It seems the author has already updated the article with edits based on PG's comments in this thread.
The Aha Moments That Made Paul Graham's Y Combinator Possible
31–40 of 53 posts
Re: The Aha Moments That Made Paul Graham's Y Combinator Possible
#32Skimming this, I noticed a few mistakes. I was 30, not 31. My degree is in CS, not computer engineering, which is a hybrid of CS and EE. We were already working on another company when we decided to work on ecommerce. We were making software to generate web sites for commercial art galleries (who didn't want web sites). So we didn't suddenly decide to write software to make stores. It was more a question of switching…
I've never had an article written about me or my products that didn't have some mistakes, I'm not sure why it's not standard practice to send a draft to the subject for fact checking...
I've had a few reporters send me quotes and excerpts for fact checking. They then proceeded to ignore my corrections, since their fabrications better matched the target narrative.
Once you're on the other side of the news, even a little bit, you begin to understand just how broken it really is.
Re: The Aha Moments That Made Paul Graham's Y Combinator Possible
#33Skimming this, I noticed a few mistakes. I was 30, not 31. My degree is in CS, not computer engineering, which is a hybrid of CS and EE. We were already working on another company when we decided to work on ecommerce. We were making software to generate web sites for commercial art galleries (who didn't want web sites). So we didn't suddenly decide to write software to make stores. It was more a question of switching…
I am almost afraid to ask you this, but here it goes.
On the last few weeks/months before starting Viaweb, did you consider yourself a failure for being almost 30, well-educated but out of the formal career track, "poor" and unmarried? If so, was that the fuel behind your many amazing achievements later on?
Re: The Aha Moments That Made Paul Graham's Y Combinator Possible
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've never had an article written about me or my products that didn't have some mistakes, I'm not sure why it's not standard practice to send a draft to the subject for fact checking...
I've had a few reporters send me quotes and excerpts for fact checking. They then proceeded to ignore my corrections, since their fabrications better matched the target narrative. Once you're on the other side of the news, even a little bit, you begin to understand just how broken it really is.
I had the same experience on fact checking
Re: The Aha Moments That Made Paul Graham's Y Combinator Possible
#35Skimming this, I noticed a few mistakes. I was 30, not 31. My degree is in CS, not computer engineering, which is a hybrid of CS and EE. We were already working on another company when we decided to work on ecommerce. We were making software to generate web sites for commercial art galleries (who didn't want web sites). So we didn't suddenly decide to write software to make stores. It was more a question of switching…
My memory might be betraying me, but I do remember a lot of hype about how people would be able to visit 'virtual galleries'. That's how stuff like VRML was usually pitched, but people didn't actually know how the technology could be used. Which reminds me of the whole "housewives will be able to store recipes in their personal computer" thing.
That could have been pg's motivation. I could also be reading to much into it.
Re: The Aha Moments That Made Paul Graham's Y Combinator Possible
#36Skimming this, I noticed a few mistakes. I was 30, not 31. My degree is in CS, not computer engineering, which is a hybrid of CS and EE. We were already working on another company when we decided to work on ecommerce. We were making software to generate web sites for commercial art galleries (who didn't want web sites). So we didn't suddenly decide to write software to make stores. It was more a question of switching…
I am almost afraid to ask you this, but here it goes. On the last few weeks/months before starting Viaweb, did you consider yourself a failure for being almost 30, well-educated but out of the formal career track, "poor" and unmarried? If so, was that the fuel behind your many amazing achievements later on?
No, not really. I'd written the two Lisp books, and people liked those. Not a lot of people, but they were people whose opinions I cared about. Actually Viaweb felt like more of a compromise than the way I'd been living before, because it was something I was doing mostly for money.
Re: The Aha Moments That Made Paul Graham's Y Combinator Possible
#37Nice article but I think it over-emphasizes hating windows a little too much and fails to explicitly make the more important point, which Greene did in this Mixergy interview:
"Robert: Well, the other person that I’ve interviewed . . . I’ve interviewed five so far. I’ve got about three or four more to go. It was a gentlemen named Paul Graham. I don’t know if you’re familiar with him.
Andrew: Y Combinator.
Robert: Yes, and Hacker News, yes. He’s really brilliant. So, one of the things I’m talking about in the book is the power of being a non-conformist, and it comes to what we were talking about earlier about your life’s task that you’re unique. There’s something different about you. When you find it, there’s power in that uniqueness. It’s almost like Harry Potter or something. When you find what makes that what it is about you, you’ve got this little diamond that’s going to give you power.
So, Paul Graham, what I liked about him was he’s always been a complete non-conformist and has gotten away with it, not because his parents had money or he was privileged, but because he didn’t care and he took risks and he just followed what he wanted to do. And that’s sort of the end of this book. That’s like the ultimate thing.
So, when he first started out, he didn’t really want to get into business, but he needed to make money because he was living in a really crappy apartment in New York. He came up with this other friend who was a great hacker. His name eludes me right now. You might know his name, and they came up with Viaweb, basically, because he was so good at this one code which name also eludes me that he writes in.
So, he kind of backs into being a successful businessman, and he doesn’t really care. Then, when Yahoo buys out Viaweb, he doesn’t suddenly try and morph into a conventional businessman working for Yahoo. He quits after a year. He becomes a writer. He writes articles that create a great following, and then he kind of backs into Y Combinator, which is a brilliant business model, I think, for the future for entrepreneurs, for tech startups.
But he doesn’t give a damn about what other people think. He doesn’t follow what other people do. He does what he thinks is right for himself, and I just think it’s a brilliant formula. I’ll be more explicit in the book and make it more, something you can understand. But that’s sort of the gist of it."
(Both audio/video and full text transcript can be found here: http://mixergy.com/robert-greene-power-interview/)
Re: The Aha Moments That Made Paul Graham's Y Combinator Possible
#38Skimming this, I noticed a few mistakes. I was 30, not 31. My degree is in CS, not computer engineering, which is a hybrid of CS and EE. We were already working on another company when we decided to work on ecommerce. We were making software to generate web sites for commercial art galleries (who didn't want web sites). So we didn't suddenly decide to write software to make stores. It was more a question of switching…
$500 million valuation?
YC could probably sell their stake in Dropbox alone for more than that.
Re: The Aha Moments That Made Paul Graham's Y Combinator Possible
#39Nice article but I think it over-emphasizes hating windows a little too much and fails to explicitly make the more important point, which Greene did in this Mixergy interview: "Robert: Well, the other person that I’ve interviewed . . . I’ve interviewed five so far. I’ve got about three or four more to go. It was a gentlemen named Paul Graham. I don’t know if you’re familiar with him. Andrew: Y Combinator. Robert: Yes…
He definitely goes more into that in the book. Robert tells the stories of the masters from a couple different angles, I think this is just one of the more interesting ones.
Re: The Aha Moments That Made Paul Graham's Y Combinator Possible
#40Hustle, as a personality characteristic, sets top entrepreneurs apart from the pack. It's the one that really matters because those with hustle know how to pivot when a chance encounter arises. Although this particular word is avoided, Greene's description of PG reads much like his description of 50 Cent in The 50th Law.