5/05/2005
Paul Graham on startups on O'Reilly
A dangerously interesting and readable article on startups by Paul Graham, from Hackers 'n' Painters, when you've got work you should be doing...
A couple of takeaways, for me at least:
+Jono
A couple of takeaways, for me at least:
- Create wealth not money. Wealth is doing something people want. Find out what people want and do it well
- In order to get paid the most - get the most value for the work you put in - you need a job with measurement and leverage. Measurement is that you get paid according to the amount of wealth you create. Leverage is having a job that makes a big difference to lots of people. Doing something that lots of people want.
- Being in a technology startup gives both measurement and leverage; you can be more accurately measured in a small group - your work is probably averaged with others but the group is small and talented so that's ok. And the leverage is solving a hard way to do things that people have wanted. And software is good as you do it once and everyone can use it, unlike, say, a restaurant, where no matter how good my last meal was I have to do it again for the next customer.
- Pick hard problems. This means you're doing things others can't do. If you come to a decision point and you have two choices, pick the harder one. This is a good principle for life in general (read the notes to understand why)
- If you want people to work hard they need to be rewarded for it. One of the problems in a larger corporation is that no matter how hard you work they can't pay you proportionally more. They're run very much like Communist states where everyone's work is shared for the 'good' of all. And paying people for the wealth they create is one of the best motivations.
+Jono
# posted by wmc @ 5/05/2005 10:23:00 AM 
