Paul Graham — Essays on WeSearch

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…

Microsoft is Dead

Two Kinds of Judgement

The Hacker's Guide to Investors

An Alternative Theory of Unions

The Equity Equation

Stuff

Holding a Program in One's Head

How Not to Die

August 2007(This is a talk I gave at the last Y Combinator dinner of the summer. Usually we don't have a speaker at…

News from the Front

How to Do Philosophy

The Future of Web Startups

October 2007(This essay is derived from a keynote at FOWA in October 2007.)There's something interesting happening…

Why to Move to a Startup Hub

Six Principles for Making New Things

Trolls

A New Venture Animal

You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss

June 2008Technology tends to separate normal from natural. Our bodies weren't designed to eat the foods that people in…

How to Disagree

Some Heroes

Why There Aren't More Googles

April 2008Umair Haque wrote recently that the reason there aren't more Googles is that most startups get bought before…

Be Good

Lies We Tell Kids

Disconnecting Distraction

Cities and Ambition

The Pooled-Risk Company Management Company

A Fundraising Survival Guide

August 2008Raising money is the second hardest part of starting a startup. The hardest part is making something people…

Why to Start a Startup in a Bad Economy

October 2008The economic situation is apparently so grim that some experts fear we may be in for a stretch as bad as…

The Other Half of "Artists Ship"