Being strong-willed is not enough, however. You also have to be hard on yourself. Someone who was strong-willed but self-indulgent would not be calle… - Paul Graham

Showing up at YC is the exact opposite of having a teenager. I walk in and I'm mobbed by people eager to hear my advice about what they should do.

Don't take money from an investor you have moral qualms about because of valuable connections they claim to have. Being upstanding matters more in the long term than connections.

The people most likely to grasp that wealth can be created are the ones who are good at making things, the craftsmen. Their hand-made objects become store-bought ones. But with the rise of industrialization there are fewer and fewer craftsmen. One of the biggest remaining groups is computer programmers.