When I was a kid I was firmly in the camp of bad. The way adults used the word good, it seemed to be synonymous with quiet, so I grew up very suspicious of it.

When I was a kid I was firmly in the camp of bad. The way adults used the word good, it seemed to be synonymous with quiet, so I grew up very suspicious of it. You know how there are some people whose names come up in conversation and everyone says "He's such a great guy?" People never say that about me. The best I get is "he means well." I am not claiming to be good. At best I speak good as a second language. There are a lot of people out there who spend an enormous amount of time coming up with rationalizations to justify doing bad things. What I realized after spending a lot of time around Paul Graham is that he's actually the opposite: He spends an enormous amount of time coming up with rationalizations to justify doing good things. However bad he may want to be, his fundamental good nature always seems to win out in the end.