Paul Graham: What does it mean to do things that don't scale?

less than 1m read

·Nov 3, 2024

Processing might take a few minutes. Refresh later.

What doing things that don't scale means specifically is doing things in a sort of handmade, artisanal, painstaking way that you feel like, yeah, it would be great if you could do things that way forever. But you, in the back of your mind, think to yourself, well, there's no way we can keep doing this and become giant.

What doing things that don't scale means is do those things early on anyway, because you know if you don't do them, you'll never be big. You've got nothing to lose, and also you learn a lot from it. You learn a lot.

So, I discovered a lot of these things that we teach startups at Y Combinator, or you teach startups at Y Combinator. I'm retired; I don't know if you know that. But a lot of the things you guys teach startups are things that I hit myself and didn't realize that they were actually common startup lessons.

One of them is doing things very manually for your early customers. Like, it's so important to get early customers that if you have to do a ton of manual stuff, that's okay. You'll learn a lot from it.

Experiencing the currents of the coral reef | Never Say Never with Jeff Jenkins

Hinduism Introduction: Core ideas of Brahman, Atman, Samsara and Moksha | History | Khan Academy

View All

Media as a linkage institution | Political participation | US government and civics | Khan Academy

You have a government and you also have the people that are governed. In previous videos, we talked about this idea of linkage institutions, which are institutions that connect the government to the people and the people to the government. So, people know…

Marc Andreessen at Startup School SV 2016

Okay, so, uh, up next we have a fireside chat with, uh, Mark Andreessen. Uh, come on out, Mark! I think he’s right back. [Applause] There, they know who you are. No introductions needed. So, uh, thanks for coming back. This is, uh, your third startup scho…

Worked example: coefficient in Maclaurin polynomial | Series | AP Calculus BC | Khan Academy

Nth derivative of g at x equals 0 is given by. So the nth derivative of G evaluated at x equal 0 is equal to n + 7 over n 3r for n is greater than or equal to 1. What is the coefficient for the term containing x^2 in the McLaurin series of G? So let’s ju…

The Unspoken Rules of Society

You wake up in the morning, head outside and you say good morning to your next-door neighbor. You walk down the street and you see a familiar face, so you nodded them to let them know that you acknowledge them. You get into a bus and an old lady walks in …

Synesthesia: The 6th Sense

These are the words of one Albert Einstein. His love for music is well documented. There are many pictures of him indulging himself in the tones of his violin, seemingly oblivious to the rest of the world. As anyone who has ever loved music would know, ou…

Getting interviewed by my interns.

Josh: “Have any more questions? Can you expand more about how Co impacted the industry and the lasting effects we still see today? When Co first hit us, everybody thought the end of the world was here, right? Everybody locked themselves in the houses; th…

Paul Graham: What does it mean to do things that don't scale?

More Articles