | |
|
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
April 2005
This summer, as an experiment, some friends and I are giving [seed funding](http://ycombinator.com) to a bunch of new startups. It's an experiment because we're prepared to ... | 3,205 |
Paul Graham | Return of the Mac | http://paulgraham.com/mac.html | | |
|
March 2005
All the best [hackers](gba.html) I know are gradually switching to Macs. My friend Robert said his whole research group at MIT recently bought themselves Powerbooks. These guys are not the graphic designers and grandmas who were buying Macs at Apple's low point in the mid 1990s. They'r... | 1,027 |
Paul Graham | Writing, Briefly | http://paulgraham.com/writing44.html | | |
|
March 2005
_(In the process of answering an email, I accidentally wrote a tiny essay about writing. I usually spend weeks on an essay. This one took 67 minutes--23 of writing, and 44 of rewriting.)_
I think it's far more important to write well than most people realize. Writing doesn't just... | 518 |
Paul Graham | Undergraduation | http://paulgraham.com/college.html | | |
| [](https://s.turbifycdn.com/aah/paulgraham/undergraduation-20.gif)
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
March 2005
_(Parts of this essay began as replies to students who wrote to me with questions.)_
Recently I... | 3,697 |
Paul Graham | A Unified Theory of VC Suckage | http://paulgraham.com/venturecapital.html | | |
|
March 2005
A couple months ago I got an email from a recruiter asking if I was interested in being a "technologist in residence" at a new venture capital fund. I think the idea was to play Karl Rove to the VCs' George Bush.
I considered it for about four seconds. Work for a VC fund? Ick.
... | 1,491 |
Paul Graham | How to Start a Startup | http://paulgraham.com/start.html | | |
|
| **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by [Y Combinator](http://ycombinator.com/apply.html).
---
March 2005
_(This essay is derived from a talk at the Harvard Computer Society.)_
You need three things to create a successful startup: to start with good people, to make somethi... | 9,800 |
Paul Graham | What You'll Wish You'd Known | http://paulgraham.com/hs.html | | |
|
January 2005
_(I wrote this talk for a high school. I never actually gave it, because the school authorities vetoed the plan to invite me.)_
When I said I was speaking at a high school, my friends were curious. What will you say to high school students? So I asked them, what do you wish som... | 5,101 |
Paul Graham | Made in USA | http://paulgraham.com/usa.html | | |
| [](https://s.turbifycdn.com/aah/paulgraham/made-in-usa-20.gif)
November 2004
_(This is a new essay for the Japanese edition of[Hackers & Painters](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596006624). It tries to explain why Americans make some things well and others badly.)_
A fe... | 1,867 |
Paul Graham | It's Charisma, Stupid | http://paulgraham.com/charisma.html | | |
| [](https://s.turbifycdn.com/aah/paulgraham/it-s-charisma-stupid-20.gif)
November 2004, corrected June 2006
Occam's razor says we should prefer the simpler of two explanations. I begin by reminding readers of this principle because I'm about to propose a theory that will offend both liberals ... | 1,527 |
Paul Graham | Bradley's Ghost | http://paulgraham.com/polls.html | | |
| [](https://s.turbifycdn.com/aah/paulgraham/bradley-s-ghost-28.gif)
November 2004
A lot of people are writing now about why Kerry lost. Here I want to examine a more specific question: why were the exit polls so wrong?
In Ohio, which Kerry ultimately lost 49-51, exit polls gave him a 52-... | 652 |
Paul Graham | A Version 1.0 | http://paulgraham.com/laundry.html | | |
|
October 2004
As E. B. White said, "good writing is rewriting." I didn't realize this when I was in school. In writing, as in math and science, they only show you the finished product. You don't see all the false starts. This gives students a misleading view of how things get made.
Part of th... | 4,274 |
Paul Graham | What the Bubble Got Right | http://paulgraham.com/bubble.html | | |
| [](https://s.turbifycdn.com/aah/paulgraham/what-the-bubble-got-right-20.gif)
September 2004
_(This essay is derived from an invited talk at ICFP 2004.)_
I had a front row seat for the Internet Bubble, because I worked at Yahoo during 1998 and 1999. One day, when the stock was trading a... | 3,754 |
Paul Graham | The Age of the Essay | http://paulgraham.com/essay.html | | |
| [](https://s.turbifycdn.com/aah/paulgraham/the-age-of-the-essay-20.gif)
September 2004
Remember the essays you had to write in high school? Topic sentence, introductory paragraph, supporting paragraphs, conclusion. The conclusion being, say, that Ahab in _Moby Dick_ was a Christ-like figure.... | 4,570 |
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