Hackers & Painters

Hackers & Painters

Big Ideas from the Computer Age

Paul Graham

Rebel Circuits

Rule-breaking as path to understanding.

In the sciences, especially, it's a great advantage to be able to question assumptions. The m.o. of scientists, or at least of the good ones, is precisely that: look for places where conventional wisdom is broken, and then try to pry apart the cracks and see what's underneath. That's where new theories come from.
Commodity Clock

Every treasure becomes tomorrow's ordinary commodity.

Or consider watches. Fifty years ago, by spending a lot of money on a watch you could get better performance. When watches had mechanical movements, expensive watches kept better time. ... Since the invention of the quartz movement, an ordinary Timex is more accurate than a Patek Philippe costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
False Positives

Rare signals drown in false positives.

False positives are innocent emails that get mistakenly identified as spams. For most users, missing legitimate email is an order of magnitude worse than receiving spam, so a filter that yields false positives is like an acne cure that carries a risk of death to the patient.
Polite Conspiracy

Silent agreements to avoid uncomfortable truths.

The statements that make people mad are the ones they worry might be believed. I suspect the statements that make people maddest are those they worry might be true.
Information Edge

Knowing what others don't creates competitive advantage.

In business, there is nothing more valuable than a technical advantage your competitors don't understand. In business, as in war, surprise is worth as much as force.
Perfectionist's Trap

Pursuit of perfection prevents completion.

The alternative approach might be called the Hail Mary strategy. Instead of getting a prototype out quickly and gradually refining it, you try to create the complete, finished product in one long touchdown pass. Countless startups destroyed themselves this way during the Internet Bubble.