Who is paul graham - Ask Hackers

1.RedLaser iPhone App reaches 750K downloads, $1M in revenue

Great illustration of the fact that ideas are generally not unique -- and that it is the execution that matters.In one of his essays ( <a href="http://paulgraham.com/ideas.html" rel="nofollow">http://paulgraham.com/ideas.html</a>), pg talked about the fact there was no such thing as a million-dollar idea and that "The fact that there's no market for startup ideas suggests there's no demand. Which means, in the narrow sense of the word, that startup ideas are worthless."

2.Review: ‘The Economics of Inequality,’ by Thomas Piketty

I would argue that the difference in lifestyle and wellbeing between the poorer citizens of North Korea vs South Korea / East Germany vs West Germany during their respective histories should at least raise the question of whether reducing inequality by taking more money from the rich, might have adverse consequences for both rich and poor citizens..? Paul Graham's essay on the subject is worth reading +/- refuting if you feel strongly about the topic: <a href="http://paulgraham.com/inequality.html" rel="nofollow">http://paulgraham.com/inequality.html</a>

3.Ask HN: How to deal with a hard to work with Start-up CEO?

Quit."What matters is not ideas, but the people who have them. Good people can fix bad ideas, but good ideas can't save bad people." --Paul Graham

4.Breaking Smart

Agreed. Recommended reading to counter the entrepreneurial laissez-faire idealism, bombastic techno-optimism, and general Silicon Valley cheerleading:- Michael O. Church's latest: <a href="https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2015/07/18/technology-is-run-by-the-wrong-people/" rel="nofollow">https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2015/07/18/technology-i...</a>- Giles Bowkett on the decadence of the current consumer software industry with regard to QA: <a href="http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2015/07/actually-no-stuff-used-to-work.html" rel="nofollow">http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2015/07/actually-no-stuff-u...</a> See also his takedown of Paul Graham's essay on immigration: <a href="http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2015/06/let-other-95-of-reality-in.html" rel="nofollow">http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2015/06/let-other-95-of-rea...</a> and why we should currently be scared of software eating the world: <a href="http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2015/05/my-skepticism-re-uber-continues-unabated.html" rel="nofollow">http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2015/05/my-skepticism-re-ub...</a>- A couple of posts from Alex Payne: <a href="https://al3x.net/2014/06/17/dear-marc-andreessen.html" rel="nofollow">https://al3x.net/2014/06/17/dear-marc-andreessen.html</a> <a href="https://al3x.net/2013/12/18/bitcoin.html" rel="nofollow">https://al3x.net/2013/12/18/bitcoin.html</a>- Unicornfree with Amy Hoy, which promotes bootstrapping profitable businesses (remember, Mr. Rao dismissed steady-state models of profitability as self-limiting purism in "Rough Consensus and Maximum Interestingness"). For example: <a href="https://unicornfree.com/2014/4-economic-facts-that-say-bootstrap-now" rel="nofollow">https://unicornfree.com/2014/4-economic-facts-that-say-boots...</a> <a href="https://unicornfree.com/2010/dont-bite-the-shit-sandwich" rel="nofollow">https://unicornfree.com/2010/dont-bite-the-shit-sandwich</a> <a href="https://unicornfree.com/2011/fuck-glory-startups-are-one-long-con" rel="nofollow">https://unicornfree.com/2011/fuck-glory-startups-are-one-lon...</a>

5.Breaking Smart

What would constructive feedback look like in this case? Padding the comment with something like "While I understand that the author put a lot of work into these essays..." would merely lower the signal to noise ratio. The way I see it, HN commenters who don't mince words are merely doing the same as HN's founder, Paul Graham. To quote from his talk "Great Hackers" (<a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html</a>):"I didn't mean to make the book controversial. I was trying to make it efficient. I didn't want to waste people's time telling them things they already knew. It's more efficient just to give them the diffs. But I suppose that's bound to yield an alarming book."Also, comments that amount to "I like this" can be compressed to an upvote. So we don't see many of those.

6.Ask HN: Why and how is Hacker News so fast?

I always just thought it was because Paul Graham is a wizard. some might say they don't know why that would have an effect on site loading times, but I know it does.

7.Cai Gengyang.com in Lisp

detaro,Just going through the exercises in this book by Paul Graham : <a href="http://ep.yimg.com/ty/cdn/paulgraham/onlisp.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://ep.yimg.com/ty/cdn/paulgraham/onlisp.pdf</a>. --- There doesn't seem to be anything in there about web development for Lisp though ...Also saw this book on static web development by Adam Tornhill : <a href="http://www.adamtornhill.com/articles/lispweb.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.adamtornhill.com/articles/lispweb.htm</a> --- do you think this will help ?

8.Ask HN: What are your best “soft skill” resources?

For me that tipping point was when I came across this:>The one book we encourage startup founders to read is Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. It's critically important for anyone in business.<a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/startupfaq.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/startupfaq.html</a>