Actually, "successful" isn't a good criteria. Any entrepreneur who is on their way to success, or trying to be successful should be counted.
The lessons on the path to success are many, and they are varied.
Few successful entrepreneurs blog
131–140 of 141 posts
Re: Few successful entrepreneurs blog
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
What? Are you comparing idle blogging emmissions starting with "If you are like me" or "I have always been a huge fan of" or "What I will say has been said already here, there and there but I will repeat it anyway" with pg essays? Are you comparing playdoh "shapes" produced by an army of monkeys monkeying each other with the few and rare carefully carved gemstones we can read under pg's hand? Must be kidding...
Ok, I guess at least 5 bloggers felt wounded by my comment, which was a bit leaking. Edit: but maybe, if one in hundreds will think twice before writing again something like "If you are like me" in their post...
Or several folks thought that your comment added nothing positive to the discussion.
Re: Few successful entrepreneurs blog
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same thing. Blogging used to have a different connotation, but it's lost it, and Graham's site fits squarely into the modern notion.
It seems a little anachronistic as some of his essays predate even the word "blog", and he's been doing largely the same thing for years. If anything the notion of blogging has grown even more topical and ephemeral than ever.
What we now label "blogs" predate the word "blog" by several years. They date back to at least ~1993. A word was added to our language to describe something that already existed.
If using that word to describe examples that came before the word was coined is anachronistic, then surely so must be using modern English to discuss, say, the Roman Empire?
Re: Few successful entrepreneurs blog
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems a little anachronistic as some of his essays predate even the word "blog", and he's been doing largely the same thing for years. If anything the notion of blogging has grown even more topical and ephemeral than ever.
What we now label "blogs" predate the word "blog" by several years. They date back to at least ~1993. A word was added to our language to describe something that already existed. If using that word to describe examples that came before the word was coined is anachronistic, then surely so must be using modern English to discuss, say, the Roman Empire?
To me, a "blog" is a particular format of online writing, but not all online writing is blogging. You can tell because newspapers often have blogs separate from their other content, drawing a distinction. I think there's a similar distinction between "essays that happen to be posted online" and "blogs".
Re: Few successful entrepreneurs blog
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
What we now label "blogs" predate the word "blog" by several years. They date back to at least ~1993. A word was added to our language to describe something that already existed. If using that word to describe examples that came before the word was coined is anachronistic, then surely so must be using modern English to discuss, say, the Roman Empire?
To me, a "blog" is a particular format of online writing, but not all online writing is blogging. You can tell because newspapers often have blogs separate from their other content, drawing a distinction. I think there's a similar distinction between "essays that happen to be posted online" and "blogs".
Interestingly, my own definition of blogging is not tied to a specific medium.
To me, the defining characteristics of the blog are as follows :
A collection of texts which are :
1 - Published incrementally as they are written, and chronologically organized.
2 - Meant to be read by a wide audience
3 - Usually not ran past an editor.
4 - Not necessarily sharing any common theme
5 - Usually all have the same author.
I cooked up this definition after noticing that the EWDs had been more or less Dijkstra's blog, long before the Web.
PG's essays obviously fall under this definition as well.
Re: Few successful entrepreneurs blog
#136Keith's comment surprised me. I found at least one counterexample among companies we've funded: Jason Freedman of 42Floors. But there are certainly not many.
Perhaps there should be a timeframe clarification, "few successful entrepreneurs blogged while doing their venture that made them successful." I'd say for many of the successful entrepreneurs, it was only after they were "successful" that the opportunity to productively blog was opened up.
Re: Few successful entrepreneurs blog
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
To me, a "blog" is a particular format of online writing, but not all online writing is blogging. You can tell because newspapers often have blogs separate from their other content, drawing a distinction. I think there's a similar distinction between "essays that happen to be posted online" and "blogs".
Interestingly, my own definition of blogging is not tied to a specific medium. To me, the defining characteristics of the blog are as follows : A collection of texts which are : 1 - Published incrementally as they are written, and chronologically organized. 2 - Meant to be read by a wide audience 3 - Usually not ran past an editor. 4 - Not necessarily sharing any common theme 5 - Usually all have the same author. I c…
I don't think PG's blogs are chronologically organized in any meaningful fashion. I also think that your definition is too broad, as it would include any self-published book series or maybe even the Bible.
Re: Few successful entrepreneurs blog
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interestingly, my own definition of blogging is not tied to a specific medium. To me, the defining characteristics of the blog are as follows : A collection of texts which are : 1 - Published incrementally as they are written, and chronologically organized. 2 - Meant to be read by a wide audience 3 - Usually not ran past an editor. 4 - Not necessarily sharing any common theme 5 - Usually all have the same author. I c…
I don't think PG's blogs are chronologically organized in any meaningful fashion. I also think that your definition is too broad, as it would include any self-published book series or maybe even the Bible.
I originally included "short" as a criterion, but I removed it as subjective.
And PG's essays are chronologically organized : the topmost are the most recent.
Re: Few successful entrepreneurs blog
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think PG's blogs are chronologically organized in any meaningful fashion. I also think that your definition is too broad, as it would include any self-published book series or maybe even the Bible.
I originally included "short" as a criterion, but I removed it as subjective. And PG's essays are chronologically organized : the topmost are the most recent.
Again that's so vague as to be meaningless--you have to order them somehow and I don't think having a page that lists them in chronological order makes it a blog. At the very least most blogs show the full content of multiple posts on the same page, or have links to previous and next posts.
I think the defining feature of a blog that's absent from Graham's essays is that blog posts can be intentionally insubstantial, sometimes containing nothing more than a link, possibly with comments. The least substantial essay Paul Graham has written is probably the one where he clarifies that he's not a racist just because he thinks having a thick accent makes it hard to be a CEO. I don't think he would consider posting intentionally insubstantial content to his list of essays.
Re: Few successful entrepreneurs blog
#140I'm a CEO of a co that's doing well. This comment resonated with me. Started blogging a few yrs ago, then dropped it. 1) ain't nobody have time for that. 2) too fraught in general. Supposed to be face of company so can't really say anything interesting in a blog. 3) and that Dalton kid posting the millionth "MBA and startups" article: who gives a fuck, what's the use, hire good people that fit... Don't engage in nave…
ain't nobody got time for that