I don't mind them at all. If Paul writes anything, I want to know about it. So please upvote so it gets to my attention.

Also note that Pauls blog is blazingly fast and does not have ADs/Cookie Conent/Tracking madness. I don't click Medium links anymore b/c all that bloat + crap. With blogs like this, I am back to HN in less than 5 seconds if I don't like the content.

Do you want to know about it because he’s a billionaire that might fund your hot dog recognition app or because he’s said anything particularly revelatory?

Because I for one and sick and tired of wealth worship in this country.

The post is not interesting and shouldn’t be on the front page.

That's ridiculously dismissive and just smacks of sour grapes.

Are many looking to read what the Waltons say?

No, this isn't wealth worship. The reason why people pay attention to folks like PG and Buffet is because they've repeatedly proven to have useful insights. Does that mean everything they say is of great value? Of course not. But their batting average is strong and they offer a lot of free wisdom. It's a good idea to learn from those who have things to teach, and Paul is a good teacher.

> Are many looking to read what the Waltons say?

Have you ever been inside a Business College?

I'd be surprised and suspicious of those colleges if they're teaching based on the Walton heirs... Sam would be a different story, but wasn't who I was referring to with the present tense of "Waltons say".

Why, do they worship the Waltons of today? Or do they focus on Sam Walton and Walmart itself?

I want to know because many of his essays are insightful. This one in particular was a bit short, and to me an obvious premise. However, there may be some people who would benefit from hearing that it is good to be in situations where you have to learn new things.

It should only get voted up if it's insightful, but the top parent here bemoans our fellow hackeroos' upvoting reflexes...

> because he’s a billionaire

Why is someone being a zillionaire even a variable to judge whether something was interesting or not?

That's exactly the point! This post is a generic, pretty universally-recognized point, written by a billionaire, and is only the length of a handful of tweets.

The only possible criteria that a post this small and with this little substance would get upmodded for is the billionaire bit, and possibly that people are just upmodding 'pg without checking the actual content (I've seen a few people talk about how they use upmodding as a 'read later' function).

I don't even mind that it was, but the comment makes a decent point.

I don't think it's the "billionaire bit", it's celebrity in general, and specifically celebrity in fields that HN readers find interesting.

It is the point. But it isn't the billionaire bit that matters. It's that PG is a celebrity on HN. He wrote this forum and most of the early posts were his blog posts. HN used to be all startups and tech all the time. Before Y-Combinator was successful PG was already a celebrity here who would get auto voted up. Before that it was /. Then Reddit I guess but I missed the golden year for Reddit. There are other HN celebrities PG just happens to be the founder.

This isn't Billionare worship it is celebrity worship. And it's caused because PG has written enough things insightful enough that people can feel their minds changing as they read, that they will reflexively upvote.

I hate seeing anti-wealth rhetoric on HN. If the point is wealth doesn't matter then the criticism ought to be more substantive then 'aye, he's just popular because he's a billionaire'. HN is one of the only places I know of where ambition has been celebrated. I get that startups and the startup culture didn't turn out to be a necessary good thing so there's some cynicism there. But we can do better than demonizing the money, a result, rather than causes.

(Anyway, I think I'd like to join lobste.rs)

>most of the early posts were his blog posts. HN used to be all startups and tech all the time.

To respond just to this part: I don't think either of these things are true. With "past" you can look around the front page in 2007-8. I just did - not very different at all from today. Not many pg essays around - none on most days on the front page. The titles are a lot longer today, seems the main difference!

I shouldn’t have been so hyperbolic. Basically PG was a huge part of HN back then. You’ll see a lot of people writing as if they know him and everything by him or the likes of Steve Blank was voted to the top.

It's the world we are living in nowadays. I subscribed to Seth Godin's newsletter and I receive a post everyday from him. I admire Godin but the quality is shitty.

It is an example of what happens when you feel the urge to say something for the sake of saying it.

And all of this makes me think that maybe somehow there is more randomness to wealth Creation and distribution than we already acknowledge.

Because that's how people often treat it (whether they should or not).

You're implying that since it's not actually a variable (X being rich = X having something interesting to say), it can't function as a variable.

But it very much can. Whether it should or shouldn't be a variable, for many people it functions as one.

The same way people buy music or watch movies of "good looking" actors and musicians, even though being "good looking" is not a variable to judge whether a song/movie is good or not.

So, since this (treating wealth/beauty/fame/etc as a variable as to whether something is interesting) exists, and is often prevalent, it makes sense to wonder when someone listens to somebody else X that is rich/beautiful/famous whether they merely listen to X because he is those things (and not because X has something interesting to say).

There's a good chance that a millionaire came from old money. That doesn't make them inherently interesting. The ones who are self-made, the anomalies in that population, are more likely to be interesting.

Old money are mostly out of the rat race, more distant from the need of self-marketing, and usually with better education and taste (in fact, it's almost proverbial that old money have better taste than the "nouveaux rich").

All kinds of writers, artists, scientists etc were once from that group.

So it's more probable to listen to something interesting from an old money millionaire who inherited wealth, than from a self-made one (which would tire you with self-promotion and gloating about their business acumen, bravado, and hardships they had to overcome).

This text gives me comfort in that the fact that I feel like a noob in many topics should be an encouragement to learn more, rather than give up because the wealthy people are superhuman and I'm not.

Well, first of all, he created this whole site. This would be enough for me to be of interest.

Also I enjoy his books and essays, in particular the ones about LISP.

I don't know about his financial situation. And frankly I don't care.

In Graham's case, writing interesting content had more to do with him becoming a billionaire, than people thinking what he says is interesting because he's a billionaire.

Sure, he was relatively wealthy from the sale of ViaWeb. But the popularity of his writing is what led to YCombinator and then to him becoming much more wealthy.

This is a website run by a startup incubator. Seems like the wrong place for no wealth worship. Essentially, I don't understand why you chose this place if you sort of don't like it.

I think it's interesting and it has spawned interesting comments (except this thread). Why do you get to decide what's interesting or not just because you begrudge billionaires?

> Because I for one and sick and tired of wealth worship in this country.

Amen brother! As I was leaving the house this morning I caught a snippet of something about Oprah being on a tour; top tickets are in the thousands of dollars. Nothing against Oprah but what does she have to say that is actionable and I haven't heard before, that I (or anyone, really) should pay to hear? I think it was Gore Vidal (rest his crusty vituperative heart) who wrote that Americans think proximity to wealth eventually confers it on them, especially if they f*-- it. Paraphrased obviously, am not about to google it at work.

I asked a supporter of the present POTUS what possible opposition candidate he would vote for. He said Oprah. His even more conservative wife agreed. I started to laugh before realizing they were completely serious.

It was so out of box to me that I think it speaks to how a large portion of the electorate prefers personalities, particularly those who “created” something.

Low-effort here means "short"? There's nothing wrong with short.

I find these essays, even the short ones, useful and insightful. I hope PG is not unduly influenced by the recent backlash to his publishing more.

I came to this community originally largely due to his insights and the particular culture he nurtured here. The recent uptick in his contributions is welcome.

I liked it. Correlating the feeling of hunger vs abundant food leading to being overweight against the desire to know as much as everyone else. That worked for me, yes it's common sense, but sometimes it helps to have things spelled out clearly for you to have a small epiphany about yourself.

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree. This is just common sense written down in a few sentences. Provides nothing new to anyone.

I like seeing that people like pg can have the same feelings that I do, reminding me that everyone is human.

Why did you ever think he was more than human?

This is kind of what the original criticism highlighted....

>Do such low-effort posts from other people as these recent pg ones ever appear on the HN front page?!

To be fair, yes regularly.

Maybe it's supposed to be a meta essay, an essay about noobs that reads like it was written by a noob?

>Sigh. Do such low-effort posts from other people as these recent pg ones ever appear on the HN front page?!

All the time. Both "personal insight/self help" stuff, and all kinds of low-effort development posts. So?

>All the time.

I guess I'll really regret asking for a few examples of that! But here goes - Some evidence for that claim? Recent links? (This site has stuff that made the front page I think, if that helps https://hckrnews.com/ )

By low-effort, I meant..the combination of bland content, first-draft-quality style, and very short. I don't think I've seen anything that short on here, and it's high on the blandometer too, though some people on this page say they got value from it. (Aw I feel bad criticizing now, hopefully he takes his own advice not to read HN pages about one's own stuff..)

edit: Ah, someone on this page mentioned Seth Godin, which reminds me he had a blog-post linked recently (not sure if it made the front page) - even shorter, and much less to say. One of the most popular blogs in the world! It said. Amazing. My first exposure to him. Well, maybe he used to be good, I don't know.

Seth Godin, Derek Shivers, etc...

Plus lots of one-off posts of random "wisdom"

Add to that all the content-less "new Node release", "here's 2 minor changes in Golang 1.1x", "I tried framework X and I don't like it" (with trivial arguments), etc... that somehow are voted to be first page...

PG doesn't have to share anything, he could just be enjoying time with his family. I for one am delighted that he still posts.

I wonder if his recent uptick in posts that seem a little less substantive means he is going to announce something new soon.

I agree - while I normally find Paul Graham's posts very insightful, this post definitely feels like one where, if it were written by someone with no name (such as myself), the post would get maybe a few votes at best.

It's a useful reminder, but it doesn't stand out. Anyone and everyone these days gives advice about learning voraciously, whether or not anyone listens or does it.

I think ita endearing because im in a similar place as an expat and a technical refugee.

I think it might just be an algorithmic thing. He has one of the top karmas in HN.

He didn't post it

Disagree. It’s very important for people feeling like “noobs” to realize that it’s okay, even desired. PG is a legend and have him clearly state so is refreshing, and necessary.

> Do such low-effort posts from other people as these recent pg ones ever appear on the HN front page?!

You can expect to have control over something you created.

If you're into completionist reading of blogs, every post is just as important as every other one.

Someone(he) must have just read 'Range'.

A large part of the audience here wants to get money from pg and people like him and find articles like this useful for trying to make money from SV vcs.

It’s also worth pointing out that this kind of overblown humility also tends to work out a lot less well for you in life if you don’t already have a billion dollars and founders hanging on your every tweet.

he's getting old and it shows sadly :/

A lot of people need reminding of:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I for one find it absolutely hilarious to watch people take these ‘essays’ seriously. I have nothing but respect for PG in regards to his work with startups, but when he wrote this essay [1] on the field of philosophy, it should have been a sign to everyone to stop and question the author when he talks about anything other than startups or computer science.

1. http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html

Well, I liked that philosophy essay. (About me: I've read philosophy for decades and most of my university studies have been in philosophy.)

Oh come now, one essay can't really detract from the general character of all his essays does it?

> ever appear on the HN front page?

They appear on the front page because of the 'Newman effect'. I just coined that term for back in the day what made Paul Newman's salad dressing successful and has since been copied as a formula by many celebrity brands. Basically if you have two salad dressings on the shelf in a supermarket people will pay attention and potentially buy the one that they notice for a reason that is not even related to the quality of the product. And as everyone knows in sales or marketing (or should know) getting your message across and getting listened to is (arbitrarily I am making this up) half the battle. [1]

Of course Paul Newman had other things going for him as well. He could get the supermarket to consider his product because of the halo around him as a movie star. He could get top quality people to help with the product as a result of being a movie star. He even (iirc) pioneered (or at least popularized) giving profits to charity (from memory). But much of the success was for sure dependent on his name recognition which made it more likely that people would try the product (same thing happens with why stars are featured in movies obviously although with Netflix that is becoming less important for sure).

[1] This is also what an intro does for you it gets the person to listen to what you have to say which you might not even get the chance to do if you are just cold calling.