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Paul Graham's Talk at Startup School 2007
- bootload 20y ago200Mb download
- staunch 20y agoThank you very much.
- volida 20y agoNo02: Too inexperienced No03: 08:16: Not determined enough No04: 08:52: Not smart enough No05: 10:08: Don't understand business No06: 12:12: No co-founder No07: 13:01: You have no idea No08: 15:07: No room for more startups ( A fallacy) No09: 16:06: Family to support No10: 17:35: Need for structure No13: 18:45: Fear and uncertain No14: 19:24 You don't realize what you are waiting No15: 21:17: You parents... No16: 23:16: Job the default thing to do thanks too!
- volida 20y ago
- Alex3917 20y agoGreat speech. My only comment is on the idea that we will look back on professionals as being like serfs. As Paul mentioned earlier, what is driving people into the service of others is a combination of social status, risk avoidance, and the need for "structure." I don't think risk avoidance and need for structure will ever change. The real question is whether our conceptions of social status will change. So I've been writing a lot recently about how organizations and institutions exploit people's need for social status in order to secure cheap labor and make money. The most obvious example is how WoW literally allows you to "level up." Even though objectively you are just spending 12 hours a day clicking on pictures of digital rats on a computer screen, qualitatively it's designed to make you feel like a hero. Everyone wants to be a hero in real life, but most people are just too lazy or untalented or risk adverse. It's not fair, but that's the way it is. Organizations have figured out how to tap into people's need to "be the hero" while extracting cheap labor (or purchases) from them. A good example is when I was learning to play the trumpet. Learning to play a musical instrument is a very slow and continuous process. If my trumpet teacher were to have said, "ok, today you are level one trumpet. ok, now you're level two trumpet. etc." I think most people could figure out it's a scam. Improving at trumpet is a continuous function, not something that happens in levels. The thing is, when people say, "ok, you're level one at education, you're level three at business." then no one realizes they are being exploited. In general, reality is very continuous. Whenever someone tries to represent a phenomena as something you can "level up" in, chances are they are trying to fuck you, take your money, or both. Until people realize this is happening, professionalism will never go away. Instead people are obsessed with "climbing the ladder." Thing is, climbing the ladder benefits the people at the top, not the bottom. The average person doesn't even realize this. I think in order for this mentality to end, two things are needed: 1) People currently view social status as a function of what people with money and power think of you. People need to instead view social status a function of your ability to MSPW. 2) We need new forms of social signaling that take this into account. Currently people identify themselves through college credentials, brand name clothes, etc. I think social signaling DOES have an important economic role to play, however, we need new forms of social signaling based around MSPW.
- davidw 20y ago"what is driving people into the service of others is a combination of ..." Capital has historically been a big factor in that equation as well. A factory worker couldn't very well take his machine around to different factories, whereas a mechanic probably has his own set of tools. Those of us in the computer field are fortunate that, at this point in time, capital requirements are very, very low. In other fields, though, large amounts of money are needed to be able to get off the ground. Who knows what the future will bring... less capital needs or more? Incidentally, as much as I would have liked to see it, I couldn't take watching a bouncy image of some guy's ear next to a tiny Paul Graham. It would be great if they provided video of the whole thing for those of us not able to be there.
- larrykubin 20y agoThere is definitely video of all of the speeches. As a matter of fact, there are videos of _everything_, including random lunch conversations, given that justin.tv was there. This video was taken on my digital camera, hence the crappy quality. The useful part is the audio.
- joshwa 20y agojustin.tv's audio was pretty useless... I do wish that the organizers had an 'official' video guy, with a tap into the house audio system, and uploaded the videos afterwards. maybe next year?
- Elfan 20y agoWasn't there someone in the back with a professional looking camera?
- mkull 20y agoHey Larry. Thanks for posting this. I could hear everything Paul said and that is good enough for me. Do you have videos from any of the other lectures? If you do please post them, I am sure I (and everyone else who wasn't there) would be very appreciative
- danielha 20y agoPaul uses presentation slides for once so it's a shame it doesn't show up in the video. One of the better moments was him losing an expected slide and blaming the Zenter guys. Okay, the rest of the slides were just text on blank backgrounds, but still.
- rwalker 20y agoIf you want to see the slides, they're online at: http://www.zenter.com/ed/view.html?id=226 http://www.zenter.com/ed/view.html?id=226 (FireFox only at the moment)
- andreyf 20y agoavi version: http://tinyurl.com/ytdw3m http://tinyurl.com/ytdw3m (215 MB)
- pg 20y ago
- jwecker 20y ago"I feel kind of like Spock here, watching people laugh at a joke..." (:
- mynameishere 20y agoYou might want to hire a real videographer. The production quality was just too low to tolerate. Sorry.