Before the Startup with Paul Graham (How to Start a Startup 2014: Lecture 3)

That's short, like long introductions are no good. Um, Sam knows. Uh, all right, ready, everybody? I'm not going to ask if the mic is working like in every talk so far. Um, I'll just assume it's working. I mean, no. [Applause] All right, well, make it work somebody.

All right, so this is like some kind of class tradition. Um, all right, all right, I wrote out my talk, and afterwards, in a couple of days, I will like turn it from a talk into an essay and put it online, so you don't have to take notes. Just listen.

All right, so one of the advantages of having kids is that when you have to give advice to people, you can ask yourself, "What would I tell my own kids?" And actually, you find this really focuses you. Um, so even though my kids are little—my two-year-old today, when asked what he was going to be after, he said a bat. The correct answer was three, but a bat is so much more interesting.

So, even though my kids are little, I already know what I would tell them about startups if they were in college, and so that is what I'm going to tell you. So you're literally getting what I would give my own kids. Most of you are young enough to be my own kids.

All right, so startups are very counterintuitive, and I'm not sure exactly why. It could be simply because knowledge about them has not permeated our culture yet. But whatever the reason, this is an area where you cannot trust your intuitions all the time. It's like skiing in that way. Any of you guys learn to ski as adults?

You know, when you're skiing, when you first try skiing and you want to slow down, your first