I hope all this talk about bloggers-gone-bad will help you not go bad. But you are talking an awful lot about blogging already. 
Well, itâs YOUR fault (and all the others giving him too much attention for too long time)âŚ
I never appreciated any of his essays, I just found his programming language opinions very interesting and similar to mine.
His essays? I never cared. Thereâs no such thing as âhumanâ idols. âIdolâ means âinstead of Godâ.
Now we have too many of this idols⌠is that a sign that we lost the real God? (And what if He really existed, and maybe even resurrected?! OMG!!! (In itâs real, deep senseâŚ)
I see the analogy between caged lions and wild lions as perfectly reasonable:
The lions at the zoo are fed daily. They donât have to work as hard to simply survive. The wild lions on the other hand are in a fight for their lives every single day.
Seems logical to me. Right now, I prefer to be fed (paid), rather than fight for my life every day when my family depends on me.
Hello Josh.
Have you ever heard of the Wizard from Menlo Park? He loved technology. He loved it so much, he started a few companies. Managing his businesses never detracted from his genius, instead the money he made allowed him to pursue more ideas.
As the master of his own destiny, Thomas Edison had the freedom to attack any problem he set his mind to. As a self-made man, he had the money to back those attacks up.
You, on the other hand, can only achieve whatever Google and itâs box of toys lets you achieve. You donât have the resources or the connections required to chase after ideas that are outside Googleâs scope.
You are limited by your corporate masters. You may love those limitations, but donât try to dress them up like theyâre some kind of advantage. They arenât. You are only as good Google allows you to be.
It would take thousands of you to replace a single Edison.
You might not have the confidence to be an Edison, but Iâm sure thatâs also because you donât have the talent or the vision to be one.
A lot of people start companies because they see something that other people donât. A solution to a problem or the answer to a tricky question. Something opaque and obscure to the rest of the world is clear in their mind. These people know that if theyâre going to translate their vision into reality, theyâre going to have to be their own bosses. Because no one else can see what they see.
Visionaries donât make good employees.
You donât have a vision.
Thatâs why youâre an employee.
Can we please stop assuming that every time someone says something general they mean it to apply to -every single instance ever-? This argument occurs over and over and over and over. Person A says something general âwomen are stupid.â Person B takes it as a literal statement that Person A is claiming that -all- women are stupid, and gets offended. Person A was just sad that his girlfriend broke up with him and was annoyed, but Person B is already in the offense zone.
Seriously, PG is not a moron. Heâs obviously not claiming that ALL employment experiences are equivalent to being caged. But Some Are.
We all need to stop treating people (like PG) as authorities and treat them as what they are - people saying things they believe. Take them or leave them. Getting offended is horribly counterproductive.
So, youâre saying someone wrote an opinion piece on the internet and you disagree? 9 paragraphs of disagreement? Whoâs the narcissist here, chummy?
Shorter Paul Graham: âLet them eat cake.â That heâs so dismissive of the idea that people might value security, or have immediate responsibilities that mean risk outweighs reward, is deeply depressing. Itâs spoken from the position of someone who doesnât have to worry about paying the bills.
(I notice that his bio has no mention of family. That might be a matter of personal privacy; it might be something else.)
Thereâs an interesting a href="http://www.plasticbag.org/archives/2006/05/how_american_are_startups/"culture clash/a, too: when Graham makes his âsleep under your deskâ pitch to British and European tech types, the instinctive reaction is to cringe at sub-Randian âself-actualisation through individual capitalismâ claptrap.
Iâm going to have to agree with alot of the other comments here. While I found that particular paragraph youâve written about a little bit offensive - an entire post to disagree is a href=âhttp://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000297.htmlâ overkill/a.
overkill - a href="http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000297.html"http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000297.html/a
I completely agree. Paul has always been a bit of an egoist , but lately heâs getting way to full of himself. There are many ways to skin a cat. Starting anew comapny that he funds at Y combinator isnât the only way to âget richâ. Plus ARC sucks.
Caged monkey with stock options.
âI work with young startup founders in their twenties. Theyâre geniuses, and play by their own rules. Oh⌠you havenât founded a company? You suck.â
As uncomfortable as it may seem I believe this statement to be true. But the opposite does not hold true eiher. You might have founded a company and you could still suck. So I also understand why you think PGâs full of it. Writing about âthe one and only path to happinessâ is just a dash short of conformism in a much much more naive way.
I see lotâs of people disagreeing with your blog entry here :), but I think that is because you ranted about something that conveys a true message in a defective form. So it seems that you are ranting about the message instead of the form. Or it is how people perceive it. People are fun when it comes to perceiving.
So, youâre saying someone wrote an opinion piece on the internet and you disagree?
Well, I disagree, AND Iâm one of those super-genius-startup Paul Graham approved types now. I work from home building a web property to be announced soon. Yep, I do whatever I want, all day long. No bosses keeping me down! I am a lion in the wild, TEN TIMES MORE ALIVE THAN EVERYONE ELSE, veritably bursting with fruit flavor!
Iâm following his advice-- 15 years too late, but nonetheless-- and I still think his blanket âstartups are awesome, everyone else is wasting their time at dead-end jobsâ essay is incredibly self-serving and patronizing to every kind of employee in the world. Am I the only person who has had jobs I loved?
Look, startups are great, but theyâre not the one-size-fits-all, good-for-what-ails-ya miracle tonic that Graham appears to be selling in that essay.
Also, I donât care what Paul Graham says, pizza is awesome and any self-respecting programmer should be ashamed to say otherwise.
Thatâs all.
I have to completely disagree. I took advantage of people leaving for startups in order to make more money in the defense industry. I was able to retire at 32. Iâm now 34, able to do anything with my time (volunteer, prototype, play games, host parties), and Iâm extremely happy and alive.
I more and more believe that founders are the idiots and less intelligent than employees or a civil servant. They are risking so much and spending so much time on so little chance. Founders are not free man, they are slaves of the customers or/and the investors. An employee has much more freedom: He could quit his job at every point and try something new or more fun than to grease honey around the mouth of a customer or investor.
He could neglect some duties, he could go home on time, he could sleep well all night.
Of course, life as a founder has its advantages, because you could - at least theoretically - do whatever you want, but of course you have much more responsibilities and to bear the consequences of every doing.
A lion could be killed by another lion, or starve a cowardly death of hunger. A thing that does not happen in a zoo, but out in the savanny it happens every day.
@Hank:
"Have you ever heard of the Wizard from Menlo Park? He loved technology. He loved it so much, he started a few companies. Managing his businesses never detracted from his genius, instead the money he made allowed him to pursue more ideas."
Have you ever heard of Ithamar Chase who started up a startup, failed to establish himself properly, lost all his money, and died, leaving his family destitute and broken?
No, because he never got books written about him. Because he failed. His son got books written about him, because he was Secretary of the Treasury in President Lincolnâs govt.
Oh, and you may have forgotten the part where Edison used ruthless propaganda and amoral business tactics to crush his opposition. Edison loved technology so much, he promoted defective technology in order to make himself richer and richer.
Oh, and to claim that he was a talented genius is slightly misleading. What he was was dedicated to his work, and willing to put in more time than his competition. Itâs rarely about intelligence.
"Also, I donât care what Paul Graham says, pizza is awesome and any self-respecting programmer should be ashamed to say otherwise."
I lolâed on this one 
I like people watching as much as the next guy, but to draw such conclusions from a casual observance is ludicrous. Even animals in the zoo are studied in their own zoo habitat. Maybe if he were to go to the company in question and spend a day with these people, he might learn something. He obviously had an agenda and used this silly instance to talk about it.
@erhan turel
"As uncomfortable as it may seem I believe this statement to be true."
Well then, clearly it is. So any of us who donât decide to start a startup suck, huh?
Letâs examine this lilâ belief.
âWill we make more money?â Not on average, no. For every Brin and Page, thereâs a hell of a lot of nobodies who lose their life savings and go into debt.
âWill we have more spare time?â By god, no. Successful startups require a degree of dedication and commitment to your work stronger than practically anything else in the world.
âWill we feel more satisfied with our work?â Considering how many startups are based around making copies of existing ideas, we probably shouldnât. The fact that we do is partly down to this concept that startups are âbetterâ. In the UK, I think itâs less strong than in America, where itâs literally the national dream.
âWill we be more famous?â Actually, you have a better chance of making a name for yourself as an employee in a big company, with big connections, than you do as â1 of the 7 of the 10â in a startup. If youâre not the guy with the big idea, nobodyâs interested, no matter how high you rise.
âWill we be more in control?â Depends how successful at business you are. There are plenty of stories of successful ideas where the original engineers lost everything due to someone with more business smarts funding them, outmanoeuvering them, and seizing control of the company/idea.
What I find most interesting about the YC site is that itâs not immediately obvious from the FAQ what will happen if you fail. And thatâs important. Possibly nobodyâs frequently asking that question, but they probably should.
What I would agree with is that if you ever want to do it, you should do it when youâre single, and no-oneâs depending on you. Just like a Casino. But after youâve lost $60,000 on the roulette wheel, claiming that the guy with that money in a Savings Account âsucksâ will seem that little bit more ironic.
Iâd also be interested to know how many people on either side are or have been actually part of a startup, and at what stage.
Iâm currently in a Graduate Scheme at a big company. Donât know if Iâll stay with them after the terms are up, donât know if Iâll go somewhere smaller, donât know if Iâll start my own business.
That was supposed to look like:
âthe majority are well worth your time. Thatâs more than I can say for 99.9-infinitely-repeating-percent of the content on the webâ.
Come on Jeff, think back to 7th grade. Which of the following is true:
0.999⌠1.0
0.999⌠== 1.0
0.999⌠1.0
Paulâs âHow to do Philosophyâ was the killer for me. Since I majored in it, the hubris was painfully clear.
When I thought of how others would perceive the article, I realized it was how I had thought about his LISP statements: I donât know LISP, and only have a vague idea that others thought he was worth listening to.
So thanks Jeff, for helping change the attitude that heâs worth reading.