Paul Graham

When you're doing a deal with a large organization, find out if the people you're negotiating with actually have final say. Usually they don't, and that means the deal you've agreed upon can be, and often is, killed at the last minute by higher ups.

Here's a simpler version that works just as well in practice: when making a deal with a large organization, no matter what they say, assume the deal will be cancelled at the last moment.

This doesn't just mean "don't get your hopes up." It also has practical consequences. It means you should actively pursue other alternatives in parallel.

Though they may be composed of upstanding individuals, the structure of large organizations causes them to behave in ways that would be evil, if they were an individual person. So remember, whenever you're dealing with a large organization, you're also dealing with an evil one.

Jessica and Carolynn Levy have just launched a new podcast called The Social Radars. You get to be a fly on the wall as they talk to successful startup founders. It's really interesting. I've already learned a bunch of stuff I didn't know.

https://t.co/4mmNOWyTAO

One of the most remarkable things about this podcast is how different the episodes are from interviews. It's more like eavesdropping as Silicon Valley insiders talk shop. It's much deeper and more candid than anything you'd find in the press.

Since 10 yo's current career plans are field biology and fiction, on the drive to school I suggested he try combining them by inventing some fictional creatures. Agreeing that nothing could be more logical, he immediately set to work.

Hence the striped butter lizard, which exudes a toxic grease and is striped to warn predators; the arctic butter lizard, an invasive species accidentally brought north by Vikings; and the false butter lizard, which mimics the striped butter lizard to scare predators.

The first step to starting a startup has nothing to do with "entrepreneurship." It's to develop deep technical expertise of some sort, so that you look at the world with informed eyes.

What sort of technical expertise should you develop? Whatever you find most interesting. Don't try to second guess your own curiosity. It's smarter than your conscious mind.

And err on the side of having a broad definition of technical expertise. It doesn't just mean math and science and engineering. Though those are always good bets.

Changes in the colors of objects since 1800, from pictures of 7000 objects in the collections of UK science museums. https://t.co/DvVQrw3pcw

I was talking to some people familiar with Russia and the war in Ukraine, and they pointed out something I hadn't considered. Putin couldn't pull out even if he wanted to, because it would make him look so weak at home that he'd probably be ousted in a coup.

Since he can't hope to make advances, the best thing for him would be stasis. Gradually losing a long war of attrition doesn't sound like something anyone would want, but it might be his best option personally.

Amusing pattern I've noticed among great portraitists: they often paint their subjects to look like themselves.

Allan Ramsay, who had an underbite, often gives his sitters one. https://t.co/sqFzUXLqUH

Peter Lely, who had heavy lidded eyes and not much in the way of cheekbones gives the same look to his sitters. https://t.co/qlOlaLWrEW

Van Dyck, who had a pointy nose, did not minimize his sitters'. https://t.co/FC5idCcyfe

10 yo is preparing for a standardized test. He got a big encyclopedia of science from the school library that he reads during breaks. With great reluctance I had to tell him that science is not "on the test" and he should read dumb test-prep guides instead.

Right there is the suckage of so-called "aptitude" tests. They're meant to be something you can't prepare for. After all, how could preparing increase your aptitude? But you always can. So ambitious kids spend their time learning test-taking skills instead of actual knowledge.

I did at least give him the math test-prep guide. That comes the closest to actually teaching something.

This ranking of universities looks roughly correct. The big mistake in the article is the claim that the higher ranked universities are better at "producing" founders.
https://t.co/mad4l20LMV

In fact the recipe for having the most founders is simply to be (a) a great science and engineering school (b) in a place with lots of startups. The latter accounts for the difference between e.g. Stanford and CMU, not something Stanford does to prepare founders.

This has practical implications. It shows that there are a lot of students at schools like CMU who could start successful startups, but don't.

So if you're a CMU (or Cambridge or Johns Hopkins or University of Chicago) undergrad unsure whether to take that job at Google or start your own startup, start the startup, because the you who went to Stanford will.

This bold midcentury abstract expressionist painting https://t.co/6F87ofEWux

is about one square inch of a still life by Eliot Hodgkin. https://t.co/MVf7ZOpmpp

That's one reason I like realism. It's such a bargain! For the price of one good realistic painting and a magnifying glass, you get 181 abstract ones.

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