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Hackers and Painters

Filters that Fight Back

What You Can't Say

The Word "Hacker"

How to Make Wealth

May 2004 (This essay was originally published in Hackers & Painters.) If you wanted to get rich, how would you do it?…

Mind the Gap

Great Hackers

July 2004(This essay is derived from a talk at Oscon 2004.) A few months ago I finished a new book, and in reviews I…

The Python Paradox

The Age of the Essay

What the Bubble Got Right

A Version 1.0

Bradley's Ghost

It's Charisma, Stupid

Made in USA

What You'll Wish You'd Known

How to Start a Startup

March 2005(This essay is derived from a talk at the Harvard Computer Society.)You need three things to create a…

A Unified Theory of VC Suckage

Undergraduation

March 2005(Parts of this essay began as replies to students who wrote to me with questions.)Recently I've had several…

Writing, Briefly

Return of the Mac

Why Smart People Have Bad Ideas

April 2005This summer, as an experiment, some friends and I are giving seed funding to a bunch of new startups. It's…

The Submarine

Hiring is Obsolete

May 2005(This essay is derived from a talk at the Berkeley CSUA.)The three big powers on the Internet now are Yahoo,…

What Business Can Learn from Open Source

After the Ladder

Inequality and Risk

What I Did this Summer

Ideas for Startups

October 2005(This essay is derived from a talk at the 2005 Startup School.)How do you get good ideas for startups?…

The Venture Capital Squeeze

How to Fund a Startup

November 2005 Venture funding works like gears. A typical startup goes through several rounds of funding, and at each…

Web 2.0

Till recently I thought it didn't, but the truth turns out to be more complicated. And yet those who dislike the term…

Good and Bad Procrastination

How to Do What You Love

January 2006To do something well you have to like it. We've got it down to four words: "Do what you love." But it's…

Why YC

6,631,372

Are Software Patents Evil?

See Randomness

The Hardest Lessons for Startups to Learn

How to Be Silicon Valley

Why Startups Condense in America

The Power of the Marginal

June 2006(This essay is derived from talks at Usenix 2006 and Railsconf 2006.)A couple years ago my friend Trevor and…

The Island Test

Copy What You Like

How to Present to Investors

April 2007, September 2010In a few days it will be Demo Day, when the startups we funded this summer present to…

A Student's Guide to Startups

October 2006(This essay is derived from a talk at MIT.)Till recently graduating seniors had two choices: get a job or…

The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups

October 2006In the Q & A period after a recent talk, someone asked what made startups fail. After standing there…

How Art Can Be Good

Learning from Founders

Is It Worth Being Wise?

Why to Not Not Start a Startup

March 2007(This essay is derived from talks at the 2007 Startup School and the Berkeley CSUA.)We've now been doing Y…