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People tend to gravitate towards others who think like them. In addition to agreeing with a lot of what he says, I felt like his essays were the first time I r

People tend to gravitate towards others who think like them. In addition to agreeing with a lot of what he says, I felt like his essays were the first time I ran into a person who thought that graduating and working for someone else was a bullshit default. This is something I have believed since 1st or 2nd grade, but in sharing that idea with other people I got blank stares or expressions as if I had just propositioned a drug trafficking network. His essays also allowed me to fine tune my bs filter on situations and people, be they jobs, vcs, popular opinion, etc. A lot there. Finally, he seems to not be a prick, and believe or not, that is a very rare quality. I have never met the guy, but he seems to be trying to make a positive change in the world and doesn't seem to be leeching of off people's hopes and taking advantage of them, like a record company or leadership track in a corporation would.

lux 19y ago
Lucky for me, my dad has been self-employed since I can remember, so I've always had a very central influence in my life that said much the same thing PG does about working for someone else versus yourself. I got lucky on my first business at 19 and I'm now 27 and still running it, but I'm also working on a new startup as well. When I started, I didn't know what I was doing, I just went for it, and I've learnt the hard way much of the way through. So when I first started reading PG's essays years ago, I connected immediately with the ideas and with his natural inquisitiveness about the process. You can learn so much from other peoples' experiences. And he definitely exudes a sincerity that I think is hard to fake and hard to come by too. PG and co have also created an invaluable resource in the HN community and in PG's writing as a resource to connect people who share the same desire for independence and creating great things. To me, there's no question that that has significant value for many people.

lux 19y ago

Lucky for me, my dad has been self-employed since I can remember, so I've always had a very central influence in my life that said much the same thing PG does about working for someone else versus yourself. I got lucky on my first business at 19 and I'm now 27 and still running it, but I'm also working on a new startup as well. When I started, I didn't know what I was doing, I just went for it, and I've learnt the hard way much of the way through. So when I first started reading PG's essays years ago, I connected immediately with the ideas and with his natural inquisitiveness about the process. You can learn so much from other peoples' experiences. And he definitely exudes a sincerity that I think is hard to fake and hard to come by too. PG and co have also created an invaluable resource in the HN community and in PG's writing as a resource to connect people who share the same desire for independence and creating great things. To me, there's no question that that has significant value for many people.