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While I agree with Paul Graham about a lot of things, its worth pointing out that the man's wikipedia page says he was born (in the US, sorry, in the UK, my bad

While I agree with Paul Graham about a lot of things, its worth pointing out that the man's wikipedia page says he was born (in the US, sorry, in the UK, my bad), went to Cornell where he graduated at 22, then practically straight on to Harvard to do masters, and then a PhD, and is primarily noted for being rich because he was bought out by Yahoo. Something that cannot happen for the majority of people, merit or no, and if that black swan didn't happen for him, i imagine we'd have a significantly different opinion of him. Indeed, who is to say that Yahoo didn't make a complete mistake? We'll never know i guess because we can never see the opportunity costs of alternate futures we haven't experienced. While its possible to end up being rich if you didn't win the birth lottery, its pretty obvious Paul Graham did win it, and you'd have to be numerically or statistically illiterate to not realize that where you start the game is basically the most powerful predictor of both riches and poverty... Frankly, i wish we could just get over this nonsense of equating extremes of wealth and merit, since there seems to be such little empirical evidence of how to equate the two, or agreement on what merit even is... One thing that does seem empirically obvious though. Rich people aren't "individually responsible" for wealth themselves. No one has walked out of the amazon forest in a loin cloth and already been a billionaire because of how much wealth they were able to create while there by themselves... /no offense intended to Paul Graham, he was just used in the example, but from reading his essays I'm guessing he's not terribly insecure :P

marvin 13y ago
I respect PG because he's a really good essayist and also a visionary in technology. Don't know why you seem to be attributing his fame to the fact that he's rich.
bootload 13y ago
"... says he was born in the US, went to Cornell, then to Harvard, ..." pg is a Pom, "is an English programmer," cf: ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Graham_%28computer_programmer%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Graham_%28computer_program...
- ACow_Adonis 13y ago
  Just caught my error :P
sillysaurus3 13y ago
It doesn't sound like he won the birth lottery, except insofar as being born to parents whose primary language was English (his essays are what made him famous, so this extra few years of practicing English was important) and living in a situation where he could attend Cornell. Being accepted into Cornell probably took a lot of hard work. Getting into Harvard after attending Cornell also took hard work. The most convincing argument that pg won any birth lottery that I can think of is that his parents were able to instill a desire into him at a young age to attend an elite university. My parents often spoke of the benefits, but they weren't able to get through to me about the reasons why it's important.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
brc 13y ago
I respect pg for the quality of his writing (in fact, the piece I linked is what brought me to this site many years ago, I had no idea of his background at that point). Going to decent universities, building a successful startup company in the web space is definitively NOT a 'black swan'. It's something that many people plan, prepare and work very hard at executing for. This concept that pg won some sort of birth lottery and had his path paved with luck is preposterous based on the autobiographical story that I have read. The whole point of Y Combinator is to remove a lot of the luck component by providing guidance that detaches the need to made lucky decisions, and gets down to being able to execute on an idea making something people want. The whole thing is as merit based as it can get. While lots of people want to say 'but what about a poor man in Africa' as some sort of reductio ad absurdum to prove a point - realistically what we are talking about here is someone born in a western democratic liberal country and the chance at a decent education. You also don't have to be a billionaire to achieve what most people would like to achieve. Drawing out the extremes of the argument makes the discussion useless for the audience of this site. What I take umbrage at is a lot of people say 'waah it's not fair someone got lucky' and then spending the rest of their lives in this refrain, pointing out the inequities of the world and refusing to achieve. All this tiresome '1% unfair inequitable boo hoo not fair' whining is unproductive and self indulgent. If you want wealth or success get out and try and achieve it. The percentages of succeeding are low. The percentages of succeeding are 0 unless you try. I have not been as successful as Paul Graham. I certainly don't cry about it and moan about some priveledge he got and I didn't, as though that gives me an excuse and a moral hammer to bludgeon people with. My starting hand wasn't as good as many, so I have to play a better game. Whether I ultimately achieve a higher success is entirely within my set of choices, and I don't blame anyone in the world for that. It's my responsibility.

marvin 13y ago

I respect PG because he's a really good essayist and also a visionary in technology. Don't know why you seem to be attributing his fame to the fact that he's rich.

bootload 13y ago

"... says he was born in the US, went to Cornell, then to Harvard, ..." pg is a Pom, "is an English programmer," cf: ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Graham_%28computer_programmer%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Graham_%28computer_program...

ACow_Adonis 13y ago
Just caught my error :P

sillysaurus3 13y ago

It doesn't sound like he won the birth lottery, except insofar as being born to parents whose primary language was English (his essays are what made him famous, so this extra few years of practicing English was important) and living in a situation where he could attend Cornell. Being accepted into Cornell probably took a lot of hard work. Getting into Harvard after attending Cornell also took hard work. The most convincing argument that pg won any birth lottery that I can think of is that his parents were able to instill a desire into him at a young age to attend an elite university. My parents often spoke of the benefits, but they weren't able to get through to me about the reasons why it's important.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

brc 13y ago

I respect pg for the quality of his writing (in fact, the piece I linked is what brought me to this site many years ago, I had no idea of his background at that point). Going to decent universities, building a successful startup company in the web space is definitively NOT a 'black swan'. It's something that many people plan, prepare and work very hard at executing for. This concept that pg won some sort of birth lottery and had his path paved with luck is preposterous based on the autobiographical story that I have read. The whole point of Y Combinator is to remove a lot of the luck component by providing guidance that detaches the need to made lucky decisions, and gets down to being able to execute on an idea making something people want. The whole thing is as merit based as it can get. While lots of people want to say 'but what about a poor man in Africa' as some sort of reductio ad absurdum to prove a point - realistically what we are talking about here is someone born in a western democratic liberal country and the chance at a decent education. You also don't have to be a billionaire to achieve what most people would like to achieve. Drawing out the extremes of the argument makes the discussion useless for the audience of this site. What I take umbrage at is a lot of people say 'waah it's not fair someone got lucky' and then spending the rest of their lives in this refrain, pointing out the inequities of the world and refusing to achieve. All this tiresome '1% unfair inequitable boo hoo not fair' whining is unproductive and self indulgent. If you want wealth or success get out and try and achieve it. The percentages of succeeding are low. The percentages of succeeding are 0 unless you try. I have not been as successful as Paul Graham. I certainly don't cry about it and moan about some priveledge he got and I didn't, as though that gives me an excuse and a moral hammer to bludgeon people with. My starting hand wasn't as good as many, so I have to play a better game. Whether I ultimately achieve a higher success is entirely within my set of choices, and I don't blame anyone in the world for that. It's my responsibility.