A long time ago, when compilers received stacks of punch cards and executed their contents once daily at midnight, a man named Paul Graham was born.  Raised in a town famous for steel and sandwiches filled with french fries, he found his way to Cornell, then Harvard, then ultimately to Silicon Valley.  He studied philosophy and art in addition to his doctoral work in Computer Science.

Some know him as the founder of Y Combinator (YC), others for Hacker News.   Many of us in the tech community are regular readers of his essays.  He has helped teach us how to write (simply), how to think (for ourselves), how to raise money, and even why many of us were unpopular.

We have thoughts of our own to share of course, but his aesthetic is preserved here as an homage. We’ve even recreated his page’s low-resolution images by applying a .045% blur as needed.

Want to do it yourself?

We built this offering as a theme for the popular non-profit blogging platform, Ghost. You can download the relevant package here:

We also purchased a license for the web version of FF Sero Pro Medium (which is available here).  That said, unless you intend to invest $75 on a one year license for 50k web views, we’d recommend Lato on Google Fonts (weight 400) for a close approximation. Otherwise, you can always take screenshots of your text and upload them as images as the original design intended.

Customizing the sidebar requires some light html editing, and the title should pull directly from Ghost.

If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, then hopefully, the object of our imitation is flattered.  His semantics and clarity of thought may be inimitable, but his aspirations of turning ideas into world-changing companies are not.

At AE, we aim to increase agency of developers, clients, and humans using technology everywhere.  We hope to unlock value that otherwise would never receive the energy and guidance it deserves.  What better footsteps to follow than Paul Graham’s?

I cannot code in Lisp.  There are many things I cannot say.

But here, we share our own ideas and our own experiences, with respect for those who continue to lead us and inspire.  

Enjoy.

No one works with an agency just because they have a clever blog. To work with my colleagues, who spend their days developing software that turns your MVP into an IPO, rather than writing blog posts, click here (Then you can spend your time reading our content from your yacht / pied-a-terre). If you can’t afford to build an app, you can always learn how to succeed in tech by reading other essays.