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Paul Graham

@paulg

May 4

I just realized something most people are going to lose when (as they inevitably will) they start using AIs to write everything for them. They'll lose the knowledge of how writing is constructed.

This is a very common kind of knowledge to be lost as technology progresses. Very few people now know how to weave cloth or turn pots or make baskets. But it's strange to think that writing will now enter this category.

And indeed I worry that something much bigger will be lost when most people stop writing. It's not that big a loss if you don't weave your own cloth. But writing is thinking. So if people stop writing, that's a whole kind of thinking they'll stop doing.

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Paul Graham

@paulg

Feb 22

The worst thing a pitch to professional investors can be is confusing. Professional investors are willing to give early stage startups the benefit of the doubt. They're ok with risk. But they can't invest in a startup whose pitch they can't even follow.

It is therefore a big mistake for early stage startups to conceal the risks they face by being vague or evasive. You're hiding something that won't bother experts using something that will. Just admit the risks upfront, and explain why the EV is high nonetheless.

A related mistake founders make is to underestimate how easy it is to confuse investors with an unclear pitch. The founders are familiar with their idea, but investors are seeing it for the first time. So even a small loss of clarity can lose them.

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Paul Graham

@paulg

Feb 10

The classic software startup writes code to solve users' problems. If AI makes writing code more of a commodity, understanding users' problems will become the most important component of starting a startup. But it already is.

What YC asks about in interviews is how well you understand users' needs, not your programming ability. I explained this years ago in this essay I wrote about how to ace your Y Combinator interview:

paulgraham.com/ace.html

So even if AI becomes very good at writing code, it won't change starting a startup that dramatically. Understanding users' needs will still be the core of starting a startup. And the best way to understand users' needs will still be to have them yourself.

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Paul Graham

@paulg

Jan 29

What most people don't realize about Boom is that if they ship an airliner at all, every airline that flies internationally will have to buy it or be converted against their will into a discount airline, flying tourists subsonically.

Ticket prices will be about the same as current business class prices on international flights. How can this be? Because the flights are so much shorter that you don't need lay-flat beds. You can use the seat pitch of domestic first class.

If business class travelers have a choice of a 10 hour subsonic flight from Seattle to Tokyo or a 5 hour supersonic one at the same price, they're all going to take the 5 hour one. Which means all the business class travelers switch to supersonic.

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Paul Graham

@paulg

Jan 13

I just finished a new essay about the origins of wokeness. I'm going to get flak from both the far right and the far left about it, so to save all our time I'll respond in advance to what I know they'll say.

https://x.com/paulg/status/1742333500621996409

People on the far right may, if they haven't been paying attention, claim that I'm just jumping on the bandwagon now that wokeness is already collapsing. In fact I've been writing about this topic since 2004, and I predicted this collapse a year ago:

https://x.com/paulg/status/1742333500621996409

Others on the right will point out that I voted for Harris. I did. If you're capable of choosing your opinions individually instead of swallowing Republican or Democratic orthodoxy whole, it's possible to see both that wokeness is dangerous and that Trump is more dangerous.

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Paul Graham

@paulg

Dec 17, 2024

AI startups seem to grow faster than previous startups. But this is just the latest stage in a consistent trend over the last 50 years. Each decade's startups grow faster than the previous decade's.

Why does this happen? Startups don't just produce technology. They also consume technology. Better technology lets you do what you want faster. Startups want to grow. So better technology yields faster growth.

This is why there are so many billionaires now. The value of a company depends on its earnings and its growth rate. But a faster growth rate means both those numbers increase.

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