Paul Graham
Born 1964 · Age 61
English-American computer scientist, programmer, essayist, entrepreneur, investor; co‑founder of Viaweb and Y Combinator; author of On Lisp, ANSI Common Lisp, Hackers & Painters; creator of Arc and Bel and of Hacker News.
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Life & Career Timeline
Family moved from England to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Graham and his family moved to Pittsburgh, where he later attended Gateway High School.
First experience programming on IBM 1401
At about 9th grade (age 13–14) Graham first used his school district's IBM 1401 and learned early Fortran-style programming and punch-card workflow.
Family bought TRS-80 microcomputer
Around 1980 his father bought a TRS-80; Graham began programming games, a model-rocket predictor, and a word processor.
Received BA (Philosophy) from Cornell University
Completed Bachelor of Arts (major: philosophy) at Cornell University.
Received MS in Computer Science from Harvard
Completed Master of Science in Computer Science at Harvard University.
Accepted to art schools (RISD and Accademia) and studied painting
Applied to and studied painting at Rhode Island School of Design and (briefly) the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence.
Rapidly completed dissertation in weeks (personal milestone)
Wrote and submitted dissertation in a short timespan (five weeks) to graduate that June.
PhD (Computer Science) from Harvard; thesis
Awarded Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Computer Science from Harvard; thesis titled 'The State of a Program and Its Uses'.
Worked at Interleaf (early professional job)
Took a software job at Interleaf (document software) where he worked with a Lisp dialect and earned money while continuing Lisp work.
Returned to RISD to continue art studies
Moved back to Providence to continue at RISD (foundation and painting studies).
Dropped out of RISD; moved to New York
Left art school in 1993, moved to New York (Yorkville) to pursue painting and writing while also planning to write another Lisp book.
Published On Lisp (book)
On Lisp: advanced techniques for Common Lisp (Prentice Hall). (Referenced in sources as 1993/1994 publication timeframe.)
Founded Viaweb (with Robert Morris)
Co‑founded Viaweb (later Yahoo! Store) to let users create and host online stores; Trevor Blackwell recruited soon after.
Seed funding from Julian Weber for Viaweb
Received $10,000 seed funding from Julian Weber in exchange for ~10% of Viaweb (early seed deal that later inspired Y Combinator's model).
Prototype of Viaweb web-app storefront built (first working web app)
With Robert Morris they prototyped a browser‑controllable online store editor; August 12 prototype proved web app approach was feasible.
Viaweb opened for business (6 stores)
Viaweb launched publicly with six stores in January 1996.
Published ANSI Common Lisp (book)
ANSI Common Lisp (Prentice Hall), Grokking Common Lisp and language techniques; Graham painted the cover illustration around this time.
Viaweb pricing set; early product strategy
Viaweb charged about $100/month for small stores and $300/month for larger stores — positioning as low‑end, easy option.
Viaweb growth milestone: ~70 stores
By end of 1996 Viaweb had roughly 70 hosted stores.
Viaweb growth milestone: ~500 stores
By end of 1997 Viaweb hosted about 500 stores (approx. 7x growth year‑over‑year noted in retrospective).
Purchased a yellow 1998 VW GTI (personal milestone)
After the Yahoo acquisition Graham bought a car (a yellow 1998 VW GTI) as a personal luxury purchase.
Estimated net worth jump after Viaweb→Yahoo exit
Following the Yahoo acquisition of Viaweb, Graham's personal net worth increased substantially (company sold for ~ $49.6M in Yahoo stock; founders/investor splits not public).
Viaweb acquired by Yahoo! (became Yahoo! Store)
Yahoo! acquired Viaweb for 455,000 shares of Yahoo! stock, valued at ~$49.6 million at the time; product became Yahoo! Store.
Left Yahoo after options vested
Stayed with Yahoo through option vesting and left in summer 1999 to pursue painting and other projects.
Announced work on Arc (new Lisp dialect)
Announced development of Arc, a new Lisp dialect; the language was discussed in essays and used in internal YC projects.
Started publishing essays on paulgraham.com
Began posting influential essays (e.g., 'Beating the Averages', 'Why Nerds are Unpopular'); site later reached millions of pageviews/year.
Essay 'Beating the Averages' popularized 'Blub paradox'
Wrote 'Beating the Averages' (essay explaining Lisp advantages and the hypothetical 'Blub' language, later collected in Hackers & Painters).
US patent issued related to Viaweb webapps
Patent (Method for client‑server communications through a minimal interface, US Patent No. 6,205,469) issued based on Viaweb work.
Published Hackers & Painters (book)
O'Reilly published Hackers & Painters: essays on programming, design, startups and art (collection of earlier essays included).
Gave talk 'How to Start a Startup' (Harvard Computer Society)
Talk later published as an essay and became the conceptual seed for Y Combinator's founder guidance and curriculum.
Co‑founded Y Combinator (with Livingston, Blackwell, Morris)
Launched Y Combinator, a new model of startup accelerator/seed fund (originated after Graham's 'How to Start a Startup' talk/essay).
Hacker News created (first as 'Startup News')
To test Arc and to serve founders, Graham built a news aggregator originally called Startup News that became Hacker News (HN).
Hacker News becomes persistent tech community
Hacker News (HN) evolved into a major news aggregator and community for technology/startup discussion; implemented in Arc.
Named by BusinessWeek as one of 'The 25 Most Influential People on the Web'
BusinessWeek included Paul Graham in its 2008 list recognizing influential web figures.
Published essay 'How to Disagree' (Graham's hierarchy)
Wrote the influential 7‑point 'hierarchy of disagreement' essay describing argumentative styles.
Recognized as influential 'hacker philosopher'
Technology journalist Steven Levy described Graham as a 'hacker philosopher'—reflecting his public intellectual status in tech/essays.
Released Arc (language) publicly
Arc (new Lisp dialect) publicly released on January 29, 2008; later used to implement Hacker News and other projects.
Married Jessica Livingston
Paul Graham married Jessica Livingston (co‑founder of Y Combinator) in 2008.
Announced he was expecting his first child
Publicly noted that he and Jessica Livingston were expecting their first child (January 2009 post).
Policy change: SOPA supporters excluded from YC Demo Days
In late 2011 Graham announced companies supporting SOPA would not be invited to Y Combinator's Demo Day events.
Offered YC presidency to Sam Altman
With other founders' agreement Graham offered the ongoing presidency of Y Combinator to Sam Altman (transition move).
Estimated net worth after years at Y Combinator and angel investing
By stepping back from YC, Graham had accumulated significant wealth from the Viaweb exit, YC equity/investments and personal angeling; public exact net worth not published.
Stepped down from day‑to‑day role at Y Combinator
Announced he was stepping back from daily operations at Y Combinator (Feb 2014).
Moved back to England (established permanent residence)
Graham and family moved to and have maintained a permanent residence in England since 2016.
Announced Bel (a new Lisp dialect written in itself)
Published a specification/essay for Bel (a Lisp dialect implemented in Arc/itself) in October 2019.
Y Combinator portfolio and influence milestone
Y Combinator had funded many hundreds–thousands of startups (sources vary: 1,300+ startups referenced by Wikipedia; paulgraham.com referenced 3,000+ as YC scaled).
Published 'What I Worked On' essay and retrospective
Composed a long autobiographical essay 'What I Worked On' summarizing career, projects and lessons (published online March 2021).
Public confirmation of birth place and residence via social media
Tweets and public posts reiterating birthplace (Weymouth, England) and residency details (living in England since 2016).
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