He built the ultimate machine to attract conformists who want to get another badge. First the conformists will push out individualists by their sheer bulk and better ability to navigate the approval process. (It's their core competency in life!)
Y Combinator is a plant that has grown too large for its pot. Someday something is going to go wrong, there are so many people going through it that sooner or later there is going to be a scandal. Graham is not on a growth trajectory, and sooner or later decay is going to catch up with him. I don't know exactly how, but the logic of exponential growth will to discover it.
If he wants to do anything except "richmansplain" about how there's some kind of problem that he can't talk about except in abtruse code (e.g. I am clearly agonized about something, but I have to draw four quadrants to pretend that I'm thinking deeply about it rather than obscure what bothers me) because if he was able to put his ineffable thoughts into words then somebody is going to do something completely indescribable.
He won't listen but here is my advice.
Graham has accomplished as much as he can in the place he is at. If he stays where he is, he can at best tread water, at worst various problems are going to catch up with him, he's going to paint himself into a corner, the amoral conformists attracted to his organization are going to create a scandal, the u.s. becomes unable to support s.v. b ecause capital has waged an investment strike against most of it, etc.
If he leaves Y Co in the hands of people he trusts (does he trust anyone?) and spends a year or two doing something else in a different place I think he'll have something interesting to say and he
It's sad, but reading his essays feels so much like reading Peirs Anthony, it is just the same essay over and over again with very little feeling he's grown. Maybe he needs to hang out with some adults, admit that being a zillionaire doesn't make you immortal, that you're always going to be frustrated because your species is split into two genders, etc.
pg might be interesting again if he said what "unsayable" and "aggressively independent-minded" things he actually wants to say, and I wish he bloody would - we've got no choice but to read it.
"independent-minded" is such a cliche now - it's often a euphemism for something else. Surely more truly "aggressively independent-minded" people are homeless addicts, not rockstar founders. What's the right balance between conformism and independent-mindedness? In what areas of life? This 2-axis system is way too simple. Start there, dude.
By implication pg (and YC) recognise and value independent-mindedness - but as you say, from the outside YC appears to reward conformism to their well-understood creeds (as well as just playing the odds of an enormous number of companies, rather than being clever pickers).
It would be interesting if he developed a theory of "unsayable" things based on examples. One really good one is Freud's theory of infantile sexuality:
It's completely true that four year old boys get erections and play with themselves (I did), don't think about it all when they are ten, and then tend to think about it a lot when they hit puberty.
It is the basis for understanding how sexual abuse hurts children, but say it and people will report you to the FBI as a pedo.
If Graham were serious he could make a list of 20 diverse examples like this.
Interesting. Here's what he wrote about that in 2004:
"When you find something you can't say, what do you do with it? My advice is, don't say it. Or at least, pick your battles...The most important thing is to be able to think what you want, not to say what you want. And if you feel you have to say everything you think, it may inhibit you from thinking improper thoughts. I think it's better to follow the opposite policy. Draw a sharp line between your thoughts and your speech. Inside your head, anything is allowed. Within my head I make a point of encouraging the most outrageous thoughts I can imagine. But, as in a secret society, nothing that happens within the building should be told to outsiders."
Freudian Psychoanalysis is the basis of nothing. Freud never formulated testable, falsifiable hypotheses, and his "theories" were nothing but speculation and pseudoscience, which is why by 1980, US psychiatrists wanting to make their specialization more respectable and evidence-based purged the DSM of all references to Freud.
If anything, it's criticism of Freud and his theories, outside of strictly science-based objections, that is "unsayable":
Freudian psychoanalysis was a core component of orthodox leftwing thought up until fairly recently. His influence on the left was massive, perhaps second only to Marx. The idea that you could get cancelled for endorsing his theories today, even the parts that arguably normalize pedophilia by sexualizing infants (eg, their supposed sexual attraction to opposite-sex parents, or their psychological development being based on a progression of erogenous zones) is silly.
Despite the biographical problems, I agree with the comments on the essays. He's fighting the last war still.
Conventional thinkers are the builders of institutions. The people who bring us together. As an aggressively independent minded person, I see a dire need for that.
If socially minded people don't have a nice group to join, they fall back on the old toxic classics. We need someone to give us new unions, churches, universities, bowling teams, a group you aren't born into. The aggressively conventionally minded people are the ones who can do that!
He hasn't been running YC for years now. He left it to Sam Altman to run for the last couple of years. And even Sam has left the post to Geoff Ralston, which is currently running it. PG's twice removed. We're on Thomas Jefferson now.
It's interesting that he doesn't share anything about his life, isn't it? Even if his body is not in the Bay Area he doesn't show any evidence of having been around.
Even Piers Anthony would talk about the random things that happened in his life, but Graham doesn't.
I think he might have downvoted me even for asking :)
Seriously though, I can't really blame him. I got a few days fame back in the day and it was a scary thing to watch a mob of strangers picking on my past and judging. Even people who I thought are my friends acted extremely strange - as if they don't know me personally and joining the mob of haters or lovers.
He built the ultimate machine to attract conformists who want to get another badge. First the conformists will push out individualists by their sheer bulk and better ability to navigate the approval process. (It's their core competency in life!)
Y Combinator is a plant that has grown too large for its pot. Someday something is going to go wrong, there are so many people going through it that sooner or later there is going to be a scandal. Graham is not on a growth trajectory, and sooner or later decay is going to catch up with him. I don't know exactly how, but the logic of exponential growth will to discover it.
If he wants to do anything except "richmansplain" about how there's some kind of problem that he can't talk about except in abtruse code (e.g. I am clearly agonized about something, but I have to draw four quadrants to pretend that I'm thinking deeply about it rather than obscure what bothers me) because if he was able to put his ineffable thoughts into words then somebody is going to do something completely indescribable.
He won't listen but here is my advice.
Graham has accomplished as much as he can in the place he is at. If he stays where he is, he can at best tread water, at worst various problems are going to catch up with him, he's going to paint himself into a corner, the amoral conformists attracted to his organization are going to create a scandal, the u.s. becomes unable to support s.v. b ecause capital has waged an investment strike against most of it, etc.
If he leaves Y Co in the hands of people he trusts (does he trust anyone?) and spends a year or two doing something else in a different place I think he'll have something interesting to say and he
It's sad, but reading his essays feels so much like reading Peirs Anthony, it is just the same essay over and over again with very little feeling he's grown. Maybe he needs to hang out with some adults, admit that being a zillionaire doesn't make you immortal, that you're always going to be frustrated because your species is split into two genders, etc.