Session with Paul Graham from YC
Paul Graham from Y Combinator joined us a while ago in a casual setting to discuss his perspectives now that he’s retired from YC. Below is a highly abridged version, taken directly from my submitted writeup.
A very interesting session, and Paul Graham perhaps represents a crude form of VC/incubator is going forward: favoring a data-rich, more scientific/repeatable approach, building upon their lessons from the past. I’m extremely interested to see if we can apply APT’s Test & Learn © to startups to actually simulate experiments (that Peter Thiel seems to think impossible to do) and find out if some startups are more likely to succeed than others? Graham can of course answer this question now “intuitively”, and he’s right more often than not — but there’ll be tremendous value in extracting that wisdom from his brain in a computerized way.
1. What are the three most useful things that you learned from this guest speaker or session that you didn’t know before, or that you hadn’t thought about much before, and that you think you are likely to carry with you going forward?
Perhaps one of this class’s most anticipated speakers, Paul Graham visited Princeton this past Wednesday and delivered a down-to-earth, information-packed talk that left me several really good points to ponder. The first point that really speaks to me is his emphasis on interest, calling it the greatest component of aptitude. Using Lionel Messi as an example, Graham explained how one should choose a job for a living if this job makes him so fascinated that he just couldn’t stop. While I concur wholeheartedly that one needs to pursue his passion, I also agree that it’s very hard to figure out what that passion really is for most people. Graham acknowledged this bit as well, although didn’t offer tips on how one should go about finding his passion — except perhaps do more self-reflection, and choose to work at places that will give you opportunity later to work at a lot more places. With the perennial pressure of getting employed and keeping up with our peers, I think the task of finding one’s real passion is even more difficult — and perhaps one should learn to build passion for a range of things so he will have a higher chance of actually working in something to do with his passion.
Secondly, a startup should always strive to ship as soon as possible, as soon as possible. This makes perfect sense as one can only start meaningful analysis on product-market fit and consumer analysis after having a real product.
Thirdly, Graham talked about how startups always fire bad people too late, and this has taught a great lesson. While it’s difficult to fire people we have built a relationship with, sometimes it’s important to realize not firing them does more harm to the organization. I can see myself still struggling to fire people had I been running my own startup, but this is an essential skill that one needs to learn to grow up — in the end, it would be a lot easier if we do it with care and humility, and make it easy for people on the receiving end to find another job/continue the next chapter of their lives.
2. What surprised you most?
When Graham listed the reluctance some startups have over changing their names as the number one mistake people make, I was really surprised. First of all, I didn’t really realize how big of a deal a company’s name was; secondly, perhaps due to the lack of life experience, I didn’t really understand people’s sense of attachment to their company names. It’s an interesting point that I will keep in mind.
3. What did you like most about the speaker or the session?
I was actually really impressed by Graham’s preparedness — he took this guest lecture engagement very seriously, solicited a series of questions that haven’t been covered by himself before in essays, and organized his responses in a logical and engaging format. I really liked eagerness and earnestness with which he tried to impart his wisdom on us, and to that I was very thankful.
