Paul Graham Quotes

The easy, conversational tone of good writing comes only on the eighth rewrite.

Most struggles, whatever they’re really about, will be cast as struggles between competing ideas.

Suppose you are a little, nimble guy being chased by a big, fat, bully. You open a door and find yourself in a staircase. Do you go up or down? I say up. The bully can probably run downstairs as fast as you can. Going upstairs his bulk will be more of a disadvantage. Running upstairs is hard for you but even harder for him.

If you suppress variations in income, whether by stealing private fortunes, as feudal rulers used to do, or by taxing them away, as some modern governments have done, the result always seems to be the same. Society as a whole ends up poorer.

if you can imagine someone surpassing you, you should do it yourself.

"Keep discouraging venture debt."

— email from a founder

The scary thing about the speed at which AI is evolving is that it isn't yet mainly evolving itself. The current rate of progress is still driven mainly by improvements in hardware and in code written by human programmers.

It’s easier to get people to fight for an idea. And whichever side wins, their ideas will also be considered to have triumphed, as if God wanted to signal his agreement by selecting that side as the victor.

Benioff is eccentric and maybe well-meaning but I can't help noticing his oscillations coincide with whatever side has the upper hand.

A lot of the statements that got people in trouble seem harmless now.

Architects know that some kinds of design problems are more personal than others. One of the cleanest, most abstract design problems is designing bridges. There your job is largely a matter of spanning a given distance with the least material. The other end of the spectrum is designing chairs. Chair designers have to spend their time thinking about human butts.

Before you develop a conscience, torture is amusing.

You won't find a big overlap between discoverers and creators, and enforcers of rules. It's not just that discoverers and creators don't have the time to spare to enforce rules. They're different personality types.

It's a fallacy to think you should drop out of college because you have an idea that has to be implemented right now, or it will be too late. If you stay in school you'll have other and better ideas.

People who think they no longer depend on trusting experts only survive because they're mistaken. Every time you get on a plane you trust experts implicitly about a million questions you're not even aware of.