Paul Graham Quotes (20 Quotes)

Everyone by now presumably knows about the danger of premature optimization. I think we should be just as worried about premature design - designing too early what a program should do.

I suppose I should learn Lisp, but it seems so foreign.

We hope to be up and running by September.

There are all these great programmers out there who think starting a startup requires esoteric business knowledge,

Dressing up is inevitably a substitute for good ideas. It is no coincidence that technically inept business types are known as 'suits'.

In previous elections, we've had voting stations overrun by panicky mobs, and there's been a bit more obvious intimidation.

We don't have to go that far to sell our beer because our immediate accounts sell so much. Places that sold 10 cases before, now they're selling 30.

So hackers start original, and get good, and scientists start good, and get original.

The Summer Founders Program fixes the common problem with working at a startup, which is that it's very lonely. You do nothing but work and sleep and no one understands the situation you are in, and friends don't know why it takes three days for you to call them back.

Small-business customers are very conservative and very cheap. We don't have to explain ourselves for the most part.

It is clear that a substantial section of the public believes what she did was undermining good governance, irrespective of the rights and wrongs of this particular case. This suggests the presidency will have to reformulate the guidelines in an appropriate manner.

A programming language is for thinking about programs, not for expressing programs you've already thought of. It should be a pencil, not a pen.

Nerds just don't happen to dress informally. They do it too consistently. Consciously or not, they dress informally as prophylactic measure against stupidity.

Then I said jokingly, but not entirely jokingly, 'But not from me,' and everyone's faces fell, ... Afterwards, I had dinner with some of these guys and they seemed amazingly competent and I thought, 'You know, these guys probably could start companies.'

These last games are the most important. We want to be at the top, not at the bottom.

For the most ambitious young people, the corporate ladder is obsolete.

Because hackers are makers rather than scientists, the right place to look for metaphors is not in the sciences, but among other kinds of makers.

In both painting and hacking there are some tasks that are terrifyingly ambitious, and others that are comfortably routine. It's a good idea to save some easy tasks for moments when you would otherwise stall.

To be fair, pros come out. They wear shorts. They have a good time. A lot of times if the guest hits a good drive, the pro will just say 'Let's go.' It's just fun.

There are several reasons that sponsors come to these events. Advertising. Exposure. To attract people to their product and interaction with other businesses.