Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
Don't try to work in a distinctive style. Just try to do the best job you can; you won't be able to help doing it in a distinctive way.
Style is doing things in a distinctive way without trying to. Trying to is affectation.
Affectation is in effect to pretend that someone other than you is doing the work. You adopt an impressive but fake persona, and... See more
Style is doing things in a distinctive way without trying to. Trying to is affectation.
Affectation is in effect to pretend that someone other than you is doing the work. You adopt an impressive but fake persona, and... See more
How to Do Great Work
Will people create wealth if they can’t get paid for it? Only if it’s fun. People will write operating systems for free. But they won’t install them, or take support calls, or train customers to use them. And at least 90% of the work that even the highest tech companies do is of this second, unedifying kind.
Paul Graham • Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age
The people you can say heretical things to without getting jumped on are also the most interesting to know.
Paul Graham • Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age
This is a difficult problem, because you don't want to completely eliminate your horror of making something lame. That's what steers you toward doing good work. You just want to turn it off temporarily, the way a painkiller temporarily turns off pain.
Paul Graham • Early Work
The two most important things to understand about startup investing, as a business, are (1) that effectively all the returns are concentrated in a few big winners, and (2) that the best ideas look initially like bad ideas.
Paul Graham • Black Swan Farming
Do Things that Don't Scale
paulgraham.com
There are only two things you have to know about business: build something users love, and make more than you spend.