PG fires back!
http://www.paulgraham.com/bossnotes.html
While I’d love to eventually have my own biz, its tough to do when you have people depending on you… Paul’s stuff really applies to web startups, though, doesn’t it? All his other essays are specific about web startups. If you’re doing some other kind of tech startup, its not necessarily be 100% on the mark…
I don’t think Paul’s suggestion is that the emonly/em way is through creating your own startup. I think it’s more that emhis/em only way is through creating his own startup.
The strange irony would be, of course, that he’s no longer a startup – he’s a emmanager/em now, effectively. He doesn’t report to anybody but himself, which could explain why he doesn’t sense the reporting – self-dialogue isn’t unusual.
Given that context, of course, everybody’s in cages. It’s partly a question of how big one’s cage happens to be (12x10 versus Africa), and partly a question of whether you percieve your boundaries or not. Being trapped is a state of mind, not a state of being, in that sense.
My comments relate to Graham’s Cliff Notes summary of his essay, rather than his underlying essay.
Every profession has a pecking order. The fact is some people are better at doing X than other people are. There are at least four factors that could determine where one sits in the hacker pecking order:
How smart you are
What you have contributed
Do you have the guts to start a start-up?
If you do, were you successful?
On that score, Graham does very well in the pecking order. He’s clearly brilliant. He has made numerous contributions – spam filters, author of the two leading books on LIPS, ARC, just to name a few. He had the guts to start a start-up and he was successful, having sold it to Yahoo. The only thing he is missing is being co-founder of, say, Google or Microsoft or Apple or Adobe.
Graham says people think his group are elitists, implying the opposite, that they are not. Of course they are elitists! But why is that bad? Graham does not like Java is that it was designed with training wheels, to prevent programmers from doing stupid things. That may be necessary for some programmers, but it is not necessary for Graham and his target market – the very top programmers, who do not need training wheels, who do not need to have the language prevent them from doing stupid things. (Have you ever met a LISP programmer who was not very very smart?) His primary partner, Robert Morris, is a professor at MIT. These are two uber elitists.
Graham likes to write essays that challenge orthodoxy and he is very good at doing so. See, for example, his essay “Mind the Gap,” in which he argues that a higher rate of income inequality may be a good thing rather than a bad thing (www.paulgraham.com/gap.html). It’s hard to think of a more controversial proposition than that. So me thinks that Graham’s next challenge-conventional-thinking essay should be why elitism is good, not bad. And he does not have to start from scratch, he can read “In Defense of Elitism” by William Henry (a href="http://www.amazon.com/Defense-Elitism-William-Henry/dp/0385479433"http://www.amazon.com/Defense-Elitism-William-Henry/dp/0385479433/a).
So why does Graham want to portray his group as non-elitists even though they clearly are? Because elitism has a bad rap. Some elitists are smug and arrogant but I do not think Graham is. I am pretty smart, or so I have been told. But I do not think I am as smart as Graham. When I read Graham’s essay, I feel, “OK, this guy is smarter than me, but he is not arrogant about it, he is laying out his arguments in a clear concise logical manner so that others, almost all of whom are not as smart as he is, can follow his logic.” That is not arrogant.
Some people criticize elitists if they do not give something back. Graham is clearly giving something back. His essays are free. If you don’t want to buy his book, you can read all of them (I think) online for free. He is giving ARC away for free. Although Ycombinator is hardly non-profit, I am still shocked at little equity they take (an average of 6 percent) in exchange for what they provide.
Graham argues that Ycombinator would not exist if all it did is fund “rare geniuses.” That is true but misleading at the same. I have been an entrepreneur all my life, so far successfully. The thought of working for the man, I would just jump off a bridge and die. But starting and running a company is a bitch, even for someone like me who is genetically programmed for it (and for nothing else). Our society glorifies entrepreneurship, which is a sign that our society is more advanced than others. In one of his State of the Union addresses, President Reagan urged every schoolchild to consider starting a business. The fact of the matter is that few people are suited to starting a company. You have to be good at a whole lot of different things; most people at best are good at one thing. You work all the time. There is currently a best selling book, The Four Hour Workweek. Yeah, right. Try the 14 hour work day.
Few people are suited for this, and that includes gifted hackers. Few people have the balls to start a company and that is a good thing – perhaps 2 percent of the population is suited to being an entrepreneur, I doubt it is as high as 5 percent. Perhaps among hackers, or gifted hackers, the percentage is higher, but I can’t imagine it is 10 percent. Most people are better off working for someone else. That fact, by the way, creates a lot of opportunity for the few who are suited to start companies.
Ycombinator’s thesis is that there is an untapped market of young entrepreneurs who could start companies but do not and will if they are funded by Ycombinator. Yes, there is such an untapped market, but it is not as large as Graham implies. Let’s assume Ycombinator funds thirty companies a year, twice a year, and each company has three hackers. That’s 180 people. A rounding error of a rounding error, since every year more than 4 million people reach whatever age is the minimum age for starting a company.
As far as I can tell, Ycombinator has been successful. There are several reasons for this. There were the first to market, that always helps, people think of them first. Graham’s awesome reputation and his Web site are extraordinary marketing machines, so they get the pick of the litter. On the other side are several brilliant people with a variety of backgrounds who are not virgins, they actually have done it before; in short, they have the perfect background to pick the right people to back. So Ycombinator may not limit its investments to ideas proposed by “rare geniuses,” but the caliber of the people they back is so close to genius it may be hard to ascertain the difference. More than anything, Ycombinator has been successful because they are able to attract an extraordinarily talented group of applicants from which they choose a few to back. If Ycombinator started funding the “average” hacker rather than rare geniuses or close to it, I guarantee Ycombinator would be a flop. Graham’s statement that they are not limited to funding “rare geniuses” is a misleading as the Dean of Admissions of Harvard or Stanford stating that everyone and anyone should apply for admission to those universities. The fact of the matter is that it is damm hard nowadays to get admitted to Harvard and it is damm hard to get funded by Ycombinator, even if you are really really smart.
James Mitchell
jmitchell@kensingtonllc.com
First of all, I worked at a “zoo” where programmers were treated like caged animals. It happens to be a very large company that is renowned for it’s “innovation”. However, the software development jobs there were hardly innovative. Any efforts by even senior engineers was often stamped out or ignored by senior management. Lazy and worthless programmers were promoted just as high as the hard working employees who actually new their stuff because. As a result, good people continue to be the ones that bail out, and the dreck hangs out for their paychecks and promotions. A few friends who are still to fearful to leave tell me that working there still isn’t enjoyable and it’s “worse than ever”.
Not all the people who have left have gone of to work for themselves or work for a microISV. Some have gone to work for other big companies. But the happiest, most lively ones, are the ones who are doing small company stuff or working for themselves. The ones that just traded one corporate job for another, largely because they are risk-averse, talk about their jobs like it is a paycheck. They say their work isn’t exciting at all, but it pays the bills.
So I can understand Graham’s analogy and I think I know exactly what he means.
Secondly, I hear people talking about being offended or thinking that Graham’s is generally offensive. These people need to stop whining. If you don’t believe it’s true at all, then you would be brushing it off and thinking that he was wrong. If you’re offended or bothered by it, perhaps it’s because you feel that, on some level, Paul’s cutting close to the quick. You know it’s somewhat true.
While some of you may be working at large companies, with great coworkers and challenging projects that give you opportunities to learn, many are not. I worked for 3 large to medium sized companies before doing my own uISV thing.
I suggest people think about what Paul is saying. I think he makes a very valid point. If you’re full of fear and risk-averse, and you want to stay happy in your cage, then stop reading Paul Graham.
And don’t watch movies like “Joe vs. The Volcano”, “The Matrix”, “Toy Story”, “Born Free”, “Madagascar”, 
If I’ve offended anybody here, just get over it. Stop with the narcissism and thinking it’s all about you. It’s not. It’s an opinion being tossed out there based on my experiences, which are entirely true for me and others who’ve been through similar experiences as I have.
So why do some people get bent over what Paul Graham says?
I think Morpheus has the answer:
http://www.moviewavs.com/0058536645/WAVS/Movies/Matrix/matrix88.wav
this comment from hackers news: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=143575
is exactly right
Dear Kate Carruthers,
WTF? You’re certainly entitled to your right to look down on Paul Graham or Americans in general if you wish, but look inside yourself to see if you can get the poison out of your soul.
I believe it helps to be condescending sometimes to really inspire and until strong words are spoken not many of us realise what we’re missing. This is from someone who’s walked the walk so I think it conveys a decent message of getting out there, exploring and really pushing your limits.
It’s Paul Graham’s opinion that I don’t particulary agree with, but I understand somewhat his notion on ‘caged animals in a zoo’.
A good article.
Heh, it’s great when your actual subjects themselves comment. Quick, think of something to say about Steve McConnel!
Seriously though, as much as I liked Hackers and Painters, I’m with you on this one. I’ve worked in plenty of smaller startups now and the chances of anything special happening aren’t all that great. I didn’t like working at any of those and the companies haven’t made it that big either, I think evidence shows that most startups (90%?) fail so those ones must be one of the luckier ones. And they sucked.
Most of my highest paid friends are in banking. They’re often quite admissive about it being a compromise of sorts, but it’s not like they’re caged, they’re aware of what they’re doing and making a decent sum. They’re not as keen on taking risks, and have other stuff going for them. They don’t even see their profession as the main objective in life. Their goals are different. Live and let live. I used to play a lot of video games as a kid while most others did more normal social stuff. I would go to school for 8-9 hours and then come home and play, every day, until bed. Then I’d do this all weekdays. And all through weekends too. I was essentially addicted to video games. Even my health suffered. But to this day I’m glad no one actually approached me and said “stop playing games and focus on your school work”. When the time was right I did stop playing games and focused and got the grades I needed. Often people do what they were going to do anyway, and there’s no point in bashing them with an idealistic club.
If you’re particularly smart, have an idea from early on, and are well positioned to execute on it, then that’s good, but it doesn’t turn everyone else into caged animals. Some just need more time experience, some of the most intelligent people I know just don’t want to have their own company, they’re busy soaking up details in their current profession. If everyone was forming startups out of college there would be chaos and our entire economic system would collapse. A lot of these startups (most?) get bought buy larger companies anyway, which, then to extend the analogy, is really kind of like collecting of lots of awesome “animals”, letting them run around free for a while then packaging them off and selling them to a big zoo!
startups are more successful if you boot strap them, or get an angel investor. i’ve heard it said funding is like a kiss of death because the company grows but not organically/sustainably. hard times come or a competitor and bust!
did you know in china’s zoos you can purchase a goat and drag it to the ledge and toss it into the lions’ den to watch it get ripped to shreds in seconds. very educational and the zoo has lower running costs, how enterprising is that!
Also forgot to mention - current job (3rd job) is in financial sector (after 2 startups). Not only has the salary almost doubled, it’s by far the best job I’ve had. It’s largely due to the people I’m working with being more understanding of what I’m doing and giving me the time and autonomy to get things done while keeping open very clear lines of communications. I get done more here in 2 hours than I did in 10 in my previous jobs, because those places were run by a bunch of guys who were perhaps smarter than the norm but had absolutely no clue whatsoever about how others in the company felt, so what you had there were a bunch of startups with a few “alpha dogs” giving everyone else hell, resulting in people leaving or being fired left right and center.
It’s all very random, because despite my experiences I’m aware of startups that are awesome and corporate type jobs that do suck - but I can definitely say it’s misleading to follow this pattern as the norm, you could be missing out on a good opportunity. Get some experience and decide on a case by case basis. Best thing anyone starting a job can really do is take a quick snapshot in the first few weeks and get out of there if it sucks - or at least ensure they don’t hold a “career inertia” where they “must work X years or it looks bad on CV” - that’s exactly the type of attitude badly run companies prey/rely on. The result is a year of hell and you coming out of the other end (wrongly) stereotyping the hell out of that kind of industry/employer forever.
Lets look at this for a moment-
life in the zoo-
seriously, how many start-up founders bothered with team-building? Either you were apart of the team or you were not. Even if you hated each other personally you respected the work that you could do together. End of story.
Above, you claim Graham is self-absorbed, irrelevant
If you read carefully, you’ll see that I wrote “I’ve begin to wonder if…”, not “Paul Graham is…”
tells distasteful anecdotes, is incredibly condescending, retroactively offensive, triggers the average reader’s gag reflex, is disdainful, and is dismissive.
All of those attributes apply to the particular essay, not Paul Graham as a person.
For the record, I found the essay all of those things, and I still do. But I’m glad Mr. Graham found the time to post a clarifying response ( http://www.paulgraham.com/bossnotes.html ), so all’s well that ends well, I suppose. I still think the original essay is a hugely flawed; it goes in about fifteen strange directions and only two or three clear, understandable ones.
Hint: when a significant percentage of the audience “read[s] an essay… and comes away with the idea that it says exactly the opposite”, the problem isn’t with the audience.
It’s very easy to criticize people on the other side of the fence. Zoo schmoo. Myoptic punters needing to convince themselves that their choices are somehow better. Nobody wants to be wrong, and everybody is a special and unique snowflake.
As the cliche goes, when you’re dying, nobody ever thinks they should have worked more.
I left a 250,0000-strong corporation to start my own business last year, and Paul’s essay (as they often are) re-affirmed my own opinions as to why I left. But when I left I didn’t think for one minute all the people who stayed there were muppets. The simple fact is that only one out of every 10 birds faces a different way when sitting on a telegraph cable; I was that 1 bird, and 9 out of my 10 friends are not only comfortable working for a big company (in the sense that they have security) but also like the fact they have access to resources a startup could only dream of. Contrary to what Paul believes, some large companies are a very fertile environment for invention and innovation.
What’s more, although I wouldn’t give up what I’m doing for all the tea in China, I do miss my (high) income, the camaraderie of a large team, my spare time, the office parties and the regular sneaky trips to the pub during lunchtime.
It’s not all that bad, it’s just not for me or Paul.
That’s what happens when one begins to believe, subconsciously or otherwise, that one’s livelihood depends more on merely getting the attention of one’s audience than producing substantive reporting/thinking on one’s craft.
I certainly hope it doesn’t happen to some other excellent bloggers I read.
The problem is that most startups fail miserably… Probably because most programmers try to run the business side of it. Programmers, in general, cannot manage a business just like most engineers cannot run a business.
Did Paul forget about all the dotcom bombs?
My 1st job out of uni was for a start-up.
It was all roses for a while. But being astute and keeping my ears open I could see the cracks starting to appear. It didn’t take long but, things started to go sour. Seeing this, a couple of us quit, moved interstate and got jobs for large companies. At the time I was owed around $6k, it took around 2 months after leaving to get all of it.
A friend who stayed there contacted me yesterday. Two years later he has quit and decided he would actually like the $20k+ he is owed O_o
Ok, maybe you’re one of the few people that doesn’t hate their programming job. Great, kudos.
Maybe PG wrote a distasteful or self-serving post; hey, nobody’s perfect.
Whatever you think about PG some facts about working for someone else remain:
Everything you do belongs to your employer. You’re not building any equity. You may think you’re building a professional network but you don’t get much network value out of seeing and working with the same people with the same skillsets for years.
Job security is a dangerous myth. At any time your employer could be acquired, or go broke, or do a round of layoffs, or the culture could change, or your boss might be replaced by someone who hates you.
You’ll never learn more than when your ass is on the line. I co-founded a startup at the age of 29, and although we failed, I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. You learn MUCH more about all aspects of business, technology, design, and marketing than you do when someone else handles that non coding stuff for you. Even if you fail you’ll find that you’re MORE employable after failing at something risky and exciting.
Even if you never want to risk starting a business, you absolutely MUST blog about coding, do your own coding projects, and go to gatherings with other coders so you can build your own equity.
For the record I’m a fan of PG’s writing and have enjoyed the past two StartupSchools he’s put on, but I think that in most cases seeking VC money is a bad idea. Work on building a business, not a VC pitch.