221–230 of 421 posts
Great article, especially the ending sentence cracked me up. pg is such an inspiring person. Walking away from $2M per month at Yahoo. To now most likely being a billionaire from personally funding the YC LLC. And then spending 6 years just painting, coding, writing and raising a family. Living the dream. Sure Elon Musk is a “cool billionaire”, but in my book pg is even cooler.
Thanks PG again for a nicely written arc (pun intended), for the somehow diffuse encouragement to write a log, and good luck with what comes next! (if you come up with an august (both meaning implied, the month and the adjective) clubhouse written in bel with only a text interface, please send an invite my way) :-) cheers, F
Would you consider sharing some of your paintings as part of your essays?
I particularly appreciate your strong desire to attain freedom in life (as opposed to, say, getting rich as a primary motive).
What's next? You know how to do things at scale, perhaps after "Y Combinator" it's time for a "π Educator" [1]? Whatever your pick, I'm sure it will be worth following your journey onwards.
[1] παιδεία or paideía is Greek for "education"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The world is non linear, with discrete inflection points. Some of those points are outside of your control, but some are points where you made an important decision that correctly anticipated a non linear outcome. All positive non linear outcomes take time to compound, however, hence why you can’t connect the positive dots until enough time has passed to look back.
What do you mean by non linear there?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think people have different definitions of "upper class". Maybe "Upper-middle class" would have been a better term, since pretty much everyone in the U.S. calls themselves some flavor of middle class. But my point is is that most people are not doing nearly as well financially as a mathematician/manager working at Westinghouse modeling nuclear reactors[1][2]. For example, 70% of americans have less than $1,000 of s…
I agree. The question is whether they were above or below the financial threshold where kids know they'll be fine no matter what they do, and so are freer to take risks and pursue their interests. That's a popular argument to make about entrepreneurship being a class privilege, for example showing up in many comments in this thread. I don't know where that line is, but my impression is that people making this argumen…
> But there's nothing like writing a book about something to help you learn it. This is the motto of silicon valley if I've ever heard it—all the good parts and bad parts smushed into a singular brand. The bad parts are pure narcissism; the good parts are more or less asking "am I doing harm by investing in this predatory business"? Unfortunately, the answer is mostly "yes".
Lots of people who've written books, including good books, have made this observation btw. That's because it's true. I've heard some of them say it personally.
Kids these days sure don't have it so lucky, and if they do, well then they probably already hit the jackpot at birth.
How many fewer pgs will we have tomorrow because of the financial burdens and inefficiencies of higher education today?
This essay is very long. It would benefit from at least a summary at the top of each paragraph so you could scan through and read what you found interesting if you didn't have the time to read the entire essay. Quick check over 13500 words. At 500 word per page that's 27 pages. I am coming up (again quick check) with 45 minutes to read this (including footnotes). [1] [2] Are 'Trevor Blackwell, John Collison, Patrick…
Truly, the most valuable take away of it all.
All this time spent going in and out of the art world makes me wonder if there is any kind of art grant program going on in YC.
I think it's fair to say that the art world's way of thinking didn't rub off on Graham. It's not clear to me that he ever had a genuinely creative attitude to art making. He didn't get the art world and it didn't get him. As a technical term, "art world" refers to the professionalized aspects of art production—and explicitly not the business of actually working on your art or training as an artist. It's the nonsense…
Anyway. I think Paul Graham should think about his time trying to be an artist, take some of the absurd amounts of money he's throwing around for YC and put, like, one company's worth of investment into a bunch of artists. I volunteer myself for the pilot program. :)