Paul Graham's Hackers and Painters, published in 2004, contained the following footnote:
If the Mac was so great, why did it lose? Cost, again Microsoft concentrated on the software business and unleashed a swarm of cheap component suppliers on Apple hardware. It did not help either that suits took over during a critical period. (And it hasn't lost yet. If Apple were to grow the iPod into a cell phone with a web browser, Microsoft would be in big trouble.)
Then again, a few footnotes later Graham writes:
I would not even use Javascript, if I were you; Viaweb didn't. Most of the Javascript I see on the Web isn't necessary, and much of it breaks. And when you start to be able to browse actual web pages on your cell phone or PDA (or toaster), who knows if they'll even support it.
Maybe he meant Flash? (via oddhead)
Paul Graham asked the founders of the startups he's funded what they know now that didn't going in. Here's what they said.
I've been surprised again and again by just how much more important persistence is than raw intelligence.
Paul Graham on the difference between the "maker's schedule" and the "manager's schedule".
When you're operating on the maker's schedule, meetings are a disaster. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon, by breaking it into two pieces each too small to do anything hard in. Plus you have to remember to go to the meeting. That's no problem for someone on the manager's schedule. There's always something coming on the next hour; the only question is what. But when someone on the maker's schedule has a meeting, they have to think about it.
Graham is right on about this.
Update: Gina Trapani adds:
As a freelancer, I get lots of requests to "grab coffee" (as Graham describes) with folks who are just interested in seeing if working together is a possibility. Whenever that happens, my heart sinks. If I'm on deadline or deep in a programming project, grabbing coffee midday with someone I don't know and might not have any good business reason to talk to changes the tenor of the entire day. When I can, I usually I turn down these types of speculative meetings because the costs are too high-but I always feel bad about it, and never know how to word my response. (Generally I say, "Sorry I'm just too busy.")
A common misconception about freelancers is that they can do whatever they want whenever they want, but that's not actually true if you want to get anything done. Large chunks of uninterrupted time is the only thing that works.
