Paul Graham
Paul Graham
Paul Grahamis an English computer scientist, venture capitalist, and essayist. He is known for his work on Lisp, for co-founding Viaweb, and for co-founding the Y Combinator seed capital firm. He is the author of some programming books, such as: On Lisp, ANSI Common Lisp, and Hackers & Painters...
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth13 November 1964
For the most ambitious young people, the corporate ladder is obsolete.
convince criticism exactly examples founders google great instead money telling worrying
I get a lot of criticism for telling founders to focus first on making something great, instead of worrying about how to make money. And yet that is exactly what Google did. And Apple, for that matter. You'd think examples like that would be enough to convince people.
record
One startup I dream of funding is the one that kills the record companies.
build business founders model people sweat task
What I tell founders is not to sweat the business model too much at first. The most important task at first is to build something people want. If you don't do that, it won't matter how clever your business model is.
business dressing good inept inevitably known substitute types
Dressing up is inevitably a substitute for good ideas. It is no coincidence that technically inept business types are known as 'suits'.
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If you imagine someone with 100 percent determination and 100 percent intelligence, you can discard a lot of intelligence before they stop succeeding. But if you start discarding determination, you very quickly get an ineffectual and perpetual grad student.
expressing programs
A programming language is for thinking about programs, not for expressing programs you've already thought of. It should be a pencil, not a pen.
good guest hits pros wear
To be fair, pros come out. They wear shorts. They have a good time. A lot of times if the guest hits a good drive, the pro will just say: 'Let's go.' It's just fun.
business esoteric great requires starting
There are all these great programmers out there who think starting a startup requires esoteric business knowledge,
against dress happen measure nerds
Nerds just don't happen to dress informally. They do it too consistently. Consciously or not, they dress informally as prophylactic measure against stupidity.
hackers scientists start
So hackers start original, and get good, and scientists start good, and get original.
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She was the type of person you just felt was going to succeed in whatever she did. She was quite lively and outgoing.
coach lost loves
I think he still loves the game. That's what coach does. He's a coach, 100 percent. He could conceivably come back. I don't think coach has lost any of his competitive fire.
believes clear good guidelines particular presidency public rights section wrongs
It is clear that a substantial section of the public believes what she did was undermining good governance, irrespective of the rights and wrongs of this particular case. This suggests the presidency will have to reformulate the guidelines in an appropriate manner.