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
business esoteric great requires starting
There are all these great programmers out there who think starting a startup requires esoteric business knowledge,
hackers scientists start
So hackers start original, and get good, and scientists start good, and get original.
amazingly competent dinner entirely faces guys seemed start
Then I said jokingly, but not entirely jokingly, 'But not from me,' and everyone's faces fell, ... Afterwards, I had dinner with some of these guys and they seemed amazingly competent and I thought, 'You know, these guys probably could start companies.'
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.
attract people product reasons several sponsors
There are several reasons that sponsors come to these events. Advertising. Exposure. To attract people to their product and interaction with other businesses.
felt lively quite succeed type whatever
She was the type of person you just felt was going to succeed in whatever she did. She was quite lively and outgoing.
games last
These last games are the most important. We want to be at the top, not at the bottom.
call common days founders problem program situation sleep summer takes three work
The Summer Founders Program fixes the common problem with working at a startup, which is that it's very lonely. You do nothing but work and sleep and no one understands the situation you are in, and friends don't know why it takes three days for you to call them back.
customers
Small-business customers are very conservative and very cheap. We don't have to explain ourselves for the most part.
suppose
I suppose I should learn Lisp, but it seems so foreign.
ceo found visionary
Empirically the way you get a product visionary as CEO is for him to found the company and not get fired.
accounts cases far immediate sold
We don't have to go that far to sell our beer because our immediate accounts sell so much. Places that sold 10 cases before, now they're selling 30.
experience hard imagine running sort unless
Like having a child, running a startup is the sort of experience that's hard to imagine unless you've done it yourself.
In the startup world, 'not working' is normal.