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Comment by vzaliva | Hacker News Reader

The problem with successful tech figures is that, over time, they often become convinced they can succeed at anything. Musk is a glaring recent example - and now Paul. I do appreciate his essays on tech and related subjects, but not for their literary merit. If I’m seeking advice on writing, I’d turn to actual writers - people who’ve earned recognition and acclaim specifically for their work in that field.

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I've commented many times before how I've become a bit disillusioned with pg's writing over the past decade or so, because it always seemed to lack anything beyond a surface level of introspection. He always seemed to be pushing the idea that qualities that make a person great at startups are the most important thing in the world - not surprising given his industry, but to me many of his essays just felt more and more self-serving, while never commenting on (or, in my opinion, really even understanding) the real societal negatives that I think have been a consequence (admittedly unexpected) of the startup boom.

But, in pg's defense, when it comes to his writing style and the quality of his prose, I think he's generally top notch, and even though I may disagree with him more often now, I appreciate the structure and clarity of his writing. Given how influential his essays have been, I think he's qualified to write about how his communication style makes an impact.

He is the quintessential tech bro. His selective caring about “free speech” only when it serves to feed into right wing outrage was when he showed his true colors years ago. The recent essay on “Wokeness” just confirmed it.

How do you reconcile

"pg's writing... always seemed to lack anything beyond a surface level of introspection"

with

"when it comes to his writing style and the quality of his prose, I think he's generally top notch"?

And "Given how influential his essays have been, I think he's qualified" - do you not see a problem with equating influence/popularity with quality/truth (let alone morality)?

Paul Graham's essays read like typical self-help books. Considering how popular self-help books are, I guess you can call that "good writing" for general population?

[0]: a typical example: https://paulgraham.com/greatwork.html

If you didn't tell me this is from PG I would think it's from some self help book.

Paul Graham doesn’t moon-light as a writer, rather, writing is one of the core skills that made YC what it is.

He spends months chiseling each essay because he understands that clear thinking is expressed through clear prose. Dismissing that craft because he also knows Lisp is like trashing Stephen King’s storytelling because he can ride a bike.

If you only grant “literary merit” to people who never shipped a line of code, your definition’s too narrow for the real world—where ideas, not résumés, decide who we read.

> He spends months chiseling each essay

I like Graham's writing, and defend it elsewhere in this thread, but that has such an obsequious and somehow macho smack to it, wow. One imagines Hercules chiseling his abs. If that's what his writing does for you, fair enough, but it sure is intense.

I'll do it once for the sake of the rest of us.

this is April 6th -

    https://x.com/paulg/status/1908894070765695144

Essay was published May 24th, that is the better part of two months.

Fact is you are most likely one of those:

    https://x.com/paulg/status/1903066759302725698

Therefore, my advice to you is simple, care less about "what his writing does for me", and focus only on what is your own writing does for you.

I pity you and the likes of you who are coming here to shit all over as if there aren't any better things to do during the day.

The commenter did not say Paul Graham writes quickly, so I'm not sure why you keep fixating on that point.

> I pity you and the likes of you who are coming here to shit all over as if there aren't any better things to do during the day.

Good lord. They said they like his writing, but found the particular tweet you shared pretentious. Your response to that light criticism is so disproportionate it reads sycophantic. This is a thread about good writing, I think criticizing anything is fair game.

> Fact is you are most likely one of those: https://x.com/paulg/status/1903066759302725698

So you're just blindly accusing someone who said they liked his writing of not reading his writing?

When people become insanely rich, they tend to attract a dozen or so sycophants into their orbit who never tell them “no”, never say they’re wrong, and basically spend all their time praising and enabling them. Otherwise, they’d be out. It’s not surprising that some of them start to believe they are always right and that they are good at everything.

Successful people outgrowing their jodhpurs and losing their reason is a thing, sure, but that does not apply in this specific case. Tech writing is still writing, my friend.

Have you read ANSI Common Lisp? Or even the introduction to it?

I have criticisms of Mr. Graham, but the man can write, and consistently. Some of the essays can be a tad too terse for me at times, but when he gets it right, his stuff can be exquisite.

Another example that comes immediately crashing to mind is Donald Knuth - have you read any of his tech writing? It's glorious.

Anyone who wants to claim there's a hard line between writing worthy of "literary merit" and tech writing is going to have their work cut out for them with those two already.

I have learned about YCombinator, hacker news, Paul Graham, and startups in general through one of his essays. I was first blown away by the brilliance and clarity of his writing, and only then did I learn that he's a prominent tech figure.

So many years later, I still haven't read a better writer (except maybe Scott Alexander). So, at least from my perspective, if anyone has the authority to write about good writing, it's this guy.

Reminds of this classic tweet:

"Guy who has only seen The Boss Baby watching his second movie: Getting a lot of 'Boss Baby' vibes from this..." https://x.com/afraidofwasps/status/1177301482464526337?lang=...

One can readily argue that Graham has earned recognition and acclaim specifically for his essays. They're part of what drew early founders to YC.

100%

Impossible to decouple the quality (or not) of his writing from the fact that he had already sold Viaweb to Yahoo at that point. Surely that drew early founders to YC as well.

> The problem with successful tech figures is that, over time, they often become convinced they can succeed at anything.

I think at the core the problem (if you want to call it that) can be boiled down to the following:

"I am smart. That's why I was successful at what I did. So I need to prove to myself and others that it wasn't luck it was I am damn smart"

The problem with hubris is that if you took someone like Musk or PG and you kept them in some off the beaten path place ie not Silicon Valley, not NYC pick your hot location (and stipulate they couldn't move because of family or other obligations) and they weren't surrounded by others who were top notch (as a result of also being in the right place at the right time) there wouldn't be anything particularly notable about them.

Having gone myself to one of those 'good' universities I will say that Paul being at Harvard would certainly amplify this type of behavior by being surrounded early on at a formidable age by accomplished members of that community.

I think he's put an order of magnitude more effort into writing than you

Paul Graham is spewing rightwing nonsense for a long time now

You're saying that about Paul Graham, of all people? His Wikipedia page lists him as a "computer scientist, writer and essayist, entrepreneur and investor", in that order. He wrote various Lisp books before founding Viaweb, and arguably it was the essays that made YC a thing in the first place. He is arguably one of the best writers in the startup scene.

I wonder if you're just unaware of all of this, or if you just have an axe to grind here?

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