This is Paul Graham.

There are two different ways people judge you. Sometimes judging you correctly is the end goal. But there's a second much more common type of judgement where it isn't. We tend to regard all judgements of us as the first type. We'd probably be happier if we realized which are and which aren't.

Improving constantly is an instance of a more general rule: make users happy. One thing all startups have in common is that they can't force anyone to do anything. They can't force anyone to use their software, and they can't force anyone to do deals with them.

What should you do if you're young and ambitious but don't know what to work on? What you should not do is drift along passively, assuming the problem will solve itself. You need to take action. But there is no systematic procedure you can follow. When you read biographies of people who've done great work, it's remarkable how much luck is involved.... See more

To do something well you have to like it.

You need to be good at some kind of technology, you need an idea for what you're going to build, and you need cofounders to start the company with.

There are some kinds of work that you can't do well without thinking differently from your peers.

The trouble with planning is that it only works for achievements you can describe in advance. You can win a gold medal or get rich by deciding to as a child and then tenaciously pursuing that goal, but you can't discover natural selection that way.

I think for most people who want to do great work, the right strategy is not to plan too much. At each... See more

So the biggest cause of bad ideas is the still life effect: you

come up with a random idea, plunge into it, and then at each point

(a day, a week, a month) feel you've put so much time into it that

this must be the idea.