The Joel on Software Discussion Group (CLOSED)

http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/04/quote-unquote.html

I admit I live in a bubble. The thing is, my bubble is the one where they develop the technologies tha  you’ll be using in your bubble in ten years

Basically, I hang around with people who are good programmers. I realize this is not a random cross section of computer users. But it is a disproportionately important subset, because what they use, other people will be using later. These were the people who were using microcomputers in 1980; now everyone is; the people who were using email in 1988; now everyone is; the people who were using the Web in 1995; now everyone is; etc etc.

naturally he doesn't offer a testible example of something the cool kids are using now that we will all be using in ten years.  maybe it's lisp. 

ANSI Common LISP by Paul Graham
Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1st edition (November 2, 1995)

The magnificent Reg Braithwaite:

Basically, I hang around with people who post to discuss.joelonsoftware.com. I realize this is not a random cross section of computer users. But it is a disproportionately important subset, because what they use, other people will be using later. These were the people who were using microcomputers in 1980; now everyone is; the people who were using email in 1988; now everyone is; the people who were using the Web in 1995; now everyone is; etc etc.

;-)

Hilarious. 

"I'm paul graham.  I'm important because the people that I hang out with tend to be very vocal about esoteric subjects that no one cares about ten years later.  Once in a while, this population, which relentlessly chases fads and next-big-things, will happen to latch onto a technology which actually spreads to the common people.  We are great!"

Wow, I didn't know Paul Graham was working in biotech.

Considering the sort of startups that Paul Graham is funding, I think it's strange that he talks about what a great technical advantage Lisp is. None of the Y-combinator startups (or any of the Web 2.0 startups )are technically sweet; they're just good business ideas. Not that there's anything wrong with that.  Maybe that's why he's writing essays about making money, instead of articles about how Lisp will help you solve hard problems. Oh. So I guess there's no contradiction after all.

Getting to the topic in Reg's post: “Am I developing the ideas, technologies, and products today that the rest of the world will be using in ten years? If not, what’s stopping me?”  IMO, the really hard technical problems that were blocking the current generation of apps were bandwidth and processing power, and those problems were solved by telecom and materials science engineers over the past two decades. Now we have more bandwidth and computational power than we know what to do with, and I have no idea what the important problems for the next two decades will be; they probably won't even be in my field. So I'm just going to keep trying to find interesting problems to work on, and if one of them happens to change the world, then great. And if not, at least I'll have had fun trying to solve some hard problems.

> they're just good business ideas.

A web calendar?

A digg knock-off?

business genius at work.

"I'm just going to keep trying to find interesting problems to work on, and if one of them happens to change the world, then great. And if not, at least I'll have had fun trying to solve some hard problems."

Fabulous. 28/w, may I quote you?

Didn't wired buy reddit for ~10 million? You must have very high standards, if that strikes you as a failure.

> Wow, I didn't know Paul Graham was working in biotech.

I totally misread this the first time.  I read it as :

Wow, I didn't know Paul Graham was a working biotch -- read 'be-otch'.


I know it's juvenile, but that's what my mind scanned.

"Business Ideas"

I know, let's FedEx dog food around the USA for free. But we will succeed because we are using Ruby on Rails.

Unfortunately, it looks like Graham's blog has turned into a means of convincing attracting exactly the people that he wants for the Y-Combinator startups: 18 to 25 years old, no family, bright, ready to work 18 hours a day for several years, don't expect to get a company paid Jaguar out of the first round of funding.

Plenty of people like that, but the newer posts are of limited value to "just folks".

"Didn't wired buy reddit for ~10 million? You must have very high standards, if that strikes you as a failure. "

I still don't see how that indicates that there was a sound business model behind reddit.

"I still don't see how that indicates that there was a sound business model behind reddit."

Here's the business model:

"Get bought for over $10 million."

I agree that starting a company with the goal of producing a sustainable business is a laudable objective. Building reall businesses that employ people and ongoing wealth for their owners is what grows our economy and makes us competitive on the world stage.

That being said, PG has been quite explicit in talking about his philosophy behind YCombinator. For example, he has talked about inexperienced people starting companies withe the express intent of being HR acquisitions: being bought is a back door way to get a job in a good company on the merits of what you've done rather than whether you went  to the right school.

I get the impression that if ten or twelve  million dollars is also involved, Paul considers that a "hiring bonus." He probably thinks of his share as a kind of headhunter fee :-)