I Stumbled Upon Paul Graham's Essays – and Can't Stop Reading • Hacker News Board

I Stumbled Upon Paul Graham's Essays – and Can't Stop Reading

#1

Post by xnslx » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 1:49 PM UTC

I stumbled upon Paul Graham’s essays and couldn’t stop reading. Just wow — how can one person be that insightful?

Re: I Stumbled Upon Paul Graham's Essays – and Can't Stop Reading

#2

Post by xnslx » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 1:51 PM UTC

Which essay do you like the best? It inspires me so much and makes me want to keep writing. As he said, there’s a kind of thinking that can only be owned by writing.

Re: I Stumbled Upon Paul Graham's Essays – and Can't Stop Reading

#3

Post by andsoitis » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 1:51 PM UTC

> how can one person be that insightful

Then you will truly be blown away by Aristotle, Newton, Plato, Kant, Darwin, Einstein, Marx, Confucius, Leibniz, Freud.

Re: I Stumbled Upon Paul Graham's Essays – and Can't Stop Reading

#4

Post by djyde » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 3:05 PM UTC

xnslx wrote: post #2

Which essay do you like the best? It inspires me so much and makes me want to keep writing. As he said, there’s a kind of thinking that can only be owned by writing.

My favorite is "Do things that don't scale" (https://www.paulgraham.com/ds.html), which has been really inspiring for my indie product work. Especially for those of us building internet products, we often tend to build scalable things right from the start, but in reality, products in the early stages require founders to do a lot of non-automated dirty work.

For entrepreneurs, reading Paul Graham's articles is incredibly useful.

(Sent via haiker.app — My handmade Hacker News app)

Re: I Stumbled Upon Paul Graham's Essays – and Can't Stop Reading

#5

Post by chistev » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 3:12 PM UTC

xnslx wrote: post #2

Which essay do you like the best? It inspires me so much and makes me want to keep writing. As he said, there’s a kind of thinking that can only be owned by writing.

https://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html

https://www.paulgraham.com/airbnb.html

https://www.paulgraham.com/college.html

https://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html

Re: I Stumbled Upon Paul Graham's Essays – and Can't Stop Reading

#6

Post by ex-aws-dude » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 3:16 PM UTC

How is a post with literally 2 points the top of /ask

The algorithm on this site makes no sense sometimes

Re: I Stumbled Upon Paul Graham's Essays – and Can't Stop Reading

#7

Post by OutrageousTea » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 3:56 PM UTC

[flagged]

Re: I Stumbled Upon Paul Graham's Essays – and Can't Stop Reading

#8

Post by xnslx » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 4:10 PM UTC

OutrageousTea wrote: post #7

[flagged]

[dead]

Re: I Stumbled Upon Paul Graham's Essays – and Can't Stop Reading

#9

Post by xnslx » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 4:12 PM UTC

andsoitis wrote: post #3

> how can one person be that insightful Then you will truly be blown away by Aristotle, Newton, Plato, Kant, Darwin, Einstein, Marx, Confucius, Leibniz, Freud.

Yes, actually I also read a lot of Aristotle. Totally blown away by such wisdom!!

Re: I Stumbled Upon Paul Graham's Essays – and Can't Stop Reading

#10

Post by xnslx » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 4:12 PM UTC

chistev wrote: post #5

xnslx wrote: post #2

Which essay do you like the best? It inspires me so much and makes me want to keep writing. As he said, there’s a kind of thinking that can only be owned by writing.

https://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html https://www.paulgraham.com/airbnb.html https://www.paulgraham.com/college.html https://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html

Thank you!! Gonna read them one by one!