Comment by mixmax | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mixmax | Hacker News Reader

Even though the question (imho) is a bit awkward it is interesting. And since there is clearly a following around PG it is a valid question to ask.

I think the reason is that he resonates well with a large group of people (hackers) that are smart and able, but are often very introvert. They often don't get the credit they deserve, are bored with the typical business and corporate stuff that they find simple and shallow, and don't understand why they don't get to where they want to be, and why the world is as it is if you are intelligent and introvert. Paul Graham is extremely good at putting these feelings into his essays and giving hackers a hope that they are something special, and that maybe it's not them that are doing it all wrong but the world.

I read a comment here some time ago that stuck: A guy felt disilusioned at the world and typed the word "why" into google (true hacker style I might add) and PG's essay "Why nerds are unpopular" came up in the search results. This essay, and many like it, give meaning to a lot of people that find youtube, myspace, and Fox news to be below their intellect and don't understand why nobody in this world seem to be able to think for themselves and have their own opinions.

That's why.

yes, the cult of paul graham reminds me of people who worship ayn rand. her writing gives people a sense of power, that they can transform the world with their will & determination. paul graham's writings/personal story empower in the same way. although, like rand, it's unclear whether the characters in their stories have real world referents or portray a world closer to (an empowering) fantasy than reality.

(this post makes no judgment as to the normative value, good or bad, of creating empowering fantasies if that be the case.)

Smalter that's a great point, but with PG it's not just his writing and personal story that empower people, it's the faith he shows in them with his investments (both monetary and intangible).

Referring to people who follow PG's writing and the discussions on this site as a cult is not correct, and frankly I'm getting tired of the moniker. If Paul were to write something bogus, the people here would be the first to pick it apart.

As with any reasonably well-known person, there are followers that adhere to PG too religiously. I can't speak for these people except to say that they are the minority on HN.

Paul's writings are inspiring in the same way as Rand. But they are different because they span the gap between fantasy and reality. His main message of "Make something users want" couldn't be more pragmatic.

Certainly some essays are more speculative and philosophical than others, but most tend to be focused on one idea: How to do something that is exciting and meaningful to you and fit that into how the actual world works; spanning the gap between your personal fantasy job and the reality of making that into a business.

i suppose that calling something a cult does imply a false god, but that's not what i meant. i didn't mean to suggest those who admire graham have a cultish mentality; instead i meant to refer to those who have a cultish view towards graham (which you note) and compare those with a similar view towards rand and explain why. (certainly using the word "cult"/"cultish" must be considered sensational if we're comparing graham with, say, david koresh, but i meant it in a more colloquial sense.)

i couldn't agree with you more that graham has a deep understanding of the startup and its economics. you seem to agree with me but with qualification, which i can live with.

an aside: do you think making things that people want really results in the creation of value? i mean to ask this particularly vis-a-vis the creation of something i might call first order goods, or things that we really need. in other words, does it make sense, when talking about creation of value, to differentiate between those things humans need (e.g., food, water, energy sources) and those things that we want? for instance, is the world of value (see graham's essay on the fixed pie fallacy) constrained by underlying natural resources which are necessary for things like fun internet sites that people want to build on top of? i'm sure someone has written about this so anyone who could point me to such a writing or give their own thoughts--that'd be great.

i ask this as part of the question of whether value creation is really so simple. i think this is probably true for the world we live in (u.s. circa the year 2000), but not true for all universes.

I think you may have a point! Gaah!

I still have hope that this will never develop into a full-blown personality cult, partly because people keep posting reminders that PG is not perfect and PG is not always right, especially whenever anyone suggests that PG is right because he's PG. Also, people who disagree with PG here are not shouted down.

What are these characters and stories you refer to? Clearly I haven't read this set of essays.

Then to borrow from Ms Rand:

She felt herself screaming silently, at times, for a glimpse of human ability, a single glimpse of clean, hard, radiant competence. She had fits of tortured longing for a friend or enemy with a mind better than her own.

Most of the people who end up on here, or in PG's orbit in general can find themselves in this quote. It isn't PG himself, per se, but the kind of people he attracts and hangs out with.

" She felt herself screaming silently, at times, for a glimpse of human ability, a single glimpse of clean, hard, radiant competence. She had fits of tortured longing for a friend or enemy with a mind better than her own.

Most of the people who end up on here, or in PG's orbit in general can find themselves in this quote"

I guess I am in the minority then :-)

I "glimpse competence" all around me every day. And while I am bright, I don't have "fits of tortured longing" to meet someone with a better mind than my own. :-).

I enjoy meeting other bright(er than me) people, sure.

But "tortured longing"? No ! :-)

Yes I know you said "most" and "in general", but that Ayn Rand quote is (imo) purple prose (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_prose) . It might make sense within whatever novel it came from, but as a description of people who hang out in news.yc I don't think it really fits.

Ee-yowch. Didn't expect that one to turn into a karma burn. Just saying that Paul attracts a certain kind of person that has a strong tendency towards technical competence. These types of people often like to hang out with others of this type and so it has less to do with the man himself and more to do with finding people of like mind.

As for tortured longing, well, might I just put forth that some of us still work in some pretty dismal offices. Purple prose to be sure, but then, its hard to quote Rand without that particular hue!

"Didn't expect that one to turn into a karma burn."

That wasn't the intended effect of my comment. Sorry!

The only part I was disagreeing with was (emphasis mine)

"Most of the people who end up on here, or in PG's orbit in general can find themselves in this quote (by Ayn Rand)".

When you say

"Just saying that Paul attracts a certain kind of person that has a strong tendency towards technical competence. These types of people often like to hang out with others of this type and so it has less to do with the man himself and more to do with finding people of like mind"

it sounds much more reasonable, and more importantly the quote's luridness doesn't obscure what you are trying to say.

Yeah, cool, got it. The parent mentioned Rand, so I thought I'd throw some in. The context actually works in the book better than the quote might appear in the comment. It depicts someone who does know what they are doing in a job surrounded by people who don't wishing for a change. That's what brings me here at any rate. Ayn's typical over-the-top-ness obscured it in the book as well, but by then you'd read hundreds of pages and were quite used to it!

I don't agree with this comparison. Rand has always struck me as an ideologue, someone who was rigidly attached to a system (and the inevitable movement to go along with it). I don't find this kind of ideological rigidity in Paul Graham's writing, which is both unpredictable and miscellaneous (it's about whatever the author happens to be interested in). If there's a common pattern, it's mostly a desire to figure things out and move on to the next thing; basically, curiosity. This is hardly reminiscent of Ayn Rand. That being said, I think I can understand why someone might read PG that way. He tends to put things in absolute terms. Some people see that as fanaticism. I don't. I think it comes from a desire to hit the nail on the head. It's more like trying to get a high score in a video game than like telling other people what to do.

Best comment I've read in ages! +1

I certainly agree with this. Paul's essays really struck a chord with me.. especially 'Why nerds are unpopular'.

I've been programming since a young age and I used to love making little 3D graphic demo's in QBasic. I always found it frustrating when showing my friends what I had created.. they didn't really appreciate what it took to draw a 3D cube on the screen. :(

Itis not introvert, it is Asperger Syndrome, ie strange genes, this is what makes PG special!

Why such a Syndrome exists is probably related to the nature of evolution, where diversity is a desirable feature to increase the overall complexity, evolution's apparent goal.

Unconventional thinkers are a blessing.

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