Paul Graham's Participatory Narcissism (2008)
blog.codinghorror.com
blog.codinghorror.com
To me, this post didn’t age well. From what I recall, entrepreneurship is at something like a 50 year low in the US. Even in tech, where startups are seemingly plentiful, large companies are buying up promising young startups just to eliminate competition. If one believes competition breads resiliency and creativity, more people need to be starting companies and seeing those companies through.
From a different angle, Paul Graham to me always has evangelized over much else the virtue of freedom over schedule. Zoo metaphors, terms like “wage slavery” are poignant terms used well before Paul Graham to refer to the troublesome aspects of working for another person. In many ways most careers working for others have very little freedom over schedule—one works when one’s manager expects them to work. Freedom over schedule doesn’t mean freedom from consequences either—when one has control over their own schedule, the real consequences of one’s actions are much more visible.
I think it wasn't a very good criticism even at the time. I remember reading PG's post when it was posted and thinking that it did a good job of capturing what it was like to work in a large organization. Atwood didn't seem to grasp that. (He also didn't seem to grasp the point of PG's "How to Disagree" follow-up post.)
Yes, I understood that. I was saying that Atwood's post didn't seem to me to be a good criticism of PG's post even at the time.
How does this conclusion follow from the factoid? The post is about not shunning(/shaming/boasting against) plain programmers (compared to founders), not about entrepreneurship in itself.
>From a different angle, Paul Graham to me always has evangelized over much else the virtue of freedom over schedule.
If developers actually followed his advice, he wouldn't have a rooster of companies to fund, since there would be no company larger than its 2-3 founders.
...six months later, Joel Spolsky and the author Jeff Atwood launched Stack Overflow together.
Important to recognize that while 'startups' are typically 'small business' not all 'small business' are the types of startups that Paul (and the OP) are referring to. Most 'small business' are not angel, vc or even friends and family funded (at least with f&f not to any large 'lose money for years with runway' extent). They are businesses that people start and operate on a shoestring that they have to get right or they go out of business. And when they go out of business they don't land at some other 'startup' and aren't heralded as having their ticket punched and presented with great opportunities (like happens with people who fail in a way with a YC 'startup').
> Naturally, every young software programmer worth a damn forms a startup. Because that's what Mr. Graham's company, Y Combinator, does. They fund startups with young software programmers
This is another annoying thing about YC and HN. This idea that anyone that is good is working at a startup and not at a 'traditional' company I mean who would work (if they were good) at (insert legacy company that has been around for 100 or even 25 years filled with old timers)?
What's ironic is that Paul has actually burned out (from what I can tell and sure I could be wrong) from the startup ecosystem. He is doing writing and programming he is not running a company or trying to start a company and so on (he would say this is why you have to do your best work when you are young). But the truth is in traditional business there are plenty of 'older dudes' (older than Paul) that getup and enjoy running a business and they don't need the money and they don't need the aggravation but they enjoy business.
That's half of what's important. The other half is to not tie your self-worth to your own estimation of your importance either.
On one hand, you gotta hand it to pg (insert dril tweet about not having to “hand it” to anyone). According to his own writing, he knew he was in danger of sliding into something he didn’t want to be.
On the other hand, he expressed in his own writing he knew he was in danger of sliding into something he didn’t want to be, but he doesn’t seem to have adapted.
For the record I don’t have any feelings on pg as a person. Like everyone else his history is a mixed bag. Just saying: to me, his writing often seems to emanate from a place where his empathy for others & technocapitalist value system are having an argument he doesn’t hear. Again, not a knock on pg’s skill as a writer or worth as a person. We all have blind spots. I just think that’s his, and we’ve entered an age where patience for people who dwell in that blind spot is running very thin.
In the end of that post Jeff got special treatment from PG, and we know he ended up starting StackOverflow with Spolsky. Love all around.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30598/30598-h/30598-h.htm#pag...
"The whole secret is that no art does “compete with life.” Man’s one method, whether he reasons or creates, is to half-shut his eyes against the dazzle and confusion of reality. The arts, like arithmetic and geometry, turn away their eyes from the gross, coloured and mobile nature at our feet, and regard instead a certain figmentary abstraction."
I know Atwood's post is from 2008, but the fact that it's on the front page today in 2020 must mean people are still feeling sore about it.
Or maybe they thought it's funny, perceptive and entertaining? I did. (I really like both writers, have read a lot of each of them.)
I think a lot of Graham's recent writing has been pretty poor and less substantive than some of his older works. His latest work seems to give evidence that Atwood was not only correct in his judgements, but that Graham's potentially even more disconnected these days--the "Haters" piece has elements and language that are perhaps equally as distasteful as Paul's caged animals analogy. He makes a lot of aggressive claims without engaging in anything one could really call critical self-reflection.
I don't know Paul Graham personally, so I have no clue as to whether or not his ego has gotten out of control, but the lack of intellectual modesty, condescending language, and "us vs. them" mentality that seems to permeate all of his recent essays would suggest that it has. He comes off as a guy who thinks he has all the answers, not just about tech start-ups, but about life in general. That simply isn't true, and the arrogant tone in all of his work leaves a bad taste in my mouth most of the time I read it.
Personally, I think a large part of his success as an essayist stems from the fact that he knows his audience well, and that his audience isn't exactly comprised of literati or people well-versed in the humanities or the history of the social sciences. Quite frankly, I doubt anyone outside of technology would take many of Paul Graham's opinions on social dynamics or other topics seriously at all. At best he parrots things people have already explored in the social sciences decades ago, at worst he shows off an incredible insensitivity toward the experiences and perspectives of others.
> He acknowledges that his perspective is warped because "nearly all the programmers [he knows] are startup founders." Therein lies the problem. These essays are no longer about software engineering; they're about Paul Graham. They've become participatory narcissism:
I agree with Atwood's assessment. Paul Graham, at least as an essayist, is so wrapped up in his own worldview, his own circle, that he's entirely lost the ability to step outside of it.
That's not something to admire and doesn't take much of an effort either.
A bigoted racist remark, for example, will do just as well...
Why "still"? It's not like PG's 2008 article is the talk of the town today itself and people write new "hating" responses to it. This is just a repost on HN of an existing 12 year old response to the article.
That said, yes, you can find write-ups and responses to remarks that actually were (or were/are considered as) bigoted/racist/etc being written many years after the fact as well, e.g. to various writers/politicians/pundits/etc anti-semitic remarks...