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Hackers can be business guys, and other lessons from Paul Graham

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Re: Hackers can be business guys, and other lessons from Paul Graham

#31

Post by jkuria »

Since this was in 2005 I wonder what he'd say now? I believe he has since said that initially, they thought they were looking for smart people. Over time they found out they were looking for determined people.

[Business Writer] What do you look for in people?

[PG] Determination. When we started, we thought we were looking for smart people, but it turned out that intelligence was not as important as we expected. 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."

Re: Hackers can be business guys, and other lessons from Paul Graham

#32

Post by apythonista »

jkuria wrote: post #26
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #10

I am surprised that Shenglong is down voted - it strikes me that the idea of 10x "business-people" is just as valid as 10x developers. Certainly Branson for example seems better at it than, say, me. @Andrew_quentin Want my take on the 5 or so business rules: 1. Budget. Don't spend more than you plan to, plan to make a profit. 2. Clarity. Be clear what you offer and why it benefits the target market 3. ABS - Always Be…

I don't think anyone should try to follow Branson's example. The man is gambler and an extreme case of return on luck. One early success and some antics that catapulted him into fame, then this notoriety allowed him to hire good managers (Ex-McKinsey types) to run and launch new businesses under his name. Read his book 'Losing My Virginity' and you'll understand why.

I've read that book of his and also another one - Screw it, lets do it.

> allowed him to hire good managers (Ex-McKinsey types) to run and launch new businesses under his name

That still makes him a good businessman, IMO. I thought of changing the words to "good manager or delegator", but prefer the former. Employing good people and monitoring them is still the work of a businessman, methinks.

Re: Hackers can be business guys, and other lessons from Paul Graham

#33

Post by lhnz »

jusben1369 wrote: post #17

I always thought this was PG's greatest gift to the tech world. To horribly generalize - prior to YC "business" people had a patronizing attitude toward developers. They were expensive assets - comparable to hw/sw and data-centers - that were required to successfully launch and grow a startup. But they weren't invited to the strategic table too often. They didn't get business. I don't know this to be a fact but I alw…

>> That tends to be that people who can build and nurture a forest tree by tree and row by row aren't the same people who can see the entire forest and what the seasons will bring. The forest does best when each person is in the right role.

There are plenty of hackers who can see an entire forest. This is the meaning of abstraction.

It is correct to say that something is best when people are in their 'right' role, but I think it's absurd to say that people that are used to hacking and creating systems are unable to think about systems...

If what you're saying is true, however, that means a weakening of our socioeconomic position, so you better hope that you're wrong, and that we do in fact have the natural ability to learn, think about systems and be strategic.

Re: Hackers can be business guys, and other lessons from Paul Graham

#34

Post by lifeisstillgood »

jkuria wrote: post #26
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #10

I am surprised that Shenglong is down voted - it strikes me that the idea of 10x "business-people" is just as valid as 10x developers. Certainly Branson for example seems better at it than, say, me. @Andrew_quentin Want my take on the 5 or so business rules: 1. Budget. Don't spend more than you plan to, plan to make a profit. 2. Clarity. Be clear what you offer and why it benefits the target market 3. ABS - Always Be…

I don't think anyone should try to follow Branson's example. The man is gambler and an extreme case of return on luck. One early success and some antics that catapulted him into fame, then this notoriety allowed him to hire good managers (Ex-McKinsey types) to run and launch new businesses under his name. Read his book 'Losing My Virginity' and you'll understand why.

Let me out it another way - high school drop out commits to startup career, fights through years of slow growth, relentlessly resourceful in finding new ways to keep afloat, then has break through, willing to risk capitalising on break through, then manages cash flow from that to diversify and repeatedly identify and create new businesses, brining in talent and nurturing it to maximise return

So this is what the YC alumni should not do?

Re: Hackers can be business guys, and other lessons from Paul Graham

#35

Post by larrys »

I'm going to watch this entire video but what I find interesting in the first few minutes are Paul's facial reactions to the initial questions indicating what appears to be no idea at all of what he is going to be asked.

In contrast to the facial reactions of people who are asked questions on formal TV interviews who appear as if they more or less know what is going to be asked because there isn't as much facial twitching, or thinking, it's as if they've had time to think things through by knowing in advance the questions. Not the case here.

Re: Hackers can be business guys, and other lessons from Paul Graham

#36

Post by spitfire »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #15
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #10

I am surprised that Shenglong is down voted - it strikes me that the idea of 10x "business-people" is just as valid as 10x developers. Certainly Branson for example seems better at it than, say, me. @Andrew_quentin Want my take on the 5 or so business rules: 1. Budget. Don't spend more than you plan to, plan to make a profit. 2. Clarity. Be clear what you offer and why it benefits the target market 3. ABS - Always Be…

Number 6 seems like the odd one out , there are plenty of businesses that were successful because they kept figuring out how to get things done cheaper and passing those savings on to consumers and undercutting the competition. Or companies who ate their margins to lower prices and gain market share.

Perhaps that rule could be rewritten as 6. Never drop your margins.

Sure, find ways to save costs and pass this on to your customers, but only when it improves your margins a bit.

Re: Hackers can be business guys, and other lessons from Paul Graham

#38

Post by arjunnarayan »

jusben1369 wrote: post #17

I always thought this was PG's greatest gift to the tech world. To horribly generalize - prior to YC "business" people had a patronizing attitude toward developers. They were expensive assets - comparable to hw/sw and data-centers - that were required to successfully launch and grow a startup. But they weren't invited to the strategic table too often. They didn't get business. I don't know this to be a fact but I alw…

While I agree with you, I wouldn't attribute the entire effect to Paul Graham. There's a steady progression: Phase 1 was Larry and Sergey: they tried their hardest to stay in charge, but the powers that be (i.e. the money) forced a CEO on them. The best they could do was limit the damage by making sure the CEO had as much technical chops as possible. In retrospect, Eric Schmidt was great: a real hacker in background who had made the transition into a business guy at Novell/Sun. Pretty good progress to getting hackers more power: at least when they were forced to hire above themselves, they picked one of their own.

But the next one in the line went better - Call this Phase 2: Mark Zuckerberg (the next big company founder) was somehow able to hold his own against the money. I think we can credit this to Peter Thiel: since Thiel had first hand experience at PayPal, he probably has tremendous respect for hackers (I don't know what his personal hacking skills are, but I suspect they are good). Thiel (as the primary money behind FB) gave the Zuck free reign to stay CEO, which moved the needle further.

And now we're in phase 3: Zuck has shown the money guys enough contempt (remember the articles in Businessweek or whatever where bankers were angry that Zuck wore a hoodie and not a suit at the IPO roadshows?), as well as established a ~50B company with hackers firmly at the helm. Now it's common knowledge that you don't really need a "business guy". The next guys are free from this tyranny.

I do think that PG helped though. A lot of the education has come from PGs essays: I'd be surprised if there was anyone in the valley who hasn't read them, or at least organically come to very similar conclusions that he has: notice how they overlap well with Peter Thiel's class notes for CS183 (at least in some of the assumptions they both make about how the world works). And the part of SV that PG doesn't influence (the bigcos, I imagine. I don't know, I'm speculating at this point...) Thiel influences. So take the lead-by-example of Google, then Facebook. The intellectual underpinnings by Thiel and Graham. The evangelizing of Graham and Hacker news, and that's what I would credit for this outcome.

Re: Hackers can be business guys, and other lessons from Paul Graham

#39

Post by vy8vWJlco »

klrr wrote: post #21

Even though it's true that "web based" software will be the future I personally think it's a bit sad(unless if that term doesn't solely mean software on a server that you connect with a bloated browser to). Besides that, interesting and good interview.

2005 was a long time ago, but I think that attitude (@ 17:23 "We would be reluctant to invest in someone making desktop software", "It's ridiculous to think that your data should be on a computer... Your data should be on the network.") is unfortunate. The web is the best and worst part of the modern Internet. It is easy to develop for and in the short-term can be quite liberating, but in the long term it can do very little except make us easier to control and less likely to revolt when the operators do anything "Evil (TM)." I also think the web is a very weak and overrated platform - standards have been slow, because native experimentation has stopped. To do anything interesting, you need a native plugin. The Internet itself is ideal for communication and message passing, but the web is just one facet that excels at typesetting a dynamic book, but I can only look at so many banners.

Further more, the network exists to connect computers, not the other way around. It is not a thing on its own. There's no such thing as data that "lives" on the network. Today's cloud is just someone else's PC, somewhere else on the globe, and much less under my control, so it's not a very compelling alternative to running native software for me when it's available.

Re: Hackers can be business guys, and other lessons from Paul Graham

#40

Post by pistacchioso »

Shenglong wrote: post #2

Right. Business things, like hacking is mostly experience. But much like hacking, I would argue, there are rockstar/ninja/superstar/10x/ business people as well. A lot of it has to do with natural aptitude; just as how coding doesn't simply click for everyone, business things (which is mostly just dealing with people) simply doesn't either.

Maybe both are just experience, but in the process of learning when I fail at coding, it's just "fuck that, I'll try starting with a simpler task". If you fail at business you may find yourself on the road and bring people with you.
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