So, Why is this PG guy special ?
He has one startup to his credit - and it was moderately successful. But why has it spawned this cult ?
He writes well (which can be expected from a harvard students ). Why else is he special ?
He runs hacker news - which Y combinator owns. This hacker news may be worth more than all the y combinator companies he has created.
Even though the question (imho) is a bit awkward it is interesting. And since there is clearly a following around PG it is a valid question to ask.
I think the reason is that he resonates well with a large group of people (hackers) that are smart and able, but are often very introvert. They often don't get the credit they deserve, are bored with the typical business and corporate stuff that they find simple and shallow, and don't understand why they don't get to where they want to be, and why the world is as it is if you are intelligent and introvert. Paul Graham is extremely good at putting these feelings into his essays and giving hackers a hope that they are something special, and that maybe it's not them that are doing it all wrong but the world.
I read a comment here some time ago that stuck: A guy felt disilusioned at the world and typed the word "why" into google (true hacker style I might add) and PG's essay "Why nerds are unpopular" came up in the search results. This essay, and many like it, give meaning to a lot of people that find youtube, myspace, and Fox news to be below their intellect and don't understand why nobody in this world seem to be able to think for themselves and have their own opinions.
I certainly agree with this. Paul's essays really struck a chord with me.. especially 'Why nerds are unpopular'.
I've been programming since a young age and I used to love making little 3D graphic demo's in QBasic. I always found it frustrating when showing my friends what I had created.. they didn't really appreciate what it took to draw a 3D cube on the screen. :(reply
yes, the cult of paul graham reminds me of people who worship ayn rand. her writing gives people a sense of power, that they can transform the world with their will & determination. paul graham's writings/personal story empower in the same way. although, like rand, it's unclear whether the characters in their stories have real world referents or portray a world closer to (an empowering) fantasy than reality.
(this post makes no judgment as to the normative value, good or bad, of creating empowering fantasies if that be the case.)reply
I still have hope that this will never develop into a full-blown personality cult, partly because people keep posting reminders that PG is not perfect and PG is not always right, especially whenever anyone suggests that PG is right because he's PG. Also, people who disagree with PG here are not shouted down.reply
Referring to people who follow PG's writing and the discussions on this site as a cult is not correct, and frankly I'm getting tired of the moniker. If Paul were to write something bogus, the people here would be the first to pick it apart.
As with any reasonably well-known person, there are followers that adhere to PG too religiously. I can't speak for these people except to say that they are the minority on HN.
Paul's writings are inspiring in the same way as Rand. But they are different because they span the gap between fantasy and reality. His main message of "Make something users want" couldn't be more pragmatic.
Certainly some essays are more speculative and philosophical than others, but most tend to be focused on one idea: How to do something that is exciting and meaningful to you and fit that into how the actual world works; spanning the gap between your personal fantasy job and the reality of making that into a business.reply
Smalter that's a great point, but with PG it's not just his writing and personal story that empower people, it's the faith he shows in them with his investments (both monetary and intangible).
This statement infers that you read his essays. Did you? If so, good. Read them again. If not, read them for the first time.
I've read, followed, attended, and met many "self-help" specialists. Dale Carnegie, Napolean Hill, Zig Zigler, Wayne Dyer, Tony Robbins, Stephen Covey, and many more. But for hackers who want to take it to the next level, none of these guys holds a candle to pg. Why? They all help me to feel good. He helps me to do better.
And it doesn't hurt that, along with others, he has brought yc and hn to us. His essays brought me to this site. You guys keep me here.
After years of cleaning up other people's messes, I'm moving up to the next level and building the cool stuff that was always inside me. Those essays and this site have encouraged me alot. And I bet I'm not the only one.reply
Where are all the other ex-founders giving advice and money to new startups? A large portion of success is simply showing up. Hands up if you got accepted to YCombinator without applying.
As in the open source world, Paul Graham's influence is in proportion to what he gives away. He spends time packaging his ideas into forms that others can benefit from, and he asks for nothing in return. Call it open source business planning.
There are other people that give away ideas, too, and they all have influence disproportionate to their personal success, think Joel Spolsky, ESR, et al. However, none of them have the passion to help their fellow man succeed that Paul Graham has, so they all tend to be treated as second-tier gurus.
PG cannot be compared to other "success coaches" either, because he does not seek personal gain for his ideas, only return on his investments. You get the feeling that he does not have ulterior motives in his writings.reply
> He writes well (which can be expected from a harvard students).
heh. heh. Sorry for pointing attention, just funny :)
> So - why do you guys listen to him ?
Because he says interesting things eloquently and succinctly? If you have interesting things to say that you can phrase well, I'll listen to you, too :)
In general, I think he falls into the category of George Soros or Jeff Hawkins or Aaron Schwartz - people who are financially secure by their own making, but haven't given up on working hard toward something.reply
People tend to gravitate towards others who think like them. In addition to agreeing with a lot of what he says, I felt like his essays were the first time I ran into a person who thought that graduating and working for someone else was a bullshit default. This is something I have believed since 1st or 2nd grade, but in sharing that idea with other people I got blank stares or expressions as if I had just propositioned a drug trafficking network.
His essays also allowed me to fine tune my bs filter on situations and people, be they jobs, vcs, popular opinion, etc. A lot there.
Finally, he seems to not be a prick, and believe or not, that is a very rare quality. I have never met the guy, but he seems to be trying to make a positive change in the world and doesn't seem to be leeching of off people's hopes and taking advantage of them, like a record company or leadership track in a corporation would.reply
For me personally reading his essays changed my entire perspective on programming/software engineering. He is also published (ANSI Common Lisp, Hackers and Painters and On Lisp) thats a little bit different than just being a "buzz" of the month/year blogger.
PG doesn't just "write well." He write provocative, intelligent material on topics that are important to us.
Also, the acquisition of reddit has already justified several years of ycombinator. If a YC startup is a major success once per 5 years, the program is very successful.reply
I think the main reason is that the hackers are an important part of modern society but they lack people that explain their culture: there is in the early writings of Graham something political about the fact that hackers deserve a more central role in our society. He is a smart guy that was able to put many things in the hacker culture in simple words. I think that lately Graham lost his role but in some way he shown that hackers need to express more their opinions and their value and other writers will follow.
He writes well, far beyond the extent that good writing can be expected from a Harvard student. His writing is at once concise, interesting (at least to this audience), and convincing.
Y Combinator seems pretty successful, and PG is good at it. (I'm not going to give reasons for the success of YC here.)
His books On Lisp and ANSI Common Lisp are arguably among the best books about Lisp.
He is making his own dialect of Lisp (see http://arclanguage.org/). I've looked it over, and it looks like a good language. Probably not all the hype cracks it up to be, but then, nothing ever is. Sure, it has its bugs and a few other problems, but it shows a lot of potential.
There are probably others, but this is all I'm going to write right now.reply
Paul Graham is a flash light that exposes the many hidden things. After reading his DH essay for example, I see more how so many people use garbage arguments to force their point.
