5 ms·

pg was a lot more fun when he used to talk about other things than making money all the time.

robg 18y ago
Can you point to one essay where he uses the phrase "make money" or some variant thereof? More to the point: To me, a startup isn't about money. It's about freedom. That's where I've found much to like in his essays.
- playkid 18y ago
  coolly puy
- mhartl 18y ago
  In http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html, Paul writes So who should start a startup? Someone who is a good hacker, between about 23 and 38, and who wants to solve the money problem in one shot instead of getting paid gradually over a conventional working life. So writing about startups is always implicitly about making money. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)
  - robg 18y ago
    In your search did you find any other examples? The original comment said "all the time". That's a very different reading from mine and I'm frankly not sure where it comes from. Even that essay you cite, the quote is a tangent. It's not the central thesis.
  - parenthesis 18y ago
    But "solving the money problem" is about gaining the freedom to do what you love, without having to worry about putting food on the table. The problem is really a problem of freedom, which it just so happens can be solved by acquiring a load of dosh. So it's only about making money as a means to the end of freedom.
    - newaccountname 18y ago
      Why would you gamble with your freedom? Most of Paul Graham's fans could easily do 3 years of lawschool at a top tier school and could then work 5 years and retire for life.
      - nostrademons 18y ago
        5 years is a bit unreasonable. Take a look at the salary chart on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_firm#Salaries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_firm#Salaries Typically, you're about $160k in debt from law school, so the first year is spent paying that back. The next 4 years taken together is only $795k, nowhere near enough to retire for life. All the associate years together is only about $1.6M, still not enough to retire after 11 years. Then you have to make partner; if you don't, you're out of the firm and usually have to set yourself up as a sole proprietor. If you do make partner, you're set for life, but at 11 years getting there, the road is nearly as long as becoming a tenured professor and usually longer than becoming a successful entrepreneur.
  - rgrieselhuber 18y ago
    To a hacker's mind, solving the money problem is less about money in and of itself and more about making efficient use of our time. Wasting time is the worst of sins.
jmtame 18y ago
What kind of situation do you think we're in right now? I think it's a little relevant to the times ;)
Prrometheus 18y ago
I like making money, and PG is an authority on the subject, so I enjoy it.
- Bananadine 18y ago
  I feel this way as well--except I think I'm what he calls a "hacker", and as someone mentions above, I only like making money--so far in my professional career, anyway--because it represents freedom to work on stuff I care about, in some sense. Usually people call this "time"; if you have the money to keep yourself alive without working constantly on things you don't care about, then you have time for things you care about. I think of it as something more like "energy" myself, since even when I don't have a paying job at all (and thus have lots and lots of time), I still can only stand working in a few fairly short, intense bursts per day, due to the rise and fall of my inspiration and fatigue and so forth. But back onto Mr. Graham: Since I'm a "hacker", I already know a lot of stuff he knows about software development, and in fact it's clear that I also know a lot that he doesn't address in his essays and probably isn't even aware of. I mean, I'm a video game developer who writes in Java on Windows machines, and I've got good reason to be such. Why should I pay attention to Mr. Lisp here who scorns Windows and has never used Java, and who doesn't even mention playing games, let alone programming them?* I'm sure I could learn some things from him, but he is ignorant of my world, however much he may know about his own kind of software development. He is far from ignorant, however, about startups. And he's got interesting things to say about various other, non-technical subjects too. So let him talk about those! * I suspect there are plenty of Mac fans and Lisp fans and C++ fans among this site's readers who could snappily answer this question. I do not have time to armor this comment against techie criticism; that would itself require an essay. Suffice to say that I claim I could if I wanted to. :)
pg 18y ago
One of the strange consequences of writing about several mostly unrelated topics is that you pick up readers with quite different interests. Then whatever you write next, the ones not interested in that topic complain that you've jumped the shark. I doubt I've written a single essay since about 2002 when someone didn't say something of the form "pg was ok when he was writing about x, but I wish he would stop writing about y." And incidentally, it's not the making money aspect of startups that interests me the most. I'm mostly interested in startups as agents of change. We could right now be in the middle of a shift on the scale of the Industrial Revolution. Or not; always hard to tell from so close. But there is certainly something interesting happening.
- IsaacSchlueter 18y ago
  Incidentally, if you had to pick a single rubric by which you could gauge the eventual interestingness of an agent of change, you could do a lot worse than profitability. I'm guessing a lot of the revolutionaries in the Industrial Revolution weren't thinking so much about causing a revolution. They were "just" trying to get rich.
- ntoshev 18y ago
  Don't stop writing about anything. Write more on more diverse topics.
- michael_nielsen 18y ago
  There's a wonderful quote from Brian Eno about the conservative force that comes from having people who like your work: "I'm afraid to say that admirers can be a tremendous force for conservatism, for consolidation. Of course it's really wonderful to be acclaimed for things you've done - in fact it's the only serious reward, because it makes you think "it worked! I'm not isolated!" or something like that, and it makes you feel gratefully connected to your own culture. But on the other hand, there's a tremendously strong pressure to repeat yourself, to do more of that thing we all liked so much. I can't do that - I don't have the enthusiasm to push through projects that seem familiar to me ( - this isn't so much a question of artistic nobility or high ideals: I just get too bloody bored), but at the same time I do feel guilt for 'deserting my audience' by not doing the things they apparently wanted. I'd rather not feel this guilt, actually, so I avoid finding out about situations that could cause it. The problem is that people nearly always prefer what I was doing a few years earlier - this has always been true. The other problem is that so, often, do I! Discovering things is clumsy and sporadic, and the results don't at first compare well with the glossy and lauded works of the past. You have to keep reminding yourself that they went through that as well, otherwise they become frighteningly accomplished. That's another problem with being made to think about your own past - you forget its genesis and start to feel useless awe towards your earlier self: "How did I do it? Wherever did these ideas come from?". Now, the workaday everyday now, always looks relatively less glamorous than the rose-tinted then (except for those magic hours when your finger is right on the pulse, and those times only happen when you've abandoned the lifeline of your own history)."
Goladus 18y ago
Seems to me that making money has always been a common theme in pg's essays. The "you should start a startup" message is stronger than ever, but that's always been there to some extent as well. http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html http://www.paulgraham.com/road.html http://www.paulgraham.com/road.html http://www.paulgraham.com/gap.html http://www.paulgraham.com/gap.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hiring.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hiring.html http://www.paulgraham.com/icad.html http://www.paulgraham.com/icad.html
xcombinator 18y ago
I like the way it is. Thank you pg, I love this easy.

robg 18y ago

Can you point to one essay where he uses the phrase "make money" or some variant thereof? More to the point: To me, a startup isn't about money. It's about freedom. That's where I've found much to like in his essays.

playkid 18y ago
coolly puy
mhartl 18y ago
In http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html, Paul writes So who should start a startup? Someone who is a good hacker, between about 23 and 38, and who wants to solve the money problem in one shot instead of getting paid gradually over a conventional working life. So writing about startups is always implicitly about making money. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)
- robg 18y ago
  In your search did you find any other examples? The original comment said "all the time". That's a very different reading from mine and I'm frankly not sure where it comes from. Even that essay you cite, the quote is a tangent. It's not the central thesis.
- parenthesis 18y ago
  But "solving the money problem" is about gaining the freedom to do what you love, without having to worry about putting food on the table. The problem is really a problem of freedom, which it just so happens can be solved by acquiring a load of dosh. So it's only about making money as a means to the end of freedom.
  - newaccountname 18y ago
    Why would you gamble with your freedom? Most of Paul Graham's fans could easily do 3 years of lawschool at a top tier school and could then work 5 years and retire for life.
    - nostrademons 18y ago
      5 years is a bit unreasonable. Take a look at the salary chart on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_firm#Salaries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_firm#Salaries Typically, you're about $160k in debt from law school, so the first year is spent paying that back. The next 4 years taken together is only $795k, nowhere near enough to retire for life. All the associate years together is only about $1.6M, still not enough to retire after 11 years. Then you have to make partner; if you don't, you're out of the firm and usually have to set yourself up as a sole proprietor. If you do make partner, you're set for life, but at 11 years getting there, the road is nearly as long as becoming a tenured professor and usually longer than becoming a successful entrepreneur.
- rgrieselhuber 18y ago
  To a hacker's mind, solving the money problem is less about money in and of itself and more about making efficient use of our time. Wasting time is the worst of sins.

jmtame 18y ago

What kind of situation do you think we're in right now? I think it's a little relevant to the times ;)

Prrometheus 18y ago

I like making money, and PG is an authority on the subject, so I enjoy it.

Bananadine 18y ago
I feel this way as well--except I think I'm what he calls a "hacker", and as someone mentions above, I only like making money--so far in my professional career, anyway--because it represents freedom to work on stuff I care about, in some sense. Usually people call this "time"; if you have the money to keep yourself alive without working constantly on things you don't care about, then you have time for things you care about. I think of it as something more like "energy" myself, since even when I don't have a paying job at all (and thus have lots and lots of time), I still can only stand working in a few fairly short, intense bursts per day, due to the rise and fall of my inspiration and fatigue and so forth. But back onto Mr. Graham: Since I'm a "hacker", I already know a lot of stuff he knows about software development, and in fact it's clear that I also know a lot that he doesn't address in his essays and probably isn't even aware of. I mean, I'm a video game developer who writes in Java on Windows machines, and I've got good reason to be such. Why should I pay attention to Mr. Lisp here who scorns Windows and has never used Java, and who doesn't even mention playing games, let alone programming them?* I'm sure I could learn some things from him, but he is ignorant of my world, however much he may know about his own kind of software development. He is far from ignorant, however, about startups. And he's got interesting things to say about various other, non-technical subjects too. So let him talk about those! * I suspect there are plenty of Mac fans and Lisp fans and C++ fans among this site's readers who could snappily answer this question. I do not have time to armor this comment against techie criticism; that would itself require an essay. Suffice to say that I claim I could if I wanted to. :)

pg 18y ago

One of the strange consequences of writing about several mostly unrelated topics is that you pick up readers with quite different interests. Then whatever you write next, the ones not interested in that topic complain that you've jumped the shark. I doubt I've written a single essay since about 2002 when someone didn't say something of the form "pg was ok when he was writing about x, but I wish he would stop writing about y." And incidentally, it's not the making money aspect of startups that interests me the most. I'm mostly interested in startups as agents of change. We could right now be in the middle of a shift on the scale of the Industrial Revolution. Or not; always hard to tell from so close. But there is certainly something interesting happening.

IsaacSchlueter 18y ago
Incidentally, if you had to pick a single rubric by which you could gauge the eventual interestingness of an agent of change, you could do a lot worse than profitability. I'm guessing a lot of the revolutionaries in the Industrial Revolution weren't thinking so much about causing a revolution. They were "just" trying to get rich.
ntoshev 18y ago
Don't stop writing about anything. Write more on more diverse topics.
michael_nielsen 18y ago
There's a wonderful quote from Brian Eno about the conservative force that comes from having people who like your work: "I'm afraid to say that admirers can be a tremendous force for conservatism, for consolidation. Of course it's really wonderful to be acclaimed for things you've done - in fact it's the only serious reward, because it makes you think "it worked! I'm not isolated!" or something like that, and it makes you feel gratefully connected to your own culture. But on the other hand, there's a tremendously strong pressure to repeat yourself, to do more of that thing we all liked so much. I can't do that - I don't have the enthusiasm to push through projects that seem familiar to me ( - this isn't so much a question of artistic nobility or high ideals: I just get too bloody bored), but at the same time I do feel guilt for 'deserting my audience' by not doing the things they apparently wanted. I'd rather not feel this guilt, actually, so I avoid finding out about situations that could cause it. The problem is that people nearly always prefer what I was doing a few years earlier - this has always been true. The other problem is that so, often, do I! Discovering things is clumsy and sporadic, and the results don't at first compare well with the glossy and lauded works of the past. You have to keep reminding yourself that they went through that as well, otherwise they become frighteningly accomplished. That's another problem with being made to think about your own past - you forget its genesis and start to feel useless awe towards your earlier self: "How did I do it? Wherever did these ideas come from?". Now, the workaday everyday now, always looks relatively less glamorous than the rose-tinted then (except for those magic hours when your finger is right on the pulse, and those times only happen when you've abandoned the lifeline of your own history)."

Goladus 18y ago

Seems to me that making money has always been a common theme in pg's essays. The "you should start a startup" message is stronger than ever, but that's always been there to some extent as well. http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html http://www.paulgraham.com/road.html http://www.paulgraham.com/road.html http://www.paulgraham.com/gap.html http://www.paulgraham.com/gap.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hiring.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hiring.html http://www.paulgraham.com/icad.html http://www.paulgraham.com/icad.html

xcombinator 18y ago

I like the way it is. Thank you pg, I love this easy.