Paul Graham, every mention

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every year anyone Jessica Livingston 49Garry Tan 21Michael Seibel 18Kevin Hale 17Karen Appman 17Paul Buchheit 14Sam Altman 12Jared Friedman 11Vivek Ravisankar 9Tikhon Bernstam 9

Verbatim, from the transcripts: the passages where Paul Graham comes up

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Multi-GPU Kernels, Intelligence per Watt, Heterogeneous Inference, and More | YC Paper Club · Y Combinator Jul 29, 2026 · 1 mention

Sam Altman: "Never a Better Time to Do a Startup" · Y Combinator Jul 28, 2026 · 11 mentions

  • ▶ 0:47 Garry Tan Um, what do you remember about that, and what was your best PG Paul Graham story? 6 times in the scene
  • ▶ 3:13 Garry Tan I mean, you just, uh, I remember Paul wrote, um, I mean, it's making the rounds on X today, even that, uh, Paul wrote in the early, in the late 2000 that you would be, you were one of the top five entrepreneurs he'd ever met. 4 times in the scene
  • ▶ 14:23 Sam Altman The world, this is another great PG-ism.

How Two French Engineers In New York Built The Company That Monitors The Entire Cloud · Y Combinator Jul 24, 2026 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 1:00 Olivier Pomel I've got, uh, I've got a rejection email from, from Paul Graham still, you know.

The Age Of The 40-Year-Old Solo Founder Is Here · Y Combinator Jun 19, 2026 · 6 mentions

Replit's CEO On The Only Two Jobs Left In The Company Of The Future · Y Combinator Apr 25, 2026 · 3 mentions

  • ▶ 19:10 Amjad Masad They're kind of like what YC talks about, like PG essays, like resourceful, someone who's not going to get blocked, who's going to figure out what other AI tool I need to integrate,
  • ▶ 21:28 Amjad Masad This idea of like, I don't know where PG came up with the number seven, but like seven percent week of a week growth is like a very good way to bootstrap a new, new product line. 2 times in the scene

François Chollet: Why Scaling Alone Isn’t Enough for AGI · Y Combinator Mar 27, 2026 · 1 mention

AI Is Unlocking Millions Of New Builders · Y Combinator Mar 16, 2026 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 37:47 unnamed speaker I mean, so Pete, this is like just an extension that TrendPG wrote about a while ago, right?

We're All Addicted To Claude Code · Y Combinator Feb 6, 2026 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 29:59 Harj Taggar Something I'm curious to see is kind of like what the updated version of the PG maker, uh, maker schedule versus manager schedule would look like.

How Amplitude Went From Skeptics to “All In” on AI · Y Combinator Dec 3, 2025 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 41:51 Spencer Skates One of the things I'm actually very appreciative, Gary, uh, that you, um, and PG and Jessica and others are doing is just helping people tell these later stage stories.

The Best Consumer Startup Ideas Were Impossible Until Now · Y Combinator Nov 28, 2025 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 13:31 Mike Mignano I actually was telling your, your team before the show that, um, one of PG's essays was like a big, it was like a big, big inspiration to, ah, how Anchor actually survived, and, and not just survived, but like, ended up figuring it out.

The FDE Playbook for AI Startups with Bob McGrew · Y Combinator Sep 8, 2025 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 4:36 Bob McGrew And so, you know, there's a little bit of that meme where like I spent years mastering this technique and Paul Graham just tweeted it out for everybody.

Michael Truell: Building Cursor At 23, Taking On GitHub Copilot & Advice To Engineering Students · Y Combinator Sep 3, 2025 · 2 mentions

  • ▶ 0:42 Diana Hu You kind of have to go way back to middle school when you were reading the essays from PG, right? 2 times in the scene

How This 25-Year-Old Built A $675M Legal AI Startup (With No Legal Experience) · Y Combinator Aug 26, 2025 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 34:15 Gustaf Alströmer Paul Graham back in the days is that, um, sometimes you think when you're a founder that I worked in this company for three years, didn't go well.

The Finance Startup Bringing Agentic AI to Wall Street · Y Combinator Jul 31, 2025 · 2 mentions

  • ▶ 36:36 unnamed speaker I remember when I met with Paul Graham sometime around the beginning of the match, and I was doubting whether it just doesn't work out, like, maybe my career is fucked, and he was some, he said something like, 2 times in the scene

How to Spend Your 20s in the AI Era · Y Combinator Jul 8, 2025 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 36:28 Diana Hu And Brian Chesky quotes a lot of some of the best advice he got from PG during the batch was to really hone in to find 10 people that love your product much better than, I don't know, a hundred randos.

Sam Altman: The Future of OpenAI, ChatGPT's Origins, and Building AI Hardware · Y Combinator Jun 21, 2025 · 4 mentions

How Zepto Became India’s Fastest Growing Startup · Y Combinator Apr 18, 2025 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 19:10 Garry Tan That's the, uh, Paul Graham schlep blindness essay in a, in a nutshell.

How To Build A Truly Abundant Future · Y Combinator Apr 4, 2025 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 21:21 Garry Tan That's sort of like the defining thing that Brian Chesky from Airbnb who coined the term, uh, actually Paul Graham coined the term founder mode, but it was in response to, you know, Brian's own experience as a founder, like,

How To Build The Future: Aravind Srinivas · Y Combinator Feb 21, 2025 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 10:41 Aravind Srinivas Paul Graham tweet, I think, uh, like where if you try to, often when you, when you, you figure out the better solution when you try to solve, solve a harder version of it, but you end up with a simpler solution that's more general and…

Bob McGrew: AI Agents And The Path To AGI · Y Combinator Jan 31, 2025 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 25:42 Bob McGrew And, you know, I think back to, to Paul Graham's idea of the resistance of the medium, like even once

How To Build The Future: Parker Conrad · Y Combinator Jan 10, 2025 · 3 mentions

  • ▶ 12:20 Parker Conrad You know, I remember meeting with PG and, and I was a solo founder early on. 3 times in the scene

Building A $2 Billion SaaS Company: Lessons From A Two Time Founder · Y Combinator Jan 8, 2025 · 3 mentions

  • ▶ 4:15 Rujul Zaparde Uh, and so this is like, I remember doing office hours distinctly with PG, like, 2 times in the scene
  • ▶ 13:04 Dalton Caldwell PG turned, uh, he coined the phrase founder mode, but you were there, and again, you worked at Airbnb in the years where they were growing so fast.

How David Lieb Turned a Failing Startup Into Google Photos | Backstory · Y Combinator Dec 18, 2024 · 5 mentions

  • ▶ 9:45 David Lieb And so we went to PG, we talked to Paul Graham and we told him what's going on. 5 times in the scene

How To Build The Future: Sam Altman · Y Combinator Nov 8, 2024 · 7 mentions

  • ▶ 3:56 Sam Altman I think the kind of early PG spirit of just encouraging founders to like think a little bit bigger.
  • ▶ 6:27 Garry Tan Wanted to switch gears a little bit to sort of your earlier, you were mentioning, uh, Paul Graham, who brought us all together, really created Y Combinator. 4 times in the scene
  • ▶ 19:14 Sam Altman It was the PG-ism for this is we had, like, discovered a new square in the periodic table.
  • ▶ 32:07 Sam Altman Another thing that PG said or quoted somebody else saying, but always stuck with me is your twenties are always an apprenticeship, but you don't know for what, and then you do your real work later.

How Do Billion Dollar Startups Start? · Y Combinator Oct 11, 2024 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 14:55 unnamed speaker There's a classic PG essay about how to convince investors where I'll paraphrase this roughly.

Startup Experts Discuss Doing Things That Don't Scale · Y Combinator May 30, 2024 · 14 mentions

  • ▶ 0:19 unnamed speaker In 2013, Paul Graham, the founder of Y Combinator, wrote an essay entitled, Do Things That Don't Scale. 2 times in the scene
  • ▶ 2:15 Jared Friedman Warping the minds of a whole generation of founders and investors and creating the problem that Paul Graham had to solve with this, which is because Google became so famous for this because they did so much content marketing. 6 times in the scene
  • ▶ 5:42 unnamed speaker Next Harj and Pete talk about the Airbnb founders and what they did to inspire Paul Graham's essay. 4 times in the scene
  • ▶ 15:28 unnamed speaker In his original essay, PG says, partnerships usually don't work.
  • ▶ 25:19 unnamed speaker Go read Paul Graham's essay right now.

The Truth About Building AI Startups Today · Y Combinator Feb 8, 2024 · 2 mentions

  • ▶ 7:22 Jared Friedman There's an old PG essay where he talks about this, and he says, um,
  • ▶ 11:14 Harj Taggar Some of the advice I've been giving those, those specific companies is the, another old PG essay about if you, if you're trying to sell technology to someone, and they're not buying, like, see if you can just build a competitor, and so…

Tips For Technical Startup Founders | Startup School · Y Combinator Apr 21, 2023 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 11:35 Diana Hu Principle one is the classic Paul Graham essay on do things that don't scale.

How Startup Fundraising Works | Startup School · Y Combinator Mar 29, 2023 · 3 mentions

  • ▶ 0:37 Brad Flora And the reason for that is because as Paul Graham wrote years ago, raising money is the second hardest part of starting a startup after making something people want. 3 times in the scene

The Cult of Conformity in Silicon Valley · Y Combinator Feb 5, 2023 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 9:57 Michael Seibel And, you know, you brought this up when we were discussing this before, but, you know, PG originally started YC to be a home for this type of people, right?

How to Get Your First Customers | Startup School · Y Combinator Dec 29, 2022 · 4 mentions

  • ▶ 0:47 Gustaf Alströmer The most important essay ever written about the very early stage of startups is Do Things That Don't Scale by Paul Graham. 3 times in the scene
  • ▶ 2:20 Gustaf Alströmer This was initially drawn by YC founder Paul Graham and then labeled by Trevor Blackwell, and you've probably seen this curve before.

How to Get and Evaluate Startup Ideas | Startup School · Y Combinator Nov 17, 2022 · 4 mentions

  • ▶ 1:05 Jared Friedman It also draws on a classic essay by Paul Graham that I really recommend.
  • ▶ 6:12 Jared Friedman And the way that Paul Graham put this is that you should think of your idea as a good starting point.
  • ▶ 15:16 Jared Friedman So Paul Graham wrote a terrific article about this called Schlepp Blindness, which I'd really recommend reading. 2 times in the scene

Save Your Startup During an Economic Downturn · Y Combinator May 6, 2022 · 9 mentions

How Future Billionaires Get Sh*t Done · Y Combinator Mar 31, 2022 · 6 mentions

  • ▶ 0:39 Michael Seibel So Dalton, you were inspired by a PG boast when thinking of this idea, right? 4 times in the scene
  • ▶ 5:01 Michael Seibel PG in some ways designed YC a little bit that way, right? 2 times in the scene

Diego Saez Gil - How Pachama Uses Tech to Solve Climate Change · Y Combinator Jan 28, 2020 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 34:45 Diego Saez-Gil Uh, we got investment from Chris Saka, who, you know, founded, uh, Uber at the beginning, uh, PG invested, and, uh, we got, you know, investments from social capital, global,

Laks Srini on Making Homeownership in Reach with ZeroDown · Y Combinator Dec 11, 2019 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 18:46 Laks Srini Um, we were also heavily influenced by the, the, the PG article about, like, 95% of talent is outside the US.

Gustaf Alströmer - Growth for Startups · Y Combinator Aug 15, 2019 · 4 mentions

EconTalk Host Russ Roberts on Key Economic Concepts for Founders · Y Combinator Aug 7, 2019 · 1 mention

Adora Cheung - How to Set KPIs and Goals · Y Combinator Aug 1, 2019 · 2 mentions

  • ▶ 14:02 Adora Cheung So Paul Graham actually wrote a great essay a few years ago called startup equals growth and explains why a startup should focus on growth. 2 times in the scene

Eric Migicovsky - How to Talk to Users · Y Combinator Jul 25, 2019 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 25:33 Eric Migicovsky Uh, Paul Graham's definition for product market fit is when you've made something that people want.

Kevin Hale - How to Evaluate Startup Ideas · Y Combinator Jul 25, 2019 · 11 mentions

  • ▶ 2:16 Kevin Hale PG had invested us at just the idea stage, and so I feel fully committed now as a partner to always be trying to find and dedicate time and energy to funding companies.
  • ▶ 3:58 Kevin Hale Um, I learned this way of thinking from Paul Graham. 3 times in the scene
  • ▶ 20:35 Kevin Hale And the solution that basically Paul Graham came up with is like, 7 times in the scene

Updates for Startup School 2019 and Office Hours with Kevin Hale · Y Combinator Jul 3, 2019 · 2 mentions

  • ▶ 18:55 Kevin Hale This was, like, the heyday of, like, Delicious and Slashdot, and so, like, good content got spread around pretty easily, and it's actually, uh, Paul Graham had recognized us from our blog, and that's why I think we got in.
  • ▶ 25:34 Kevin Hale And BG kind of looked at us immediately and was just like, kind of was like, I don't know what you're talking about.

HubSpot CEO and Cofounder Brian Halligan with Wufoo Cofounder Kevin Hale · Y Combinator May 8, 2019 · 3 mentions

A CS Education That's Free Until You Get a Job - Austen Allred of Lambda School · Y Combinator Apr 3, 2019 · 2 mentions

  • ▶ 26:10 Austen Allred I think that I can do something, whether it's because you can't measure, I think Paul Graham has an essay about this, something about
  • ▶ 55:52 Austen Allred And another way to say this, I think PG has said that, um, product is, or revenue is a very, very trailing indicator of product.

Mike Knoop on Product and Design Processes for Remote Teams with Kevin Hale · Y Combinator Mar 6, 2019 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 19:44 Kevin Hale YC was 18,000 dollars then, and we raised, uh, money from two angels, PB and PG, and it was 50,000 dollars each.

Starting a Startup After Business School - Reham Fagiri and Kalam Dennis of AptDeco · Y Combinator Dec 14, 2018 · 5 mentions

  • ▶ 17:11 unnamed speaker And so people fall back on, you know, whether it's like PG's essays or kind of like lean startup things.
  • ▶ 50:48 Reham Fagiri Um, so we didn't know that this is what we were supposed to do, so we had, like, rented out our apartments here, sublighted our apartments, and we went to Mountain View, and I think, I can't remember if it was, like, PG, or. 4 times in the scene

The Path to $100B by Paul Buchheit · Y Combinator Oct 24, 2018 · 6 mentions

A Conversation with Elad Gil · Y Combinator Oct 18, 2018 · 3 mentions

  • ▶ 34:50 Elad Gil Like, I think, uh, Paul Graham helped actually with some of the very early ideas for Reddit and things like that. 2 times in the scene
  • ▶ 43:30 Elad Gil Uh, Paul Graham often advocates for default dead or default alive.

A Conversation on Hard Tech with Eric Migicovsky · Y Combinator Oct 12, 2018 · 3 mentions

  • ▶ 2:40 Eric Migicovsky Um, we applied, uh, for some crazy reason, um, Paul Graham and Jessica and the gang decided to accept us, even though I think we were the third hardware company that had gone through.
  • ▶ 36:14 Eric Migicovsky I think PG actually had a pretty good tweet about this a couple weeks ago. 2 times in the scene

Fundraising Fundamentals By Geoff Ralston · Y Combinator Oct 10, 2018 · 2 mentions

Startup Technology - Technical Founder Advice · Y Combinator Oct 10, 2018 · 5 mentions

  • ▶ 13:06 Calvin French-Owen We go and talk to PG, and we tell them about kind of our whole saga that's been running for the past year and a half. 5 times in the scene

A Conversation with Elizabeth Iorns - Advice for Biotech Founders · Y Combinator Oct 3, 2018 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 12:13 Elizabeth Iorns So, I think the first version of Science Exchange, which as you mentioned, was actually called The Bench, um, which was renamed during Y Combinator, thanks to Paul Graham's very good advice about our poor naming choice.

Running Your Company by Patrick Collison · Y Combinator Oct 3, 2018 · 2 mentions

  • ▶ 0:30 Patrick Collison And, uh, and every time we saw a PG or really anyone else from YC, uh, all they would ask us is why we had not launched yet.
  • ▶ 1:56 Adora Cheung Um, and it happens so much that actually, I don't know if you know, Paul Graham, PG, now calls it the Collison installation.

Mathilde Collin on Feature Prioritization and Employee Retention at Front · Y Combinator Oct 3, 2018 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 44:22 Mathilde Collin Cause I mean, I think it's PG who said that, but the first way to have anything increase is to look at it and like, just be,

How to Sell by Tyler Bosmeny · Y Combinator Sep 26, 2018 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 8:01 Tyler Bosmeny So sales is you, and you know, Y Combinator, Paul Graham, I remember when we were going through the program, Paul Graham got up on this stage, and he said, you should be spending every moment of every day doing one of two things.

PR + Content for Growth by Kat Mañalac and Craig Cannon · Y Combinator Sep 19, 2018 · 3 mentions

  • ▶ 9:00 Craig Cannon So, for instance, like essays, like Paul Graham's essays, they do well on Hacker News. 3 times in the scene

Suhail Doshi - How to Measure Your Product · Y Combinator Sep 12, 2018 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 9:53 Suhail Doshi And, um, and I also wanted to mention that having a really bad landing page, um, there's this really awesome quote that PG used to have in our batch that I thought I would impart on you, which is that, like, people basically just have…

A Conversation with Ooshma Garg - Moderated by Adora Cheung · Y Combinator Sep 8, 2018 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 28:05 Ooshma Garg Everybody had lost faith, and I'm the only one who had faith, and the only money I could get was from Jessica and PG, and so I did YC, and they said they would help me raise a Series A, like, they would fund me for three more months, um,…

Peter Reinhardt on Finding Product Market Fit at Segment · Y Combinator Sep 6, 2018 · 4 mentions

  • ▶ 3:26 Peter Reinhardt I'll never forget our, in our YC interview, we were pitching this, and, and PG was getting pretty excited, and then he, he, uh, turns to Professor Miller from, uh, from MIT, who we had talked to and had given us the original idea for it,…
  • ▶ 7:54 Peter Reinhardt We come back, walk around a little cul-de-sac by YC with, with PG. 3 times in the scene

Ryan Petersen on Building Flexport, a Modern Freight Forwarder · Y Combinator Aug 30, 2018 · 4 mentions

  • ▶ 21:34 Ryan Petersen I snuck into YC a couple of times and saw Paul speak and like, I was like, I want to do YC.
  • ▶ 49:27 Ryan Petersen Again, in that Schlepp Blindness article, Paul Graham, um, Schlepp Blindness is, um, 3 times in the scene

Carolynn Levy And Panel (Jon Levy, Jason Kwon) - Startup Legal Mechanics · Y Combinator Aug 29, 2018 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 56:32 unnamed speaker Um, there will be a conversation with the founder of Y Combinator, Paul Graham on Friday, as well as the AMA tomorrow with Darby.

Geoff Ralston and Adora Cheung Discuss Startup School · Y Combinator Aug 7, 2018 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 3:46 Geoff Ralston I'm really excited to, um, to say that Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston will be taking part in the course and giving some of their wisdom, which is also broad need, uh, to founders everywhere in the world, but we're also going to have,…

Elad Gil Shares Advice from the High Growth Handbook, a Guide to Scaling Startups · Y Combinator Jul 27, 2018 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 31:43 unnamed speaker PG, they've, they've talked about Airbnb as like cockroaches, like just staying alive.

Jessica Livingston Shares 9 Things She Learned From Founding YC · Y Combinator Jul 11, 2018 · 28 mentions

  • ▶ 1:17 Jessica Livingston Now, if you only know me through the media, you might get the impression that my contribution to Y Combinator is that I'm Paul Graham's wife. 2 times in the scene
  • ▶ 6:13 Jessica Livingston In 2003, I was working in the marketing department at an investment bank in Boston when I first met Paul Graham at a party at his house one night. 7 times in the scene
  • ▶ 8:26 Jessica Livingston And while I was interviewing at the VC firm, Paul would, you know what, you should do me each night at dinner, ah, telling me how I should change the VC business once I got into it. 6 times in the scene
  • ▶ 12:47 Jessica Livingston And it used to really bug me because no one ever asked Paul, Robert, or Trevor that question. 5 times in the scene
  • ▶ 18:54 Jessica Livingston Paul is the straightest shooter I know, which is why his advice is so valuable. 4 times in the scene
  • ▶ 20:14 Jessica Livingston Paul talked to the founders and learned that they just wanted the security of jobs, you know, so they could take a break from the constant stress of a startup. 3 times in the scene
  • ▶ 24:39 Jessica Livingston Paul and I had the perfect combination of skills to start something like YC.
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