Paul Graham
Paul Graham is a programmer, essayist, and investor who cofounded Y Combinator and writes about startups, making things, and thinking clearly.
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Paul’s happenings, collected from public sources, plus their backstory and Starbook, where fans write.
Known for
O'Reilly
Prentice Hall
Prentice HallOverview
- Work
- Programmer, writer, and investor
- Started writing online
- 2001, on paulgraham.com
- Early breakthrough
- Viaweb, founded with Robert Morris in 1995 and acquired by Yahoo in 1998
- Cofounded
- Y Combinator, 2005
- Education
- Cornell AB; Harvard PhD in computer science
- Art studies
- RISD and the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence
Mini bio
How it started.
Before college, Paul was already trying his hand at short stories and programming. His first programs were written in an early version of Fortran on an IBM 1401 at school. He later studied computer science and painting, interests that both run through his writing.
Building for the web.
In 1995, Paul and Robert Morris started Viaweb, software that let people build online stores. Yahoo acquired it in 1998, and it became Yahoo Store. Paul began publishing essays on his own website in 2001, giving readers a place to follow his ideas about programming and startups.
Helping founders.
In 2005, Paul cofounded Y Combinator with Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris, and Trevor Blackwell. YC went on to fund companies including Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe, and Reddit. Its official people page now lists Paul as a retired founder.
Still making things.
Alongside his essays, Paul has written three books and worked on programming languages. He wrote Hacker News to try out Arc, and published the specification for Bel, a Lisp dialect written in itself, in October 2019.
Creditschronological, newest first
Books
- 2004Hackers & PaintersAuthor
- 1995ANSI Common LispAuthor
- 1993On LispAuthor
Software and startups
- 2019BelLanguage designer and author of the specification
- 2005Y CombinatorCofounder
- 1995ViawebCofounder with Robert Morris
Awards
Quotes
Make good new things.Paul Graham, What to Do
In the March 2025 essay, Paul offers this as a principle for living up to one's potential.
Trivia
- His first programming language was an early version of Fortran, used on his school's IBM 1401.
- He studied painting in Florence as well as at RISD.
- He wrote Hacker News as a way to try out the programming language Arc.
- The cover of ANSI Common Lisp features one of his own paintings.
Find Paul
Read the essays on Paul's site and follow their posts on X.
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