The odd thing is that form-based web applications must surely have right away seemed fairly obvious and familiar to people at IBM mainframe shops who were used to block-oriented terminals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block-oriented_terminal . The continuations-based design that Viaweb ended up using would be another story though.
A Conversation with Paul Graham [video]
31–40 of 159 posts
Re: A Conversation with Paul Graham [video]
#32For the people on the go like me, here's a podcast feed link with the video:
Overcast: https://overcast.fm/+OcWu1RUwE
Feed: https://podsync.net/pH3E-Qhxn
Re: A Conversation with Paul Graham [video]
#33The point regarding different levels of commitment is really interesting. I've seen a few start-ups die out, because a subset of founders wasn't happy with the level of commitment of the other(s). But having the determination to get there, that's a great point.
Re: A Conversation with Paul Graham [video]
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Startup idea: "Summarize it for me" - Upload any document/video/url and pay $x for the cliffsnotes.
For popular, public content, you could split the price amongst many buyers, like Kickstarter.
Here's an automated transcript to start off with.
https://scribie.com/transcript/6946cef33e3c4e3596a819daaac73...
Re: A Conversation with Paul Graham [video]
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
How much are you all willing to bid? I'll do it for $10. That's cheaper than any AI on the market.
Startup idea: "Summarize it for me" - Upload any document/video/url and pay $x for the cliffsnotes.
That's copyright infringement, you'd be creating derived works.
Re: A Conversation with Paul Graham [video]
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also explained very well by Jessica Livingston in "Why Startups Need to Focus on Sales, Not Marketing" > "So why wouldn’t all founders start by engaging with users individually? Because it’s hard and demoralizing. Sales gives you a kind of harsh feedback that “marketing” doesn’t. You try to convince someone to use what you’ve built, and they won’t. These conversations are painful, but necessary. I suspect from my exp…
Sales is grim work for introverts, you can do it but if it's most of what you are doing then you need to question what the point of it is.
This seems to be the issue with me. I am more like 'laptop' guy who is rather good in researching. I am also keen on observing things.
But sales stuffs, cold calling give me chills. How do I overcome it?
Re: A Conversation with Paul Graham [video]
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
still doesn't change what happened in the youtube video - just to be clear
PG has written very candidly of being uncomfortable speaking publicly [1]. As an uncomfortable public speaker myself, when I've been in that situation of being introduced at the beginning of a Q&A session, my mind is mostly occupied with mildly anxious thoughts about how I'm going to get through the talk without freezing up or saying something stupid. I'm not paying close attention to what the host is saying. It's wo…
I did a video series on programming a while back. I wasn't teaching. I was just sharing being a fanboy with some experts.
Boy, did that suck. Every little thing that happened, I couldn't help but think through all the mistakes and omissions being made. I can't imagine doing the same thing at the scale of YC.
I'll probably do it again. I love writing and expressing myself. But I can see where PG did the right thing to get out of the light a bit. I remember on HN the guy would say something like "It's raining outside" and 14 people would respond with misunderstandings, clarifications, arguments, nit-picking. At some audience level all in the same room, it becomes impossible to communicate back-and-forth. The long-form essay is probably best.
Re: A Conversation with Paul Graham [video]
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Startup idea: "Summarize it for me" - Upload any document/video/url and pay $x for the cliffsnotes.
For popular, public content, you could split the price amongst many buyers, like Kickstarter.
I wish I could do this with subtitles! I hate waiting years for subtitles to TV series and obscure movies to become available. Ones in European languages mostly e.g. Cordon season 2 has been out for years, no English subs available. Latest season of Rita, out for a year, no English subs. The Colombian Ugly Betty, impossible to find many years later. I waited a couple of years for the latest season of Engrenages etc.
Maybe there could be a fixed priced online, which you could contribute towards. I won't pay for movies/tv now, but I'd sure pay for subtitles! Divided between many people, it wouldn't cost much. Not sure how to ensure high quality subs.
(I contributed to doing subs on viki years ago, which seemed like a good thing, but it disappeared, taking all the subtitles with it.)
Re: A Conversation with Paul Graham [video]
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
How much are you all willing to bid? I'll do it for $10. That's cheaper than any AI on the market.
Startup idea: "Summarize it for me" - Upload any document/video/url and pay $x for the cliffsnotes.
There are many jobs like that on freelance sites e.g. Upwork
Re: A Conversation with Paul Graham [video]
#40Man he was really hating windows. To a point where he "wrote software for it without writing software for it directly"
Writing software on windows is like using chopsticks with mittens. You can do it, it’s not pretty, and it’s not the use case the mitten sewer had in mind during development.
Read the Unix Programming Environment to see the exact opposite mindset for OS design.