Paul Graham's essays
Paul Graham · 25 korrents · 4 pieces · paulgraham.com
Writes and Write-Nots5 korrents · 1 Oct 2024
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- Within a couple of decades there will not be many people who can write, because AI has removed the pressure to learn.
- Most people find writing hard because writing well requires thinking clearly, and thinking clearly is hard.
- The middle ground in writing disappears: what is left is good writers and people who cannot write, with no ok writers in between.
- Because writing is thinking, a world divided into writers and non-writers becomes a world divided into thinkers and non-thinkers.
- Intelligence is becoming a choice rather than a byproduct of daily work: there will still be smart people, but only those who choose to be.
Founder Mode6 korrents · 1 Sept 2024
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- There are things founders can do that managers cannot, and not doing them feels wrong to founders because it is wrong.
- There are two ways to run a company — founder mode and manager mode — and Silicon Valley has wrongly assumed that scaling a startup means switching to the second.
- In practice "hire good people and give them room to do their jobs" often means hiring professional fakers and letting them drive the company into the ground.
- Founder mode breaks the rule that a CEO engages with the company only through direct reports, and makes skip-level meetings the norm.
- Founder mode will be more complicated than manager mode, and will also work better.
- As soon as founder mode is an established idea people will misuse it: founders excusing an inability to delegate, and managers deciding to act like founders.
Superlinear Returns7 korrents · 1 Oct 2023
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- Returns for performance are superlinear rather than proportional across most domains that matter.
- Superlinear returns are a feature of the world rather than an artifact of capitalism, and the same pattern runs through fame, power, knowledge and benefit to humanity.
- Every situation with superlinear returns reduces to one of two causes: exponential growth or thresholds.
- Always be learning, because work that is not teaching you is probably not on a path that leads to superlinear returns.
- Exposing yourself to superlinear returns is not for everyone: most people are better off as part of the pool.
- At the far end of the curve it is a bargain not only to do exceptional work but merely to attempt it, because so few people even try.
How to Do Great Work7 korrents · 1 Jul 2023
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- The way to work out what to work on is by working: if you do not know, guess, but pick something and get going.
- What to work on is found by asking what you are excessively curious about — curious to a degree that would bore most other people.
- Outlier ideas are worth chasing especially when other people are not interested in them.
- Great work follows the same four steps in every field: choose a field, learn enough to reach the frontier, notice the gaps, explore the promising ones.
- Procrastinating on a whole project is far more dangerous than procrastinating on a day, because it camouflages itself as work.
- Morale compounds in both directions, so when the work is going badly it is worth switching to easier work just to get something done.