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How to Start Google

paulgraham.com

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Re: How to Start Google

#321

Post by therealdrag0 »

a_n wrote: post #244

lol why do so many people here have such a loser/average mindset, you can literally achieve anything, literally anything, just because you don’t want to work hard, you don’t gotta be so discouraging to other people, well I guess people who wanna achieve great things probably don’t care about the stupid lazy people, so it’s whatever But the fact is you can literally do anything, you just gotta give it your all…

I also don’t get why people care so much about what OTHER people do. Will some people fail? Yes of course. But it’s good for society to have a ton of people busting their ass and trying new things. And it’s good for society if bloggers encourage that.

If you personally want to be an employee, fine, but a cultural value for entrepreneurs is a good thing to have and should be supported.

Re: How to Start Google

#322

Post by echelon »

hbn wrote: post #298
smokel wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of survivorship bias ignored in the article is appalling. Why?

It's like all the successful rappers who go on about how "I wanted to be a rapper when I was a teenager, and my guidance counsellor told me it's not realistic, and that I should settle down with a safe, normal job. Now look where I am!" Your guidance counsellor told hundreds of kids the same thing, and it was good advice for basically all of them. For every guy who made it rich with some crazy risky stock trade, ther…

We're all already dead in geologic time. Why not shoot for the stars?

There's a big difference between a casino and actively throwing yourself at problem gradients, learning, adapting.

Re: How to Start Google

#323

Post by fuzzfactor »

paulpauper wrote: post #281
YossarianFrPrez wrote: post #70

PG is remarkably consistent in his advice; much of his writing is about developing a nose for "what's missing" and having the chops and resources to attempt a solution. Also, I think 'Google' in this instance is more for motivation rather than a literal comparison. He's leaving out the part that Google was founded by graduate CS students a) looking for a thesis, b) into node-link graphs, and c) inspired by academic c…

Google in 1999 had the the fortuitous alignment of every possible factor: brains, Stanford connections, timing, extremely scalable and lucrative business model, funding, etc.

Even more fortuitous was having no ads or anything else that the small number of early Googlers would have considered evil in any way.

Re: How to Start Google

#324

Post by echelon »

babl-yc wrote: post #317

I couldnt finish reading the essay because I was distracted by the generally smug tone of it. 99.99% of people who read this article are not going to start the next Google. Being a successful entrepreneur requires an incredible amount of luck, timing, skill, and risk taking. If you choose that path, great, but that in no way devalues the skill building, network building, and predictable income of working for someone…

Perhaps you're not the intended audience.

There are certain people that deeply desire this and that understand their chances of success are low. Nevertheless, these people want to try and find encouragement in these types of essays.

You don't need to be upset that this isn't for you. There are all sorts of shapes of people in the world. We benefit by having curious people at all strata of society, exploring various sorts of ideas and problems. It keeps us from deadlock.

Re: How to Start Google

#325

Post by surgical_fire »

ToValueFunfetti wrote: post #78
JR1427 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people often give advice about how to do a certain thing, pretty soon you are going to think that the thing is important.

Many people seem to survive 7 hours of advice on how to write properly, solve math problems, and understand history and science for 175 days a year over 12 of their most impressionable years without thinking any of those things are important. That doesn't give me a lot of cause for alarm over a 15 minute Paul Graham talk

It's still good to call out bullshit when you see it.

Re: How to Start Google

#327

Post by oblio »

immibis wrote: post #192
gordon_freeman wrote: post #164

> "But you will avoid many of the annoying things that come with a job, including a boss telling you what to do." Isn't this a bit misleading and can only be true for companies that don't take VC money or never go public (ex: Basecamp/37 Signals)? For VC funded or public companies, ultimately you'd have to be responsible to answer to your shareholders.

That's true, and since Paul Graham's in the role of VC shareholder or something closely related, he would prefer you didn't realize that.

Are you telling me that this blog entry is... marketing?!? Oh, my!

:-p

Re: How to Start Google

#328

Post by surgical_fire »

volkk wrote: post #236
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #219

Totally insane. 99% or more of the people who enable Google to do what Google does are employees of Google. Same with every other company. The odds of being the founder of a successful company are probably worse than being a professional sportsball player (if only because they turn over more frequently). Does anything good come from encouraging kids to think that they will manage to sail through life as a successful…

> Does anything good come from encouraging kids to think that they will manage to sail through life as a successful business founder rather than an employee? I would imagine dreaming big is pretty good for children. A big reason for why I'm optimistic in life is because I have hope for achieving something. I truly can't imagine a life where my father/mother would only hammer in the fact that I am just an average joe…

Eh, maybe it is good to learn that you're not destined to anything grand early on. It gives you resilience, and builds character. Teaches you to value the small things in life.

It can be a lot more depressing to learn you are a loser well into your adulthood, after a long time of thinking very highly of yourself.

Re: How to Start Google

#329

Post by oblio »

paulpauper wrote: post #279
gordon_freeman wrote: post #164

> "But you will avoid many of the annoying things that come with a job, including a boss telling you what to do." Isn't this a bit misleading and can only be true for companies that don't take VC money or never go public (ex: Basecamp/37 Signals)? For VC funded or public companies, ultimately you'd have to be responsible to answer to your shareholders.

> "But you will avoid many of the annoying things that come with a job, including a boss telling you what to do." Yeah but that boss is paying you mid 6 figs or even 7, plus comp and other stuff, then maybe it's not so bad. Why else are these tech companies inundated with so many job applications if having a boss is supposed to be so bad. I think this guy is still stuck in a '90s or early 2000s 'Dilbert' mindset when…

I agree with you overall but the impression I'm getting is that comp is taking a nose dive for premium jobs. Probably 10% of those pay what they used to, 3-4 years ago and the competition is 100x worse, and it was bad before.

Re: How to Start Google

#330

Post by malthaus »

a_n wrote: post #244

lol why do so many people here have such a loser/average mindset, you can literally achieve anything, literally anything, just because you don’t want to work hard, you don’t gotta be so discouraging to other people, well I guess people who wanna achieve great things probably don’t care about the stupid lazy people, so it’s whatever But the fact is you can literally do anything, you just gotta give it your all…

because most people have something called life experience or come from a culture not brainwashed by the american dream. of course YOU can do anything, but whether you are successful with that or not is up to a million factors you cannot control, no matter how much of your all you give.

go to a casino, throw your life savings on one number. if you win, tell everyone how you gave it all and you manifested it by pure will. if you lose, nobody will ever hear from it.

in addition, pg is so heavily biased on this and should never be taken as gospel.

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