Paul Graham

2009–2025 · changed view

“About a month after we started Y Combinator, we sort of stumbled upon the phrase that became our motto: make something people want. And we've changed our minds about a lot of things since then, but if I were choosing again today, this is still the one I would choose. I don't think you can get it down to three words — of course, if you could, I would be the first to try. Another thing we tell startups, probably the second most common thing we tell startups, is not to worry too much about the business model at the beginning. Don't worry too much about money — not because it's not important, but because it's so much easier than making something great.”

2014–2026 · changed view

“It turns out it's not that important to be smart; it's much, much more important to be determined. If you imagine this hypothetical person who's like a hundred out of a hundred for smart and a hundred out of a hundred for determination, and then you start taking away determination, it doesn't take very long before you have this sort of ineffectual but brilliant person. Whereas if you take someone who's super, super determined and you start taking away smartness bit by bit, eventually you get to some guy who owns a lot of taxi medallions — but he's still rich. Or like a trash hauling business or something like that.”

2012–2025 · changed view

“Imagine he encounters this very beautiful attractive woman and he's like, and she says to him, here's the thing: if you ever got me, you wouldn't have a clue what to do with me. And that's what these really big ideas say to you. This phenomenon is one of the most important things you can understand about startups. You'd think really big startup ideas would be attractive, but actually they tend to repel you, and so you need to learn how to tack into that wind, essentially.”