Graham praises YC role
Graham writes an article about Livingston’s’ role in Y Combinator, saying she should have more credit.
So although Jessica more than anyone made YC unique, the very qualities that enabled her to do it mean she tends to get written out of YC’s history. Everyone buys this story that PG started YC and his wife just kind of helped. Even YC’s haters buy it. A couple years ago when people were attacking us for not funding more female founders (than exist), they all treated YC as identical with PG. It would have spoiled the narrative to acknowledge Jessica’s central role at YC…Jessica knows more about the qualities of startup founders than anyone else ever has. Her immense data set and x-ray vision are the perfect storm in that respect. The qualities of the founders are the best predictor of how a startup will do. And startups are in turn the most important source of growth in mature economies.
Steps down from Hacker News
Graham announces that he is stepping down from his day-to-day role at the site. Kat Manalac and Garry Tan will be take over responding to individual comments, and others will be responsible for design, code and community management.
I’ll still be around as a user, but less frequently than when I felt I had to check the site every hour or so to make sure nothing had broken.
Y Combinator leadership change
Graham announces that he is stepping down from his day-to-day role, and Altman will take over.
It has nothing to do with the current startup environment. I started trying to recruit Sam to take over back in 2012…I’m just not much good at running the sort of (comparatively) large organization YC is going to have to become. Sam will be much better at that.
He will stay on as an advisor and will work with startups at Office Hours.
Accepts first board seat
Graham joins the board of Watsi after spotting the crowdfunding non-profit on Hacker News and funding it through Y Combinator. Watsi:
We’re thrilled to have PG as our first board member.
For the first time I agreed to be on a board of directors: @watsi's.
— Paul Graham (@paulg) April 19, 2013
Graham, Livingston marry
0 0 reuben reuben2014-10-18 09:53:152014-10-18 09:53:15Graham, Livingston marryGraham, Livingston dating
Graham and Livingston start dating. Livingston:
We met at a party in Cambridge Massachusetts randomly. It’s kind of a funny story. I actually went, he was co-hosting the party with a friend of his, I was with a guy I was taking a class at Harvard Extension School with. I wasn’t gonna go, it was a Saturday night and I didn’t have a friend to go with me so I wasn’t gonna go but I went anyway. I arrived on the doorstep, and I said “ Oh, I’m Jessica, I’m friends with Murat and I’m here for the party” and he said “Murat? Didn’t you hear? He moved to Arkansas last week to join the Wes Clark campaign. He’s not here tonight.” So, I said, “Oh my God, I’m not gonna know anyone.” I did not know one person at this party and I went in and had a great time and met, you know Paul, and Trevor, our other co-founder and just hit it off. And then Paul and I started dating and I started meeting more people who are involved in start-ups.
Leaves Yahoo
Graham leaves Yahoo after spending one and a half years working on Yahoo Store, the new iteration of Viaweb. He says the company lacked a clear vision, and was somewhere between a tech company and a media company:
Project managers at Yahoo were called “producers,” for example, and the different parts of the company were called “properties.” But what Yahoo really needed to be was a technology company, and by trying to be something else, they ended up being something that was neither here nor there. That’s why Yahoo as a company has never had a sharply defined identity.
Harvard PhD
0 0 reuben reuben2014-10-12 13:57:272015-03-22 02:53:19Harvard PhDMasters degree
Graham earns a Masters in Applied Sciences at Harvard, focusing on Computer Science.
Graduates Cornell
Graham graduates in the Class of ’86 with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, and a lot of experience in computer science:
What I learned from trying to study philosophy is that the place to look is in other fields.
On his decision to study computer science:
I took so many CS classes that most CS majors thought I was one.
Paul Graham born in Weymouth, England
Paul Graham is born in Weymouth, Dorset. The family moves to the U.S. and he grows up outside Pittsburgh, where his father works as a physicist designing nuclear reactors and his mother takes raises him and his sister. He starts writing computer code in high school, including a program to predict the flight path of model rockets.
If I could go back and give my thirteen year old self some advice, the main thing I’d tell him would be to stick his head up and look around.