For me, reading Paul Graham's writings has taken on something of the flavor of a Phillip Roth novel. I'm committing voyeurism, watching the inner life of the protagonist, PG, mature. There's an arc to the narrative.
Around the turn of the millennium, the brashness born of 1990's success transformed his writing from youthfully exuberant technical expertise [2] toward experienced practical advice [3]. In Before the Startup we meet up with PG again just as he walks back into the ring of the public light. His load has shifted, advice must be sage: consistent with the gestures of hands that have firmly held the tiger's tail twice. Yet, despite the years, PG's youthful earnestness remains intact.
Recently, because I've seen ViaWeb and HN trotted out as contemporary examples of successful uses of Lisp in business, I've wondered how much of Beating the Averages describes what really happened and how the older PG would ascribe the success of his first startup.
Was Lisp really the secret sauce? Would it have mattered if PG and Morris ground out updates in Perl? Will there be an immodest greybearded admission that, in hindsight, it really was the people?
Autobiography is not so much an author's way of gaming history, but rather gaming the business of history. And that, the gaming of "the business of x" is the central theme of Before the Startup. What Graham is arguing is that a person can't game their way into running a successful startup. He doesn't deny that a person can successfully game the business of startups...there are people who can sell Yelp for Dogs to investors sufficiently to purchase barker.com.
No longer YC's designated spokesmodel, PG is in the agora pitching eudaemonia, the not-as-seen-on-TV good life, to the youths of the valley. His life's example is not the celebrity brought about by business success. His advice is "stay earnest."
Around the turn of the millennium, the brashness born of 1990's success transformed his writing from youthfully exuberant technical expertise [2] toward experienced practical advice [3]. In Before the Startup we meet up with PG again just as he walks back into the ring of the public light. His load has shifted, advice must be sage: consistent with the gestures of hands that have firmly held the tiger's tail twice. Yet, despite the years, PG's youthful earnestness remains intact.
Recently, because I've seen ViaWeb and HN trotted out as contemporary examples of successful uses of Lisp in business, I've wondered how much of Beating the Averages describes what really happened and how the older PG would ascribe the success of his first startup.
Was Lisp really the secret sauce? Would it have mattered if PG and Morris ground out updates in Perl? Will there be an immodest greybearded admission that, in hindsight, it really was the people?
Autobiography is not so much an author's way of gaming history, but rather gaming the business of history. And that, the gaming of "the business of x" is the central theme of Before the Startup. What Graham is arguing is that a person can't game their way into running a successful startup. He doesn't deny that a person can successfully game the business of startups...there are people who can sell Yelp for Dogs to investors sufficiently to purchase barker.com.
No longer YC's designated spokesmodel, PG is in the agora pitching eudaemonia, the not-as-seen-on-TV good life, to the youths of the valley. His life's example is not the celebrity brought about by business success. His advice is "stay earnest."
[1] yes.
[2] On Lisp
[3] Beating the Averages