← All Posts
Paul Graham essays are foundational startup reading. “Do Things That Don’t Scale.” “How to Get Startup Ideas.” “Mean People Fail.” If you’re a founder, you should have read them all.
You haven’t.
PG essays are 3,000-6,000 words. Dense, argumentative, full of ideas that reward careful reading. But “careful reading” requires 20-30 minutes of focused attention — a luxury most founders don’t have.
Save Paul Graham essay URLs to audiclip. Two AI hosts discuss the essay the next morning.
The two-host format is perfect for PG essays because they argue positions. The second host can push back: “But doesn’t this assume you have product-market fit?” “Is this advice still relevant in the AI era?” The debate makes you engage with the ideas more actively than reading would.
The essays every founder “should have” read:
Save them all. One per day. Five days of commute-length podcast episodes.
PG publishes new essays irregularly. Save each one as it drops. By the next morning, it’s part of your daily podcast alongside everything else you saved.
The essays you should have read. The format that actually works.