This is Paul Graham.

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.

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

One way to discover broken models is to be stricter than other people. Broken models of the world leave a trail of clues where they bash against reality

You can't think well without writing well, and you can't write well without reading well.

Work on hard problems, driven mainly by curiosity, but have a second self watching over your shoulder, taking note of gaps and anomalies.

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

People who've done great things tend

to seem as if they were a race apart. And most biographies only

exaggerate this illusion, partly due to the worshipful attitude

biographers inevitably sink into, and partly because, knowing how

the story ends, they can't help streamlining the plot till it seems

like the subject's life was a matter of destiny, the m... See more

the most important of the new principles business has to learn is that people work a lot harder on stuff they like