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
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.'
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.
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.
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.
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.
business esoteric great requires starting
There are all these great programmers out there who think starting a startup requires esoteric business knowledge,
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.
determination discard grad imagine intelligence perpetual quickly stop
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.
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'.
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.
record
One startup I dream of funding is the one that kills the record companies.
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.