Lately, I’ve been reading through a handful of Paul Graham’s essays. They’re generally fairly long in comparison to the sorts of things I normally read while sitting at a computer. However, I always find them interesting throughout. I haven’t quite put a finger on why I enjoy his essays so much. I think part of it is that a lot of what he says are things that I’ve thought about, but never really put all the pieces together as well as he does. Furthermore, most of what he says seems right on. Occasionally I find him particularly funny. Here are a few of them:
In How to Start a Startup, he talks about how Google realized that brand in the search industry means next to nothing:
"As if to emphasize the point, Google never did any advertising. They're like dealers; they sell the stuff, but they know better than to use it themselves."
In The Age of the Essay, he says the following about the classic “essay” teachings in highschool:
"...uh, what is the conclusion? I was never sure about that in high school. It seemed as if we were just supposed to restate what we said in the first paragraph, but in different enough words that no one could tell."
I think I’ll have to check out his book sometime.