Here is the audio and transcript, here is the episode summary: Tyler and Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham sat down at his home in the English countryside to discuss what areas of talent judgment his wife is better at, whether young founders have gotten rarer, whether he still takes a dim view of solo founders,
The post My very excellent Conversation with Paul Graham appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
Here is the audio and transcript, here is the episode summary:
Tyler and Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham sat down at his home in the English countryside to discuss what areas of talent judgment his wife is better at, whether young founders have gotten rarer, whether he still takes a dim view of solo founders, how to 2x ambition in the developed world, on the minute past which a Y Combinator interviewer is unlikely to change their mind, what YC learned after rejecting companies, how he got over his fear of flying, Florentine history, why almost all good artists are underrated, what’s gone wrong in art, why new homes and neighborhoods are ugly, why he wants to visit the Dark Ages, why he’s optimistic about Britain and San Fransisco, the challenges of regulating AI, whether we’re underinvesting in high-cost interruption activities, walking, soundproofing, fame, and more.
Of course mostly we talked about talent selection, here is one bit:
COWEN: If you think that something has gone wrong in the history of art, and you tried to explain that in as few dimensions as possible, what’s your account of what went wrong?
GRAHAM: Oh, I can explain this very briefly. Brand and craft became divorced. It used to be that the best artists were the best craftspeople. Once art started to be reproduced in newspapers and magazines and things like that, you could create a brand that wasn’t based on quality.
COWEN: So, you think it’s mass media causing the divorce between brand and craft?
GRAHAM: It certainly helps.
COWEN: Then talent’s responding accordingly. Fundamentally, what went wrong?
GRAHAM: You invent some shtick, right?
COWEN: Right.
GRAHAM: And then — technically, it’s called a signature style — you paint with this special shtick. If someone can get some ball rolling, some speculative ball rolling, which dealers specialize in, then someone buys the painting with your shtick and hangs it on the wall in their loft in Tribeca. And people come in and say, “Oh, my goodness, that’s a so and so,” which they recognize because they’ve seen this shtick. [laughs]
COWEN: Say, if we have modernism raging in the 1920s, and the ’20s mass media is radio for the most part —
GRAHAM: No, no, no, newspapers were huge. Modernism was well —
COWEN: But not for showing paintings, right? There’s no color in the papers. You had to be —
And here is one exchange on talent:
COWEN: Why is there not more ambition in the developed world? Say we wanted to boost ambition by 2X. What’s the actual constraint? What stands in the way?
GRAHAM: Boy, what a fabulous question. I wish you’d asked me that an hour ago, so I could have had some time to think about it between now and then.
COWEN: [laughs] You’re clearly good at boosting ambition, so you’re pulling on some lever, right? What is it you do?
GRAHAM: Oh, okay. How do I do it? People are, for various reasons — for multiple reasons — they’re afraid to think really big. There are multiple reasons. One, it seems overreaching. Two, it seems like it would be an awful lot of work. [laughs]
As an outside person, I’m like an instructor in some fitness class. I can tell someone who’s already working as hard as they can, “All right, push harder.”
[laughter]
It doesn’t cost me any effort. Surprisingly often, as in the fitness class, they are capable of pushing harder. A lot of my secret is just being the person who doesn’t have to actually do the work that I’m suggesting they do.
COWEN: How much of what you do is reshuffling their networks? There are people with potential. They’re in semi-average networks —
GRAHAM: Wait. That was such an interesting question. We should talk about that some more because that really is an interesting question. Imagine how amazing it would be if all the ambitious people can be more ambitious. That really is an interesting question. There’s got to be more to it than just the fact that I don’t have to do the work.
COWEN: I think a lot of it is reshuffling networks. You need someone who can identify who should be in a better network. You boost the total size of all networking that goes on, and you make sure those people with potential —
GRAHAM: By reshuffling networks, you mean introducing people to one another?
COWEN: Of course.
GRAHAM: Yes.
COWEN: You pull them away from their old peers, who are not good enough for them, and you bring them into new circles, which will raise their sights.
GRAHAM: Eh, maybe. That is true. When you read autobiographies, there’s often an effect when people go to some elite university after growing up in the middle of the countryside somewhere. They suddenly become more excited because there’s a critical mass of like-minded people around. But I don’t think that’s the main thing. I mean, that is a big thing.
Definitely recommended.
The post My very excellent Conversation with Paul Graham appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
Education, Philosophy, The Arts, Uncategorized, Web/Tech