7 ms·

You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss: The Cliffs Notes

71 points by brlewis 19y ago

mynameishere 19y ago
More of an apologia than a summarization. Atwood et al are responding to the more general idea, quite consistently expressed, that the startup life is better than the corporate life. By itself, this is neither true nor false, so it's simply not worth fighting over. Everybody wants to be rich. Nobody wants to fail. Startups offer both.
- brentr 19y ago
  My grandfather used to say, "If you don't fail every now and then, you are not doing enough." Failure is a good thing. It is from failure that new things are learned. I am willing to fail if that failure ultimately leads to riches. In a startup failures and riches are not mutually exclusive if the entrepreneurs are willing to learn from their failures.
  - tim2 19y ago
    That depends entirely on whether the failure was worth the risk and amount that was actually learned. I can see this often not being the case.
  - edw519 19y ago
    My grandmother used to say, "If you look for trouble hard enough, you'll probably find it." Seems to be a lot of that going around on the internet these days.
- icky 19y ago
  > [...] the more general idea, quite consistently expressed, that the startup life is better than the corporate life. By itself, this is neither true nor false [...] Can't one way of living be better than another? If not, how can I tell whether my life is better now than it was a year ago? And if I can't discern even that, then why should I try to improve my life? Or, indeed, how could I?
  - pmjordan 19y ago
    The point is, it's subjective.
    - icky 19y ago
      Indeed, but the mere subjectivity of a statement doesn't deprive it of the possibility of truth or falsehood for any given person or group of people. For example, take the statement "bread is a better food than dung." In my own context, and yours, and probably all of humanity's, that subjective statement is more-than-subjectively true. For a fly or a dung beetle, that statement is false. Given the right context and constraints, even subjective statements can be "objectivized" and tested scientifically. For instance, if you can decide on various goals or constraints, you could find out objectively whether the startup life or the corporate life tends to be better in terms of more money, less stress, quality of life (once you've carefully stated metrics for that), etc. So, in the strictest sense, the original poster is right, in that by itself, neither the startup life nor the corporate life is better, just as in the strictest sense, the statement "bread is a better food than dung" is neither true nor false. But stopping there can deprive you of valuable information, which might prevent you from eating dung. ;)
tim2 19y ago
What is so much more fulfilling about startups that is unlikely to be attained elsewhere?
- greendestiny 19y ago
  I think they offer the same opportunities for fulfillment as any experience that tests you and is entirely dependant on you without the usual buffers and safeguards. Whats more the original article explicitly stated that it wasn't just startups that can give you that 'uncagedness'.
- foonamefoo 19y ago
  I would say that you have much more creative freedom as a tenured professor (if getting to that point hasn't completely destroyed your spirit) than as a startup founder. Look at some of the stuff Noam Chomsky has been able to devote almost all of his time to--it sure isn't linguistics.
  - nostrademons 19y ago
    Yeah, but it's not really an equal comparison. You can start a startup with a bachelor's degree (or less...) and a couple years of work experience. You need about 6 years of grad school, 2-3 years of postdoccing, and 6 years as a tenure-track professor to become a tenured professor. Assuming you aren't weeded out at any one of those stages. Your chances of getting tenure at the end of this are quite a bit lower than the chance that your startup will succeed, given equal intelligence and effort. A better comparison would be startup founder <=> grad student, cashed-out entrepreneur <=> tenured professor. Startup founders tend to have more freedom than grad students, and multimillionaires tend to have more freedom than tenured professors.
    - pixcavator 19y ago
      "Your chances of getting tenure at the end of this are quite a bit lower than the chance that your startup will succeed, given equal intelligence and effort." You are way off! Just count the number of multimillionaire founders vs. tenured professors.
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mhartl 19y ago
I think people are reacting not to the (nonexistent) suggestion that MegaCorp programmers intrinsically suck, but rather to the implicit suggestion that they suck for not starting startups. To continue with the lion analogy, suppose that lions in the zoo were there by choice rather than by force. Then, when seeing how pathetic zoo lions are compared to wild lions, we might conclude that they somehow lack the courage to live their wild lives of destiny. The negative spin is that MegaCorp hackers are cowardly lions. This predictably provokes a defensive response. The positive spin? The cage doors are open.
- DocSavage 19y ago
  I found the opening metaphor distasteful because it suggests MegaCorp programmers currently suck, even if it's because of their environment. It sounded like PG can, at a glance, see programmers who seem "smart enough" but lack fundamental qualities that YC founders possess. As nuanced as human beings can be, as varied in skill and manner as they are over time, PG fairly quickly saw the "startling" differences and attributed it to the employee environment instead of their being hung-over, for example. The summary could be slightly modified and be truer to the essay: "Oh... you aren't working for yourself? You currently suck." [Disclaimer: I currently work for myself, and still suck.]
  - pg 19y ago
    As nuanced as human beings can be, as varied in skill and manner as they are over time, PG fairly quickly saw the "startling" differences and attributed it to the employee environment instead of their being hung-over, for example. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=142465 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=142465
    - jaydub 19y ago
      I would just like to say I feel I can relate to what pg is referring to. Last summer I worked as an intern for a fairly well respected and very large company. I must say that I feel the experience was rewarding and that I learned quite a bit. But I did feel a little bit like the caged animal in zoo that Paul described. One small example: You couldn't just push your work from dev(elopment) to prod(uction) - regardless of the thoroughness of testing, we had to go through the company's bureaucratic change management system which, while I understand its purpose theoretically, in fact only wasted time. Perhaps its just that I'm still a bit young and would like the ability to roam more freely. Getting to the other item pg mentioned, the team building excursions, I experienced that last summer in the form of a scavenger hunt. Granted this company is well respected, and that many of the students came from top colleges, I got the feeling that somehow people felt "accomplished" through their sheer acceptance to the internship program. One fellow intern commented to me as we were passing random people on the street. "We work for X. We're better than you." It sounds pretty ridiculous but he was simply voicing the same sentiment that many of the interns passively expressed through body language. There was this atmosphere of complacency (particularly outside the office) that bothered me. I think this took away from the drive to succeed. The same drive that got many of these smart students to this point.
te_platt 19y ago
I am very surprised at the discussion this essay has touched off. I thought it was almost obvious what pg was saying. I have been from start up to large company to starting my own start up to working for a large company again. I've lived the same changes two times over now and can completely relate to the caged lion feeling. It's not that I'm a better programmer (or person for that matter) when I'm working for myself. It's that working for a large company has certain restrictions on freedom that come with the added security and comfort. In short, I feel, act, and behave differently based on my environment. There are a lot of nice things about working for a large company and I work for a good one right now. Still, if I didn't have my own projects to work on (another start up coming on!) I would go stir crazy. I thought the analogy to a lion was quite flattering.
girk 19y ago
Honestly, I'm not sure why everybody is up in arms about either one of these essays (full-length version and/or Cliffs Notes). Both of them seem right on target to me. Reminds me of an essay by Stephanie Tolan titled "Is It a Cheetah?", which offers cheetahs as an analogy for gifted children who are confined to (and as a result, crippled by) public school systems. Excerpt: "The cheetah needs to run! Despite design and need however, certain conditions are necessary if it is to attain its famous 70 mph top speed. ... It must have plenty of room to run. Besides that, it is best motivated to run all out when it is hungry and there are antelope to chase. If a cheetah is confined to a 10 X 12 foot cage, though it may pace or fling itself against the bars in restless frustration, it won't run 70 mph." Full article: http://www.stephanietolan.com/is_it_a_cheetah.htm http://www.stephanietolan.com/is_it_a_cheetah.htm
- DocSavage 19y ago
  Imagine if Stephanie had started the essay like this: "A few days ago I was sitting in a cafe in Palo Alto and a group of public school kids came in on some kind of field trip. They looked familiar. I spend nearly all my time working with gifted kids, but something seemed wrong about these kids. There was something missing. And yet the public school they went to is considered a good one, and from what I overheard of their conversation, they seemed smart enough. ... I was in Africa last year and saw a lot of animals in the wild that I'd only seen in zoos before. It was remarkable how different they seemed. Particularly cheetahs. Cheetahs in the wild seem about ten times more alive. They're like different animals. And seeing those public school kids on their field trip was like seeing cheetahs in a zoo after spending several years watching them in the wild."
  - girk 19y ago
    @DocSavage, I'm not sure I understand your response. If you spend your time working with gifted kids (or talented young entrepreneurs), I think you invariably develop some expertise on how to identify them, in "the wild," in "captivity," or wherever. Just because their 'public school' (or company or university or whatever) is considered good, doesn't necessarily mean they are good. Conversely, not being gifted, talented, and/or a young entrepreneur doesn't make them bad. But if you spend your time working with people falling in the former category, perhaps you would feel as if the latter category was missing something. That's not criticism, it's just an observation. And if they are missing something because of their external environment (company, private school, public school, university, or what have you), then, well, as with all analogies, the comparison eventually breaks down. We are humans and not wild animals in captivity. I realize that oftentimes, kids don't have a choice about what schools they go to. But, regardless, that's not really the part I thought was relevant. My point was more that there is a good chance that the people who are unhappy in a large, corporate bureaucracy may be the same people who were unhappy in a public school. Generally speaking, individuals have some capacity or power to change our external environment. And if you're motivated to change your environment, chances are, you will. Books, games, etc., are all great escapes for people/kids who are in a less than desirable (read: less than challenging) situation. Just as start-ups are a great escape for people who are bored to tears in large, corporate bureaucracy. Shrug. I understand that there are obviously different opinions on this essay, but personally, I just don't feel that what Paul Graham wrote was an attack.
tx 19y ago
PG lives in a different world. Considr Austin TX, the 3rd largest computer tech startup hub in US (read: the world). Programmers are NOBODY here, they're disposable code monkeys, and literally all startups I personally was involved in were started by polished and sleasy "MBA types" who regularly push engineers aside and have pictures of M3s and Porsches on their personal blogs. Needless to say, all local startups are a joke, (I won't point fingers). Local investors are (for real) interested in seeing your 10-year financial projections, P&L and all that other useless crap. When I told that to my SV-based mentor he laughed his pants off. If Austin is like that, I can only imagine how pathetic the rest of the world is, and how hard it is for them to get Paul's points. If Paul is not exaggerating, SV is truly unique and everybody with a CS degree should be moving down there. And working for Yahoo/Google/Facebook in SV is truly a huge waste of your life.
- ardit33 19y ago
  True, but I warn you, there are no girls here. Seriously, Sillicon Valley is a big sausage fest.
  - deleted 19y ago
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  - jimbokun 19y ago
    This is hands down the best rebuttal to pg's arguments for young men to start a SV startup that I've read. (Actually, for young women, too, but for the opposite reason.)
- neilk 19y ago
  And working for Yahoo/Google/Facebook in SV is truly a huge waste of your life. Oh, come on. Wasting your life == working as a Blockbuster video clerk, assuming that you don't have an art career or something else on the side. Also, I take it you don't live in SV? 99% of the startup activity around here is downright moronic. Stupid money chasing stupid ideas. Yes, you might walk with that startup swagger. I happened to be in South Park on Friday around lunchtime, and watched all the cool kids strutting in the sunny afternoon. I work for a megacorp, and it's hard not to envy them. I'm not arguing that megacorps are better for everyone, but it's nowhere near a waste of your life. They operate on a scale that most startups can barely comprehend. The stuff you can learn and do there is serious business.
h34t 19y ago
"You suck, but not because of who you are intrinsically -- only because of your environment. You must become a startup founder, or you'll probably continue to suck." To me, this retains PG's argument but also shows why it's so easy to be offended by it. (personally I agree with his argument -- I've been in the cage and I've been in the jungle, and I know damn well which one gives me stomach ulcers and which one helps me become a better human being.)
edw519 19y ago
3 big reasons why something so simple gets blown out of proportion so often: 1. "I have a blog. I have to blog everyday. I have nothing to say today. I'll find something to say anyway." 2. "You said something on-line and I didn't have an opportunity to see your body movements or hear your voice tonality. So I misinterpreted it." 3. "I have to show everyone how much smarter I am than everyone else. So I'll disagree with something someone smart has said. That'll show'em."
mightybyte 19y ago
Paul used the caged lion metaphor to illustrate differences in freedom in a vivid way. That's it. This freedom disparity is a fact. Don't try to say that "less freedom" implies "sucks" just because the vividness offended your sensibilities.
Husafan 19y ago
I don't think it bodes well for the clarity of your essay that you're using the beginning of your last paragraph to defend your thesis. Atwood admits that your, "essay does contain some fair points," but he also indicates that he, along with others, had trouble getting through it because of the distasteful metaphor you lead with. In light of this, I am sure you can understand them not spotting the thesis in your last paragraph. Finally, perhaps someone with a "conscientiously broadened mind," as you so describe yourself, could fathom a working environment unlike the one you describe? I imagine that new-hires at 37signals, or Fog Creek, would not feel they are missing out because they are not currently heading a start-up. Quite the opposite, I would think they are grateful for the opportunity, the environment and the benefits. Not all successful companies treat their developers like animals. And the ones that don't tend to inspire loyalty. Can you really not see how you may have offended some of these people?
- pg 19y ago
  The thesis is throughout the essay. Didn't you read it? I just quoted the last paragraph because it is a direct contradition of what they claim I said. I imagine that new-hires at 37signals, or Fog Creek, would not feel they are missing out because they are not currently heading a start-up. Now I'm convinced you didn't read it. There is a paragraph explicitly about this: You can adjust the amount of freedom you get by scaling the size of company you work for. If you start the company, you'll have the most freedom. If you become one of the first 10 employees you'll have almost as much freedom as the founders. Even a company with 100 people will feel different from one with 1000.
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dawie 19y ago
PG: I read your essay and most of the comments/remarks across the Internet. In my experience starting at a company, junior hackers learn from senior hackers, most of the problem solving skills I have learned was from other hackers (often more senior than myself). Even learning what not too do. If young hackers starts companies, who do they learn from? Do they just learn these problem solving skills and people skills by themselves? I am sure YCombinator has something to do with this process...
- astrec 19y ago
  Young hackers who start companies in cahoots with YC are mentored by old hackers who start companies.
run4yourlives 19y ago
Paul, I don't think you get it though. I've got to say here that I read the essay with the same distaste as Atwood, particularly because of its opening paragraphs. I loved the message, and agree with the theory, but I had a tough time with the presentation. The connotation that it isn't natural to be an employee and as such those that do are by extension "unnatural" is troubling. I realize that you're not saying "all corporate programmers suck", but clearly, people who have the courage, will, and sheer balls to found their own companies have a unique talent that isn't shared by all. Of course, the programmers you work with are in perfect harmony with startup life. For them, having a boss is not the way to go. They need to be entrepreneurs. It's in their being. Some people though, are perfectly happy being employees. These people should not be starting their own companies. They should continue to enjoy life and have fun on their corporate scavenger hunts. They are innately different than the startup founder. That much is obvious. To extend and equate this difference with being "lesser" - whether by choice, ignorance, or chance - is where you run into trouble with a lot of us. You're inserting a good/bad comparison into an exercise that should remain strictly an examination of difference. Hence, Atwood's suggestion of narcissism. Of course being a founder is "natural" to you. I've learned that it is to me as well, and no doubt it's natural to everyone on this site. Sure, a lot of people that work for corporations should look to embrace startups, especially those that are disgruntled. No, startup founders are not a select few geniuses; they are those of a given talents. Surely you of all people realize this. To suggest that everyone shares these talents, or that those who don't are somehow misguided sounds more like religion than business though. Finally, I don't even think this post was needed. This post suggests that a great many people who read the essay didn't understand it, due to their lack of intellect. In fact, it is more likely that they understood it perfectly, and the problem lies more with how the author chose to support the thesis.
cadalac 19y ago
My quick comments about the zoo thing: 1)PG compared two same animals, a lion I think, therefore he does NOT think company workers are inferior to founders. He thinks that they are generally the same type of people. 2)The founder lion's neck is on the line a lot and he has a lot at stake. He lives in a dangerous jungle. The company lion on the other hand has little risk and is a bit like an animal in a cage. 3)One can view the animal inside a cage as either being cruelly mistreated or being sort of lucky and spoiled.

71 points by brlewis 19y ago

More of an apologia than a summarization. Atwood et al are responding to the more general idea, quite consistently expressed, that the startup life is better than the corporate life. By itself, this is neither true nor false, so it's simply not worth fighting over. Everybody wants to be rich. Nobody wants to fail. Startups offer both.

brentr 19y ago
My grandfather used to say, "If you don't fail every now and then, you are not doing enough." Failure is a good thing. It is from failure that new things are learned. I am willing to fail if that failure ultimately leads to riches. In a startup failures and riches are not mutually exclusive if the entrepreneurs are willing to learn from their failures.
- tim2 19y ago
  That depends entirely on whether the failure was worth the risk and amount that was actually learned. I can see this often not being the case.
- edw519 19y ago
  My grandmother used to say, "If you look for trouble hard enough, you'll probably find it." Seems to be a lot of that going around on the internet these days.
icky 19y ago
> [...] the more general idea, quite consistently expressed, that the startup life is better than the corporate life. By itself, this is neither true nor false [...] Can't one way of living be better than another? If not, how can I tell whether my life is better now than it was a year ago? And if I can't discern even that, then why should I try to improve my life? Or, indeed, how could I?
- pmjordan 19y ago
  The point is, it's subjective.
  - icky 19y ago
    Indeed, but the mere subjectivity of a statement doesn't deprive it of the possibility of truth or falsehood for any given person or group of people. For example, take the statement "bread is a better food than dung." In my own context, and yours, and probably all of humanity's, that subjective statement is more-than-subjectively true. For a fly or a dung beetle, that statement is false. Given the right context and constraints, even subjective statements can be "objectivized" and tested scientifically. For instance, if you can decide on various goals or constraints, you could find out objectively whether the startup life or the corporate life tends to be better in terms of more money, less stress, quality of life (once you've carefully stated metrics for that), etc. So, in the strictest sense, the original poster is right, in that by itself, neither the startup life nor the corporate life is better, just as in the strictest sense, the statement "bread is a better food than dung" is neither true nor false. But stopping there can deprive you of valuable information, which might prevent you from eating dung. ;)

tim2 19y ago

What is so much more fulfilling about startups that is unlikely to be attained elsewhere?

greendestiny 19y ago
I think they offer the same opportunities for fulfillment as any experience that tests you and is entirely dependant on you without the usual buffers and safeguards. Whats more the original article explicitly stated that it wasn't just startups that can give you that 'uncagedness'.
foonamefoo 19y ago
I would say that you have much more creative freedom as a tenured professor (if getting to that point hasn't completely destroyed your spirit) than as a startup founder. Look at some of the stuff Noam Chomsky has been able to devote almost all of his time to--it sure isn't linguistics.
- nostrademons 19y ago
  Yeah, but it's not really an equal comparison. You can start a startup with a bachelor's degree (or less...) and a couple years of work experience. You need about 6 years of grad school, 2-3 years of postdoccing, and 6 years as a tenure-track professor to become a tenured professor. Assuming you aren't weeded out at any one of those stages. Your chances of getting tenure at the end of this are quite a bit lower than the chance that your startup will succeed, given equal intelligence and effort. A better comparison would be startup founder <=> grad student, cashed-out entrepreneur <=> tenured professor. Startup founders tend to have more freedom than grad students, and multimillionaires tend to have more freedom than tenured professors.
  - pixcavator 19y ago
    "Your chances of getting tenure at the end of this are quite a bit lower than the chance that your startup will succeed, given equal intelligence and effort." You are way off! Just count the number of multimillionaire founders vs. tenured professors.

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mhartl 19y ago

I think people are reacting not to the (nonexistent) suggestion that MegaCorp programmers intrinsically suck, but rather to the implicit suggestion that they suck for not starting startups. To continue with the lion analogy, suppose that lions in the zoo were there by choice rather than by force. Then, when seeing how pathetic zoo lions are compared to wild lions, we might conclude that they somehow lack the courage to live their wild lives of destiny. The negative spin is that MegaCorp hackers are cowardly lions. This predictably provokes a defensive response. The positive spin? The cage doors are open.

DocSavage 19y ago
I found the opening metaphor distasteful because it suggests MegaCorp programmers currently suck, even if it's because of their environment. It sounded like PG can, at a glance, see programmers who seem "smart enough" but lack fundamental qualities that YC founders possess. As nuanced as human beings can be, as varied in skill and manner as they are over time, PG fairly quickly saw the "startling" differences and attributed it to the employee environment instead of their being hung-over, for example. The summary could be slightly modified and be truer to the essay: "Oh... you aren't working for yourself? You currently suck." [Disclaimer: I currently work for myself, and still suck.]
- pg 19y ago
  As nuanced as human beings can be, as varied in skill and manner as they are over time, PG fairly quickly saw the "startling" differences and attributed it to the employee environment instead of their being hung-over, for example. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=142465 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=142465
  - jaydub 19y ago
    I would just like to say I feel I can relate to what pg is referring to. Last summer I worked as an intern for a fairly well respected and very large company. I must say that I feel the experience was rewarding and that I learned quite a bit. But I did feel a little bit like the caged animal in zoo that Paul described. One small example: You couldn't just push your work from dev(elopment) to prod(uction) - regardless of the thoroughness of testing, we had to go through the company's bureaucratic change management system which, while I understand its purpose theoretically, in fact only wasted time. Perhaps its just that I'm still a bit young and would like the ability to roam more freely. Getting to the other item pg mentioned, the team building excursions, I experienced that last summer in the form of a scavenger hunt. Granted this company is well respected, and that many of the students came from top colleges, I got the feeling that somehow people felt "accomplished" through their sheer acceptance to the internship program. One fellow intern commented to me as we were passing random people on the street. "We work for X. We're better than you." It sounds pretty ridiculous but he was simply voicing the same sentiment that many of the interns passively expressed through body language. There was this atmosphere of complacency (particularly outside the office) that bothered me. I think this took away from the drive to succeed. The same drive that got many of these smart students to this point.

te_platt 19y ago

I am very surprised at the discussion this essay has touched off. I thought it was almost obvious what pg was saying. I have been from start up to large company to starting my own start up to working for a large company again. I've lived the same changes two times over now and can completely relate to the caged lion feeling. It's not that I'm a better programmer (or person for that matter) when I'm working for myself. It's that working for a large company has certain restrictions on freedom that come with the added security and comfort. In short, I feel, act, and behave differently based on my environment. There are a lot of nice things about working for a large company and I work for a good one right now. Still, if I didn't have my own projects to work on (another start up coming on!) I would go stir crazy. I thought the analogy to a lion was quite flattering.

girk 19y ago

Honestly, I'm not sure why everybody is up in arms about either one of these essays (full-length version and/or Cliffs Notes). Both of them seem right on target to me. Reminds me of an essay by Stephanie Tolan titled "Is It a Cheetah?", which offers cheetahs as an analogy for gifted children who are confined to (and as a result, crippled by) public school systems. Excerpt: "The cheetah needs to run! Despite design and need however, certain conditions are necessary if it is to attain its famous 70 mph top speed. ... It must have plenty of room to run. Besides that, it is best motivated to run all out when it is hungry and there are antelope to chase. If a cheetah is confined to a 10 X 12 foot cage, though it may pace or fling itself against the bars in restless frustration, it won't run 70 mph." Full article: http://www.stephanietolan.com/is_it_a_cheetah.htm http://www.stephanietolan.com/is_it_a_cheetah.htm

DocSavage 19y ago
Imagine if Stephanie had started the essay like this: "A few days ago I was sitting in a cafe in Palo Alto and a group of public school kids came in on some kind of field trip. They looked familiar. I spend nearly all my time working with gifted kids, but something seemed wrong about these kids. There was something missing. And yet the public school they went to is considered a good one, and from what I overheard of their conversation, they seemed smart enough. ... I was in Africa last year and saw a lot of animals in the wild that I'd only seen in zoos before. It was remarkable how different they seemed. Particularly cheetahs. Cheetahs in the wild seem about ten times more alive. They're like different animals. And seeing those public school kids on their field trip was like seeing cheetahs in a zoo after spending several years watching them in the wild."
- girk 19y ago
  @DocSavage, I'm not sure I understand your response. If you spend your time working with gifted kids (or talented young entrepreneurs), I think you invariably develop some expertise on how to identify them, in "the wild," in "captivity," or wherever. Just because their 'public school' (or company or university or whatever) is considered good, doesn't necessarily mean they are good. Conversely, not being gifted, talented, and/or a young entrepreneur doesn't make them bad. But if you spend your time working with people falling in the former category, perhaps you would feel as if the latter category was missing something. That's not criticism, it's just an observation. And if they are missing something because of their external environment (company, private school, public school, university, or what have you), then, well, as with all analogies, the comparison eventually breaks down. We are humans and not wild animals in captivity. I realize that oftentimes, kids don't have a choice about what schools they go to. But, regardless, that's not really the part I thought was relevant. My point was more that there is a good chance that the people who are unhappy in a large, corporate bureaucracy may be the same people who were unhappy in a public school. Generally speaking, individuals have some capacity or power to change our external environment. And if you're motivated to change your environment, chances are, you will. Books, games, etc., are all great escapes for people/kids who are in a less than desirable (read: less than challenging) situation. Just as start-ups are a great escape for people who are bored to tears in large, corporate bureaucracy. Shrug. I understand that there are obviously different opinions on this essay, but personally, I just don't feel that what Paul Graham wrote was an attack.

tx 19y ago

PG lives in a different world. Considr Austin TX, the 3rd largest computer tech startup hub in US (read: the world). Programmers are NOBODY here, they're disposable code monkeys, and literally all startups I personally was involved in were started by polished and sleasy "MBA types" who regularly push engineers aside and have pictures of M3s and Porsches on their personal blogs. Needless to say, all local startups are a joke, (I won't point fingers). Local investors are (for real) interested in seeing your 10-year financial projections, P&L and all that other useless crap. When I told that to my SV-based mentor he laughed his pants off. If Austin is like that, I can only imagine how pathetic the rest of the world is, and how hard it is for them to get Paul's points. If Paul is not exaggerating, SV is truly unique and everybody with a CS degree should be moving down there. And working for Yahoo/Google/Facebook in SV is truly a huge waste of your life.

ardit33 19y ago
True, but I warn you, there are no girls here. Seriously, Sillicon Valley is a big sausage fest.
- deleted 19y ago
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- jimbokun 19y ago
  This is hands down the best rebuttal to pg's arguments for young men to start a SV startup that I've read. (Actually, for young women, too, but for the opposite reason.)
neilk 19y ago
And working for Yahoo/Google/Facebook in SV is truly a huge waste of your life. Oh, come on. Wasting your life == working as a Blockbuster video clerk, assuming that you don't have an art career or something else on the side. Also, I take it you don't live in SV? 99% of the startup activity around here is downright moronic. Stupid money chasing stupid ideas. Yes, you might walk with that startup swagger. I happened to be in South Park on Friday around lunchtime, and watched all the cool kids strutting in the sunny afternoon. I work for a megacorp, and it's hard not to envy them. I'm not arguing that megacorps are better for everyone, but it's nowhere near a waste of your life. They operate on a scale that most startups can barely comprehend. The stuff you can learn and do there is serious business.

h34t 19y ago

"You suck, but not because of who you are intrinsically -- only because of your environment. You must become a startup founder, or you'll probably continue to suck." To me, this retains PG's argument but also shows why it's so easy to be offended by it. (personally I agree with his argument -- I've been in the cage and I've been in the jungle, and I know damn well which one gives me stomach ulcers and which one helps me become a better human being.)

edw519 19y ago

3 big reasons why something so simple gets blown out of proportion so often: 1. "I have a blog. I have to blog everyday. I have nothing to say today. I'll find something to say anyway." 2. "You said something on-line and I didn't have an opportunity to see your body movements or hear your voice tonality. So I misinterpreted it." 3. "I have to show everyone how much smarter I am than everyone else. So I'll disagree with something someone smart has said. That'll show'em."

mightybyte 19y ago

Paul used the caged lion metaphor to illustrate differences in freedom in a vivid way. That's it. This freedom disparity is a fact. Don't try to say that "less freedom" implies "sucks" just because the vividness offended your sensibilities.

Husafan 19y ago

I don't think it bodes well for the clarity of your essay that you're using the beginning of your last paragraph to defend your thesis. Atwood admits that your, "essay does contain some fair points," but he also indicates that he, along with others, had trouble getting through it because of the distasteful metaphor you lead with. In light of this, I am sure you can understand them not spotting the thesis in your last paragraph. Finally, perhaps someone with a "conscientiously broadened mind," as you so describe yourself, could fathom a working environment unlike the one you describe? I imagine that new-hires at 37signals, or Fog Creek, would not feel they are missing out because they are not currently heading a start-up. Quite the opposite, I would think they are grateful for the opportunity, the environment and the benefits. Not all successful companies treat their developers like animals. And the ones that don't tend to inspire loyalty. Can you really not see how you may have offended some of these people?

pg 19y ago
The thesis is throughout the essay. Didn't you read it? I just quoted the last paragraph because it is a direct contradition of what they claim I said. I imagine that new-hires at 37signals, or Fog Creek, would not feel they are missing out because they are not currently heading a start-up. Now I'm convinced you didn't read it. There is a paragraph explicitly about this: You can adjust the amount of freedom you get by scaling the size of company you work for. If you start the company, you'll have the most freedom. If you become one of the first 10 employees you'll have almost as much freedom as the founders. Even a company with 100 people will feel different from one with 1000.

deleted 19y ago

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dawie 19y ago

PG: I read your essay and most of the comments/remarks across the Internet. In my experience starting at a company, junior hackers learn from senior hackers, most of the problem solving skills I have learned was from other hackers (often more senior than myself). Even learning what not too do. If young hackers starts companies, who do they learn from? Do they just learn these problem solving skills and people skills by themselves? I am sure YCombinator has something to do with this process...

astrec 19y ago
Young hackers who start companies in cahoots with YC are mentored by old hackers who start companies.

run4yourlives 19y ago

Paul, I don't think you get it though. I've got to say here that I read the essay with the same distaste as Atwood, particularly because of its opening paragraphs. I loved the message, and agree with the theory, but I had a tough time with the presentation. The connotation that it isn't natural to be an employee and as such those that do are by extension "unnatural" is troubling. I realize that you're not saying "all corporate programmers suck", but clearly, people who have the courage, will, and sheer balls to found their own companies have a unique talent that isn't shared by all. Of course, the programmers you work with are in perfect harmony with startup life. For them, having a boss is not the way to go. They need to be entrepreneurs. It's in their being. Some people though, are perfectly happy being employees. These people should not be starting their own companies. They should continue to enjoy life and have fun on their corporate scavenger hunts. They are innately different than the startup founder. That much is obvious. To extend and equate this difference with being "lesser" - whether by choice, ignorance, or chance - is where you run into trouble with a lot of us. You're inserting a good/bad comparison into an exercise that should remain strictly an examination of difference. Hence, Atwood's suggestion of narcissism. Of course being a founder is "natural" to you. I've learned that it is to me as well, and no doubt it's natural to everyone on this site. Sure, a lot of people that work for corporations should look to embrace startups, especially those that are disgruntled. No, startup founders are not a select few geniuses; they are those of a given talents. Surely you of all people realize this. To suggest that everyone shares these talents, or that those who don't are somehow misguided sounds more like religion than business though. Finally, I don't even think this post was needed. This post suggests that a great many people who read the essay didn't understand it, due to their lack of intellect. In fact, it is more likely that they understood it perfectly, and the problem lies more with how the author chose to support the thesis.

cadalac 19y ago

My quick comments about the zoo thing: 1)PG compared two same animals, a lion I think, therefore he does NOT think company workers are inferior to founders. He thinks that they are generally the same type of people. 2)The founder lion's neck is on the line a lot and he has a lot at stake. He lives in a dangerous jungle. The company lion on the other hand has little risk and is a bit like an animal in a cage. 3)One can view the animal inside a cage as either being cruelly mistreated or being sort of lucky and spoiled.