Paul Graham Browse All Authors Top 25 quotes by Paul Graham An ideal world is left as an exercise to the reader. Paul Graham It can be interesting to study ancient philosophy, but more as a kind of accident report than to teach you anything useful. Paul Graham The @NYSenate is trying to quietly rush through a bill banning Airbnb. If you'd like the decision to be more democratic, tell them. Paul Graham business When Facebook first started, and it was just a social directory for undergrads at Harvard, it would have seemed like such a bad startup idea, like some student side project. Paul Graham student some bad like Startups often have to do dubious things. Paul Graham startups often things dubious It's hard to say exactly what it is about face-to-face contact that makes deals happen, but whatever it is, it hasn't yet been duplicated by technology. Paul Graham whatever say hard technology I suppose I should learn Lisp, but it seems so foreign. Paul Graham foreign learn should seems A programming language is for thinking about programs, not for expressing programs you've already thought of. It should be a pencil, not a pen. Paul Graham pen you language thinking Dressing up is inevitably a substitute for good ideas. It is no coincidence that technically inept business types are known as 'suits'. Paul Graham good suits business ideas Everyone by now presumably knows about the danger of premature optimization. I think we should be just as worried about premature design - designing too early what a program should do. Paul Graham everyone just think design For the most ambitious young people, the corporate ladder is obsolete. Paul Graham young-people ladder young people Small-business customers are very conservative and very cheap. We don't have to explain ourselves for the most part. Paul Graham cheap explain very conservative We don't have to go that far to sell our beer because our immediate accounts sell so much. Places that sold 10 cases before, now they're selling 30. Paul Graham places now go beer In the startup world, 'not working' is normal. Paul Graham startup working normal world If you imagine someone with 100 percent determination and 100 percent intelligence, you can discard a lot of intelligence before they stop succeeding. But if you start discarding determination, you very quickly get an ineffectual and perpetual grad student. Paul Graham start you intelligence determination If you really understand something, you can say it in the fewest words, instead of thrashing about. Paul Graham words say understand you There are plenty of smart people who get nowhere. Paul Graham who smart-people smart people Some people just get what they want in the world. Paul Graham some-people want people world Empirically the way you get a product visionary as CEO is for him to found the company and not get fired. Paul Graham product you company way What I tell founders is not to sweat the business model too much at first. The most important task at first is to build something people want. If you don't do that, it won't matter how clever your business model is. Paul Graham you business matter people
