Editorial bio
Paul Graham is the essayist who became the operating-system author of modern startup thinking. BA in philosophy from Cornell, MS and PhD in computer science from Harvard, with a side-career in painting studied at RISD and in Florence. Co-founded Viaweb (browser-based online-store software), sold to Yahoo in 1998 for roughly $49 million and renamed Yahoo! Store. Then, in 2005, co-founded Y Combinator with Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris and Trevor Blackwell.
YC under his stewardship became the accelerator behind Airbnb, Stripe, Dropbox, Reddit and Coinbase, among thousands of others. He stepped back from day-to-day leadership around 2014 but still writes the paulgraham.com essays – the shared vocabulary of two decades of founders – and shaped Hacker News, the forum that still sets much of the industry's reading list.
Worth following if you want the plainest-written, longest-tested writing on how startups actually work.
Key facts
- based in
- Rural Gloucestershire, England
- current
- Essayist · Partner, Y Combinator (stepped back from day-to-day in ≈ 2014)
- prior
- Co-Founder, Viaweb (acquired by Yahoo, 1998, ≈ $49M; became Yahoo! Store) · creator of Hacker News · creator of Arc & Bel (Lisp dialects)
- education
- BA Philosophy, Cornell · MS & PhD CS, Harvard · painting at RISD and in Florence
- author
- On Lisp · ANSI Common Lisp · Hackers & Painters · 200+ essays at paulgraham.com
- focus
- Startup philosophy · founder behaviour · writing
Featured work
paulgraham.com essays
The de facto canon of modern startup thinking.
Y Combinator (Co-Founder, 2005)
Co-founded with Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris and Trevor Blackwell; thousands of funded startups including Airbnb, Stripe, Dropbox, Reddit, Coinbase.
Hackers & Painters
Essays on tech, culture and startups.
Hacker News
The forum that still sets much of the industry's reading list.
Viaweb (Co-Founder)
Browser-based online-store software; acquired by Yahoo in 1998.