Paul Graham's most recent essay, "Haters," was also probably an incentive for the repost. A lot of people found the piece to be off-putting. I think a lot of G

Paul Graham's most recent essay, "Haters," was also probably an incentive for the repost. A lot of people found the piece to be off-putting. I think a lot of Graham's recent writing has been pretty poor and less substantive than some of his older works. His latest work seems to give evidence that Atwood was not only correct in his judgements, but that Graham's potentially even more disconnected these days--the "Haters" piece has elements and language that are perhaps equally as distasteful as Paul's caged animals analogy. He makes a lot of aggressive claims without engaging in anything one could really call critical self-reflection. I don't know Paul Graham personally, so I have no clue as to whether or not his ego has gotten out of control, but the lack of intellectual modesty, condescending language, and "us vs. them" mentality that seems to permeate all of his recent essays would suggest that it has. He comes off as a guy who thinks he has all the answers, not just about tech start-ups, but about life in general. That simply isn't true, and the arrogant tone in all of his work leaves a bad taste in my mouth most of the time I read it. Personally, I think a large part of his success as an essayist stems from the fact that he knows his audience well, and that his audience isn't exactly comprised of literati or people well-versed in the humanities or the history of the social sciences. Quite frankly, I doubt anyone outside of technology would take many of Paul Graham's opinions on social dynamics or other topics seriously at all. At best he parrots things people have already explored in the social sciences decades ago, at worst he shows off an incredible insensitivity toward the experiences and perspectives of others. > He acknowledges that his perspective is warped because "nearly all the programmers [he knows] are startup founders." Therein lies the problem. These essays are no longer about software engineering; they're about Paul Graham. They've become participatory narcissism: I agree with Atwood's assessment. Paul Graham, at least as an essayist, is so wrapped up in his own worldview, his own circle, that he's entirely lost the ability to step outside of it.