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Sigh. Do such low-effort posts from other people as these recent pg ones ever appear on the HN front page?! Guess I just won't click on them in future. It's de

Sigh. Do such low-effort posts from other people as these recent pg ones ever appear on the HN front page?! Guess I just won't click on them in future. It's depressing to see –because I really love many of his essays on non-startup subjects, and learned a lot from them, and probably will again next time I read them. edit: oh, now its #1.

TrickyRick 7y ago
Yeah, I'm inclined to agree. This is just common sense written down in a few sentences. Provides nothing new to anyone.
heinrichhartman 7y ago
I don't mind them at all. If Paul writes anything, I want to know about it. So please upvote so it gets to my attention. Also note that Pauls blog is blazingly fast and does not have ADs/Cookie Conent/Tracking madness. I don't click Medium links anymore b/c all that bloat + crap. With blogs like this, I am back to HN in less than 5 seconds if I don't like the content.
- dangus 7y ago
  Do you want to know about it because he’s a billionaire that might fund your hot dog recognition app or because he’s said anything particularly revelatory? Because I for one and sick and tired of wealth worship in this country. The post is not interesting and shouldn’t be on the front page.
  - brootstrap 7y ago
    Agree with some points there Drangus. I am stoned to the bone and 'shiiiiiittt' that was some deep stuff. What if being a noob is better than being pro??? Maybe that idea works for some cases , but i definitely want to work with professional software devs not noob coders. What do you think Dingus? (hope you are a T&E fan. might as well just take your sister to prom ya dangus she's a girl too!)
  - ekianjo 7y ago
    > because he’s a billionaire Why is someone being a zillionaire even a variable to judge whether something was interesting or not?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - noxToken 7y ago
      There's a good chance that a millionaire came from old money. That doesn't make them inherently interesting. The ones who are self-made, the anomalies in that population, are more likely to be interesting.
      - coldtea 7y ago
        Old money are mostly out of the rat race, more distant from the need of self-marketing, and usually with better education and taste (in fact, it's almost proverbial that old money have better taste than the "nouveaux rich"). All kinds of writers, artists, scientists etc were once from that group. So it's more probable to listen to something interesting from an old money millionaire who inherited wealth, than from a self-made one (which would tire you with self-promotion and gloating about their business acumen, bravado, and hardships they had to overcome).
    - kick 7y ago
      That's exactly the point! This post is a generic, pretty universally-recognized point, written by a billionaire, and is only the length of a handful of tweets. The only possible criteria that a post this small and with this little substance would get upmodded for is the billionaire bit, and possibly that people are just upmodding 'pg without checking the actual content (I've seen a few people talk about how they use upmodding as a 'read later' function). I don't even mind that it was, but the comment makes a decent point.
      - dmurray 7y ago
        I don't think it's the "billionaire bit", it's celebrity in general, and specifically celebrity in fields that HN readers find interesting.
  - dec0dedab0de 7y ago
    I want to know because many of his essays are insightful. This one in particular was a bit short, and to me an obvious premise. However, there may be some people who would benefit from hearing that it is good to be in situations where you have to learn new things.
    - frandroid 7y ago
      It should only get voted up if it's insightful, but the top parent here bemoans our fellow hackeroos' upvoting reflexes...
  - jimbokun 7y ago
    In Graham's case, writing interesting content had more to do with him becoming a billionaire, than people thinking what he says is interesting because he's a billionaire. Sure, he was relatively wealthy from the sale of ViaWeb. But the popularity of his writing is what led to YCombinator and then to him becoming much more wealthy.
  - Kiro 7y ago
    I think it's interesting and it has spawned interesting comments (except this thread). Why do you get to decide what's interesting or not just because you begrudge billionaires?
  - devchix 7y ago
    > Because I for one and sick and tired of wealth worship in this country. Amen brother! As I was leaving the house this morning I caught a snippet of something about Oprah being on a tour; top tickets are in the thousands of dollars. Nothing against Oprah but what does she have to say that is actionable and I haven't heard before, that I (or anyone, really) should pay to hear? I think it was Gore Vidal (rest his crusty vituperative heart) who wrote that Americans think proximity to wealth eventually confers it on them, especially if they f*-- it. Paraphrased obviously, am not about to google it at work.
    - hindsightbias 7y ago
      I asked a supporter of the present POTUS what possible opposition candidate he would vote for. He said Oprah. His even more conservative wife agreed. I started to laugh before realizing they were completely serious. It was so out of box to me that I think it speaks to how a large portion of the electorate prefers personalities, particularly those who “created” something.
  - Reedx 7y ago
    That's ridiculously dismissive and just smacks of sour grapes. Are many looking to read what the Waltons say? No, this isn't wealth worship. The reason why people pay attention to folks like PG and Buffet is because they've repeatedly proven to have useful insights. Does that mean everything they say is of great value? Of course not. But their batting average is strong and they offer a lot of free wisdom. It's a good idea to learn from those who have things to teach, and Paul is a good teacher.
    - mAEStro-paNDa 7y ago
      > Are many looking to read what the Waltons say? Have you ever been inside a Business College?
      - bnjms 7y ago
        Why, do they worship the Waltons of today? Or do they focus on Sam Walton and Walmart itself?
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - Reedx 7y ago
        I'd be surprised and suspicious of those colleges if they're teaching based on the Walton heirs... Sam would be a different story, but wasn't who I was referring to with the present tense of "Waltons say".
  - heinrichhartman 7y ago
    Well, first of all, he created this whole site. This would be enough for me to be of interest. Also I enjoy his books and essays, in particular the ones about LISP. I don't know about his financial situation. And frankly I don't care.
  - scarejunba 7y ago
    This is a website run by a startup incubator. Seems like the wrong place for no wealth worship. Essentially, I don't understand why you chose this place if you sort of don't like it.
- na85 7y ago
  >If Paul writes anything, I want to know about it Here you go: http://paulgraham.com/rss.html http://paulgraham.com/rss.html
bloopernova 7y ago
I liked it. Correlating the feeling of hunger vs abundant food leading to being overweight against the desire to know as much as everyone else. That worked for me, yes it's common sense, but sometimes it helps to have things spelled out clearly for you to have a small epiphany about yourself.
jannyfer 7y ago
I like seeing that people like pg can have the same feelings that I do, reminding me that everyone is human.
- ticmasta 7y ago
  Why did you ever think he was more than human? This is kind of what the original criticism highlighted....
tirumaraiselvan 7y ago
I think it might just be an algorithmic thing. He has one of the top karmas in HN.
- diehunde 7y ago
  He didn't post it
gargs 7y ago
Someone(he) must have just read 'Range'.
munchbunny 7y ago
I agree - while I normally find Paul Graham's posts very insightful, this post definitely feels like one where, if it were written by someone with no name (such as myself), the post would get maybe a few votes at best. It's a useful reminder, but it doesn't stand out. Anyone and everyone these days gives advice about learning voraciously, whether or not anyone listens or does it.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
idclip 7y ago
I think ita endearing because im in a similar place as an expat and a technical refugee.
coldtea 7y ago
>Sigh. Do such low-effort posts from other people as these recent pg ones ever appear on the HN front page?! All the time. Both "personal insight/self help" stuff, and all kinds of low-effort development posts. So?
- yesenadam 7y ago
  >All the time. I guess I'll really regret asking for a few examples of that! But here goes - Some evidence for that claim? Recent links? (This site has stuff that made the front page I think, if that helps https://hckrnews.com/ https://hckrnews.com/ ) By low-effort, I meant..the combination of bland content, first-draft-quality style, and very short. I don't think I've seen anything that short on here, and it's high on the blandometer too, though some people on this page say they got value from it. (Aw I feel bad criticizing now, hopefully he takes his own advice not to read HN pages about one's own stuff..) edit: Ah, someone on this page mentioned Seth Godin, which reminds me he had a blog-post linked recently (not sure if it made the front page) - even shorter, and much less to say. One of the most popular blogs in the world! It said. Amazing. My first exposure to him. Well, maybe he used to be good, I don't know.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    Seth Godin, Derek Shivers, etc... Plus lots of one-off posts of random "wisdom" Add to that all the content-less "new Node release", "here's 2 minor changes in Golang 1.1x", "I tried framework X and I don't like it" (with trivial arguments), etc... that somehow are voted to be first page...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
abegnoche 7y ago
he's getting old and it shows sadly :/
grawprog 7y ago
>Do such low-effort posts from other people as these recent pg ones ever appear on the HN front page?! To be fair, yes regularly. Maybe it's supposed to be a meta essay, an essay about noobs that reads like it was written by a noob?
tompccs 7y ago
A lot of people need reminding of: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- yesenadam 7y ago
  >A lot of people Hi. :-) I guess that includes me? Not sure who else you're talking about[0]. That's an ominous, vague, passive sentence there. I can't see I've offended the guidelines, except possibly not being kind, shallow dismissal of other's work..I have a feeling you meant "Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate" but I don't think I'm doing that exactly. More complaining/disappointed about excess votes and deficient quality, I guess. I did think it was worthless so I flagged it as advised. [0] Possibly yourself? Among your most recent few comments are ones beginning If you'd bothered to read you'd realise that the.. and Are you serious?
gist 7y ago
> ever appear on the HN front page? They appear on the front page because of the 'Newman effect'. I just coined that term for back in the day what made Paul Newman's salad dressing successful and has since been copied as a formula by many celebrity brands. Basically if you have two salad dressings on the shelf in a supermarket people will pay attention and potentially buy the one that they notice for a reason that is not even related to the quality of the product. And as everyone knows in sales or marketing (or should know) getting your message across and getting listened to is (arbitrarily I am making this up) half the battle. [1] Of course Paul Newman had other things going for him as well. He could get the supermarket to consider his product because of the halo around him as a movie star. He could get top quality people to help with the product as a result of being a movie star. He even (iirc) pioneered (or at least popularized) giving profits to charity (from memory). But much of the success was for sure dependent on his name recognition which made it more likely that people would try the product (same thing happens with why stars are featured in movies obviously although with Netflix that is becoming less important for sure). [1] This is also what an intro does for you it gets the person to listen to what you have to say which you might not even get the chance to do if you are just cold calling.
elamje 7y ago
I wonder if his recent uptick in posts that seem a little less substantive means he is going to announce something new soon.
ellyagg 7y ago
Low-effort here means "short"? There's nothing wrong with short. I find these essays, even the short ones, useful and insightful. I hope PG is not unduly influenced by the recent backlash to his publishing more. I came to this community originally largely due to his insights and the particular culture he nurtured here. The recent uptick in his contributions is welcome.
words_meanings 7y ago
It shows that idolizing is universal.
yayitswei 7y ago
PG doesn't have to share anything, he could just be enjoying time with his family. I for one am delighted that he still posts.
ceilingcorner 7y ago
I for one find it absolutely hilarious to watch people take these ‘essays’ seriously. I have nothing but respect for PG in regards to his work with startups, but when he wrote this essay [1] on the field of philosophy, it should have been a sign to everyone to stop and question the author when he talks about anything other than startups or computer science. 1. http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html
- yesenadam 7y ago
  Well, I liked that philosophy essay. (About me: I've read philosophy for decades and most of my university studies have been in philosophy.)
- eruditely 7y ago
  Oh come now, one essay can't really detract from the general character of all his essays does it?
kristianc 7y ago
It’s also worth pointing out that this kind of overblown humility also tends to work out a lot less well for you in life if you don’t already have a billion dollars and founders hanging on your every tweet.
empath75 7y ago
A large part of the audience here wants to get money from pg and people like him and find articles like this useful for trying to make money from SV vcs.
tallgiraffe 7y ago
Disagree. It’s very important for people feeling like “noobs” to realize that it’s okay, even desired. PG is a legend and have him clearly state so is refreshing, and necessary.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
SamReidHughes 7y ago
If you're into completionist reading of blogs, every post is just as important as every other one.
happy-go-lucky 7y ago
> Do such low-effort posts from other people as these recent pg ones ever appear on the HN front page?! You can expect to have control over something you created.

TrickyRick 7y ago

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree. This is just common sense written down in a few sentences. Provides nothing new to anyone.

heinrichhartman 7y ago

I don't mind them at all. If Paul writes anything, I want to know about it. So please upvote so it gets to my attention. Also note that Pauls blog is blazingly fast and does not have ADs/Cookie Conent/Tracking madness. I don't click Medium links anymore b/c all that bloat + crap. With blogs like this, I am back to HN in less than 5 seconds if I don't like the content.

dangus 7y ago
Do you want to know about it because he’s a billionaire that might fund your hot dog recognition app or because he’s said anything particularly revelatory? Because I for one and sick and tired of wealth worship in this country. The post is not interesting and shouldn’t be on the front page.
- brootstrap 7y ago
  Agree with some points there Drangus. I am stoned to the bone and 'shiiiiiittt' that was some deep stuff. What if being a noob is better than being pro??? Maybe that idea works for some cases , but i definitely want to work with professional software devs not noob coders. What do you think Dingus? (hope you are a T&E fan. might as well just take your sister to prom ya dangus she's a girl too!)
- ekianjo 7y ago
  > because he’s a billionaire Why is someone being a zillionaire even a variable to judge whether something was interesting or not?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - noxToken 7y ago
    There's a good chance that a millionaire came from old money. That doesn't make them inherently interesting. The ones who are self-made, the anomalies in that population, are more likely to be interesting.
    - coldtea 7y ago
      Old money are mostly out of the rat race, more distant from the need of self-marketing, and usually with better education and taste (in fact, it's almost proverbial that old money have better taste than the "nouveaux rich"). All kinds of writers, artists, scientists etc were once from that group. So it's more probable to listen to something interesting from an old money millionaire who inherited wealth, than from a self-made one (which would tire you with self-promotion and gloating about their business acumen, bravado, and hardships they had to overcome).
  - kick 7y ago
    That's exactly the point! This post is a generic, pretty universally-recognized point, written by a billionaire, and is only the length of a handful of tweets. The only possible criteria that a post this small and with this little substance would get upmodded for is the billionaire bit, and possibly that people are just upmodding 'pg without checking the actual content (I've seen a few people talk about how they use upmodding as a 'read later' function). I don't even mind that it was, but the comment makes a decent point.
    - dmurray 7y ago
      I don't think it's the "billionaire bit", it's celebrity in general, and specifically celebrity in fields that HN readers find interesting.
- dec0dedab0de 7y ago
  I want to know because many of his essays are insightful. This one in particular was a bit short, and to me an obvious premise. However, there may be some people who would benefit from hearing that it is good to be in situations where you have to learn new things.
  - frandroid 7y ago
    It should only get voted up if it's insightful, but the top parent here bemoans our fellow hackeroos' upvoting reflexes...
- jimbokun 7y ago
  In Graham's case, writing interesting content had more to do with him becoming a billionaire, than people thinking what he says is interesting because he's a billionaire. Sure, he was relatively wealthy from the sale of ViaWeb. But the popularity of his writing is what led to YCombinator and then to him becoming much more wealthy.
- Kiro 7y ago
  I think it's interesting and it has spawned interesting comments (except this thread). Why do you get to decide what's interesting or not just because you begrudge billionaires?
- devchix 7y ago
  > Because I for one and sick and tired of wealth worship in this country. Amen brother! As I was leaving the house this morning I caught a snippet of something about Oprah being on a tour; top tickets are in the thousands of dollars. Nothing against Oprah but what does she have to say that is actionable and I haven't heard before, that I (or anyone, really) should pay to hear? I think it was Gore Vidal (rest his crusty vituperative heart) who wrote that Americans think proximity to wealth eventually confers it on them, especially if they f*-- it. Paraphrased obviously, am not about to google it at work.
  - hindsightbias 7y ago
    I asked a supporter of the present POTUS what possible opposition candidate he would vote for. He said Oprah. His even more conservative wife agreed. I started to laugh before realizing they were completely serious. It was so out of box to me that I think it speaks to how a large portion of the electorate prefers personalities, particularly those who “created” something.
- Reedx 7y ago
  That's ridiculously dismissive and just smacks of sour grapes. Are many looking to read what the Waltons say? No, this isn't wealth worship. The reason why people pay attention to folks like PG and Buffet is because they've repeatedly proven to have useful insights. Does that mean everything they say is of great value? Of course not. But their batting average is strong and they offer a lot of free wisdom. It's a good idea to learn from those who have things to teach, and Paul is a good teacher.
  - mAEStro-paNDa 7y ago
    > Are many looking to read what the Waltons say? Have you ever been inside a Business College?
    - bnjms 7y ago
      Why, do they worship the Waltons of today? Or do they focus on Sam Walton and Walmart itself?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - Reedx 7y ago
      I'd be surprised and suspicious of those colleges if they're teaching based on the Walton heirs... Sam would be a different story, but wasn't who I was referring to with the present tense of "Waltons say".
- heinrichhartman 7y ago
  Well, first of all, he created this whole site. This would be enough for me to be of interest. Also I enjoy his books and essays, in particular the ones about LISP. I don't know about his financial situation. And frankly I don't care.
- scarejunba 7y ago
  This is a website run by a startup incubator. Seems like the wrong place for no wealth worship. Essentially, I don't understand why you chose this place if you sort of don't like it.
na85 7y ago
>If Paul writes anything, I want to know about it Here you go: http://paulgraham.com/rss.html http://paulgraham.com/rss.html

bloopernova 7y ago

I liked it. Correlating the feeling of hunger vs abundant food leading to being overweight against the desire to know as much as everyone else. That worked for me, yes it's common sense, but sometimes it helps to have things spelled out clearly for you to have a small epiphany about yourself.

jannyfer 7y ago

I like seeing that people like pg can have the same feelings that I do, reminding me that everyone is human.

ticmasta 7y ago
Why did you ever think he was more than human? This is kind of what the original criticism highlighted....

tirumaraiselvan 7y ago

I think it might just be an algorithmic thing. He has one of the top karmas in HN.

diehunde 7y ago
He didn't post it

gargs 7y ago

Someone(he) must have just read 'Range'.

munchbunny 7y ago

I agree - while I normally find Paul Graham's posts very insightful, this post definitely feels like one where, if it were written by someone with no name (such as myself), the post would get maybe a few votes at best. It's a useful reminder, but it doesn't stand out. Anyone and everyone these days gives advice about learning voraciously, whether or not anyone listens or does it.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

idclip 7y ago

I think ita endearing because im in a similar place as an expat and a technical refugee.

coldtea 7y ago

>Sigh. Do such low-effort posts from other people as these recent pg ones ever appear on the HN front page?! All the time. Both "personal insight/self help" stuff, and all kinds of low-effort development posts. So?

yesenadam 7y ago
>All the time. I guess I'll really regret asking for a few examples of that! But here goes - Some evidence for that claim? Recent links? (This site has stuff that made the front page I think, if that helps https://hckrnews.com/ https://hckrnews.com/ ) By low-effort, I meant..the combination of bland content, first-draft-quality style, and very short. I don't think I've seen anything that short on here, and it's high on the blandometer too, though some people on this page say they got value from it. (Aw I feel bad criticizing now, hopefully he takes his own advice not to read HN pages about one's own stuff..) edit: Ah, someone on this page mentioned Seth Godin, which reminds me he had a blog-post linked recently (not sure if it made the front page) - even shorter, and much less to say. One of the most popular blogs in the world! It said. Amazing. My first exposure to him. Well, maybe he used to be good, I don't know.
- coldtea 7y ago
  Seth Godin, Derek Shivers, etc... Plus lots of one-off posts of random "wisdom" Add to that all the content-less "new Node release", "here's 2 minor changes in Golang 1.1x", "I tried framework X and I don't like it" (with trivial arguments), etc... that somehow are voted to be first page...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

abegnoche 7y ago

he's getting old and it shows sadly :/

grawprog 7y ago

>Do such low-effort posts from other people as these recent pg ones ever appear on the HN front page?! To be fair, yes regularly. Maybe it's supposed to be a meta essay, an essay about noobs that reads like it was written by a noob?

tompccs 7y ago

A lot of people need reminding of: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

yesenadam 7y ago
>A lot of people Hi. :-) I guess that includes me? Not sure who else you're talking about[0]. That's an ominous, vague, passive sentence there. I can't see I've offended the guidelines, except possibly not being kind, shallow dismissal of other's work..I have a feeling you meant "Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate" but I don't think I'm doing that exactly. More complaining/disappointed about excess votes and deficient quality, I guess. I did think it was worthless so I flagged it as advised. [0] Possibly yourself? Among your most recent few comments are ones beginning If you'd bothered to read you'd realise that the.. and Are you serious?

gist 7y ago

> ever appear on the HN front page? They appear on the front page because of the 'Newman effect'. I just coined that term for back in the day what made Paul Newman's salad dressing successful and has since been copied as a formula by many celebrity brands. Basically if you have two salad dressings on the shelf in a supermarket people will pay attention and potentially buy the one that they notice for a reason that is not even related to the quality of the product. And as everyone knows in sales or marketing (or should know) getting your message across and getting listened to is (arbitrarily I am making this up) half the battle. [1] Of course Paul Newman had other things going for him as well. He could get the supermarket to consider his product because of the halo around him as a movie star. He could get top quality people to help with the product as a result of being a movie star. He even (iirc) pioneered (or at least popularized) giving profits to charity (from memory). But much of the success was for sure dependent on his name recognition which made it more likely that people would try the product (same thing happens with why stars are featured in movies obviously although with Netflix that is becoming less important for sure). [1] This is also what an intro does for you it gets the person to listen to what you have to say which you might not even get the chance to do if you are just cold calling.

elamje 7y ago

I wonder if his recent uptick in posts that seem a little less substantive means he is going to announce something new soon.

ellyagg 7y ago

Low-effort here means "short"? There's nothing wrong with short. I find these essays, even the short ones, useful and insightful. I hope PG is not unduly influenced by the recent backlash to his publishing more. I came to this community originally largely due to his insights and the particular culture he nurtured here. The recent uptick in his contributions is welcome.

words_meanings 7y ago

It shows that idolizing is universal.

yayitswei 7y ago

PG doesn't have to share anything, he could just be enjoying time with his family. I for one am delighted that he still posts.

ceilingcorner 7y ago

I for one find it absolutely hilarious to watch people take these ‘essays’ seriously. I have nothing but respect for PG in regards to his work with startups, but when he wrote this essay [1] on the field of philosophy, it should have been a sign to everyone to stop and question the author when he talks about anything other than startups or computer science. 1. http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html

yesenadam 7y ago
Well, I liked that philosophy essay. (About me: I've read philosophy for decades and most of my university studies have been in philosophy.)
eruditely 7y ago
Oh come now, one essay can't really detract from the general character of all his essays does it?

kristianc 7y ago

It’s also worth pointing out that this kind of overblown humility also tends to work out a lot less well for you in life if you don’t already have a billion dollars and founders hanging on your every tweet.

empath75 7y ago

A large part of the audience here wants to get money from pg and people like him and find articles like this useful for trying to make money from SV vcs.

tallgiraffe 7y ago

Disagree. It’s very important for people feeling like “noobs” to realize that it’s okay, even desired. PG is a legend and have him clearly state so is refreshing, and necessary.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

SamReidHughes 7y ago

If you're into completionist reading of blogs, every post is just as important as every other one.

happy-go-lucky 7y ago

> Do such low-effort posts from other people as these recent pg ones ever appear on the HN front page?! You can expect to have control over something you created.