Reading rank 190
Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age
, subject: Essay collection, 2004
Paul Graham's essays argue that product taste is built through practice, not handed over as a formula, and that relentlessness wins when it is aimed at the craft.
83
Coverage Score
6
Scored evidence
About the book
Published by O'Reilly in 2004, the collection sets out to explain the world of hackers and what motivates them. Graham singles out the chapters How to Make Wealth and Mind the Gap as treatments of economic ideas he finds widely misunderstood.
Why read it
Best if you are building a product and want an argument for developing design taste through practice and aiming your persistence at the craft itself.
Key themes
- Taste is built, not supplied
- Relentlessness aimed at the product
Evidence and original sources
Sources: official Founders episodes — #276, #277, #281, #287
This record is supported by 6 public evidence rows linked to original Founders episodes.
- Paul Graham’s Essays Part 2 — David says he has finished reading Hackers and Painters and that it will be the subject of the next Founders episode.
- Paul Graham's Essays Part 3 — David introduces this collection of Paul Graham essays as the book he is discussing throughout the episode.
- Working with Steve Jobs — David cites Hackers & Painters for the idea that product-design taste is built through sustained practice rather than supplied by a formula.
- The Founder of Rolls-Royce — David explicitly points back to Founders 277 and the Hackers & Painters essay while applying its relentlessness lesson to Henry Royce.