Paul Graham

Their wordsIt's good to know about multiple things; some of the biggest discoveries come from noticing connections between different fields.

Their wordsOne of the most powerful kinds of copying is to copy something from one field into another. History is so full of chance discoveries of this type that it's probably worth giving chance a hand by deliberately learning about other kinds of work. You can take ideas from quite distant fields if you let them be metaphors.

Their wordsBe professionally curious about a few topics and idly curious about many more.

Their wordsSaying that taste is just personal preference is a good way to prevent disputes. The trouble is, it's not true. You feel this when you start to design things.

Their wordsConsciously cultivate your taste in the work done in your field.

Their wordsMorale compounds via work: high morale helps you do good work, which increases your morale and helps you do even better work. But this cycle also operates in the other direction: if you're not doing good work, that can demoralize you and make it even harder to.

Their wordsIt may seem as if there are a lot of different situations with superlinear returns, but as far as I can tell they reduce to two fundamental causes: exponential growth and thresholds.

Their wordsBut superlinear returns for performance are a feature of the world, not an artifact of rules we've invented. We see the same pattern in fame, power, military victories, knowledge, and even benefit to humanity. In all of these, the rich get richer.

Their wordsOne of the most important things I didn't understand about the world when I was a child is the degree to which the returns for performance are superlinear.

Their wordsSuperlinear returns imply inequality. The steeper the return curve, the greater the variation in outcomes.

Their wordsNothing is more powerful than a community of talented people working on related problems. Genes count for little by comparison: being a genetic Leonardo was not enough to compensate for having been born near Milan instead of Florence.

Their wordsExposing oneself to superlinear returns is not for everyone. Most people will be better off as part of the pool.

Their wordsIn practice, to get good design you have to get close, and stay close, to your users. You have to calibrate your ideas on actual users constantly, especially in the beginning.

Their wordsThe way to figure out what to work on is by working. If you're not sure what to work on, guess. But pick something and get going.

Their wordsMorale is another reason that it's hard to design something for an unsophisticated user. It's hard to stay interested in something you don't like yourself. To make something good, you have to be thinking, "wow, this is really great," not "what a piece of shit; those fools will love it."

Their wordsYou're most likely to get good design if the intended users include the designer himself. When you design something for a group that doesn't include you, it tends to be for people you consider to be less sophisticated than you, not more sophisticated. That's a problem, because looking down on the user, however benevolently, seems inevitably to corrupt the designer.

Their wordsGreat software, likewise, requires a fanatical devotion to beauty. If you look inside good software, you find that parts no one is ever supposed to see are beautiful too.

Their wordsWhen you're forced to be simple, you're forced to face the real problem. When you can't deliver ornament, you have to deliver substance.

Their wordsthe way you make a new Google is not by attacking them head on. You have to wait for things to change so much that their model is is obsolete and that's when you can do it. And that's what Open AI is.

Their wordsI also have another less optimistic prediction: as soon as the concept of founder mode becomes established, people will start misusing it. Founders who are unable to delegate even things they should will use founder mode as the excuse. Or managers who aren't founders will decide they should try to act like founders.