Agent-Skills.md

Agent Skills: Paul Graham Wisdom

Apply Paul Graham's principles when exploring ideas, evaluating opportunities, building products, or making important decisions. Use this skill when brainstorming, validating ideas, planning ventures, thinking through problems, or needing a framework for clear thinking. Triggers include "evaluate this idea", "should I pursue this", "help me think through", "is this worth doing", "startup idea", "opportunity analysis", or any creative/strategic thinking task.

UncategorizedID: atalovesyou/claude-skills-pack/paul-graham-wisdom

Repository

atalovesyou/claude-skills-pack
atalovesyou
1

Skill Files

Browse the full folder contents for paul-graham-wisdom.

Download Skill

Loading file tree…

skills/paul-graham-wisdom/SKILL.md

Skill Metadata

Name
paul-graham-wisdom
Description
Apply Paul Graham's principles when exploring ideas, evaluating opportunities, building products, or making important decisions. Use this skill when brainstorming, validating ideas, planning ventures, thinking through problems, or needing a framework for clear thinking. Triggers include "evaluate this idea", "should I pursue this", "help me think through", "is this worth doing", "startup idea", "opportunity analysis", or any creative/strategic thinking task.

Paul Graham Wisdom

Apply these principles when exploring ideas, validating opportunities, or making decisions.

The Idea Evaluation Framework

Is This a Real Problem?

  1. Live in the future, then build what's missing - The best ideas emerge from being at the edge of a field and noticing gaps
  2. Look for problems, not ideas - Start with genuine pain points you experience, not abstract brainstorming
  3. The schlep test - If you unconsciously avoid an idea because it involves tedious work, that's often where the opportunity lies. Ask: "What problem do I wish someone else would solve?"
  4. Depth over breadth - Acute needs for a small group beat mild needs for many. Microsoft started with just a couple thousand Altair owners who desperately needed software
  5. The "toy" signal - If critics dismiss something as a "toy," it may have everything except scale. Microcomputers, search engines, and Facebook were all called toys

Is This Worth Pursuing?

  1. The Bus Ticket Theory - Great work requires disinterested obsession with a topic that matters. Pursue what you'd pursue even without external rewards
  2. The spare time test - Would you work on this during free time while supporting yourself another way?
  3. What doesn't seem like work? - Your genuine interests reveal what you should pursue
  4. Curiosity as compass - Pursue what you're excessively curious about. Curiosity is the ultimate guide

Am I the Right Person?

  1. Three ingredients - Natural ability + determination + obsessive interest in the topic
  2. The intersection advantage - Combining expertise across different fields reveals problems one domain hasn't solved
  3. Become the expert - Know your domain thoroughly. Surface-level knowledge gets exposed immediately
  4. Youth advantages - Fresh eyes, freedom from conventional assumptions, understanding of emerging behaviors

The Thinking Framework

How to Think Independently

  1. Fastidiousness about truth - Carefully calibrate your degree of belief rather than rushing to extremes
  2. Resistance to being told what to think - A positive force, not merely immunity to convention
  3. Curiosity - The primary source of novel ideas. Indulging it increases rather than satisfies it
  4. Keep your identity small - The fewer labels you claim, the better your reasoning. Identity impairs clear thinking
  5. Question the status quo - Challenge what you take for granted. Ask "Is that true?" about every claim

Avoiding Mental Traps

  1. The top idea in your mind - Your shower thoughts reveal what actually occupies you. Guard what becomes your dominant idea
  2. Disputes are toxic - Controversies crowd out substantive work. Avoid them
  3. Don't hack tests - Optimize for genuine quality, not proxies. The lesson to unlearn from school
  4. Schlep blindness - Your unconscious filters out ideas involving difficult work before you consciously evaluate them
  5. The unsexy filter - Similar to schlep blindness, but for problems you find distasteful

Productive Thinking Practices

  1. Good procrastination - Postpone small stuff to focus on work with obituary potential. Let delight pull you forward
  2. Maker's schedule - Creative work requires half-day minimum blocks. A single meeting can destroy an afternoon
  3. Write to think - There is a kind of thinking that only happens through writing
  4. Carry unanswered questions - They seed future discoveries through background processing

The Execution Framework

Getting Started

  1. Begin with the simplest thing that could possibly work - Start small and evolve through successive versions
  2. Do things that don't scale - Manually recruit users, provide extreme customer attention, solve problems by hand
  3. Early work looks unimpressive - Great projects pass through an embarrassing phase. Push through
  4. Being a noob is good - The discomfort of inexperience correlates with learning novel things

Building and Iterating

  1. Growth as compass - Measure weekly growth rates. 5-7% weekly is a good benchmark
  2. Get initial versions to audiences quickly - Users are the only real proof you've created value
  3. Iterate relentlessly - When nothing works, tweak and try again. Every viable market has winning permutations
  4. Compound advantage - Small daily progress compounds exponentially. Consistency matters more than volume

The Work Ethic

  1. Determination over intelligence - The strongest predictor of success. Willfulness + discipline + ambition
  2. Relentlessly resourceful - Actively shape outcomes rather than accepting them. Adapt mid-play like a running back
  3. Balance effort types - Focused work blocks + undirected thinking (walking, showering, resting)
  4. Protect morale - The basis of everything on ambitious projects. Physical health enables thinking

The Quality Framework

Standards for Excellence

  1. Be aggressively willing to admit you're mistaken - Intellectual honesty enables better work
  2. Aim for 100-year value - Create work people will value in a century
  3. Formidable is justifiably confident - Not fake swagger, but conviction from genuine understanding
  4. Earnestness - Do things for the right reasons while trying as hard as possible

Communication Standards

  1. Write like you talk - Would you say this to a friend? Use that as your filter
  2. Write simply - Simple language makes mistakes obvious and respects readers' time
  3. Correctness with precision - Make claims as strong as possible without becoming false
  4. Explain to convince yourself first - If you can't explain it concisely, you don't understand it

The People Framework

Who to Work With

  1. Seek the best colleagues - Quality trumps quantity dramatically. They make the difference between great work and none
  2. Formidable founders - Investors decide within minutes. Conviction from genuine understanding
  3. Mean people fail - Meanness makes you stupid, repels talent, and focuses you on fighting instead of creating
  4. Work with people who energize you - Avoid those who deplete you

Team Dynamics

  1. Small groups enable measurement - Individual contributions become visible
  2. 2-4 founders ideal - Quick decisions without factions
  3. Technical founders essential - For technology ventures, you need builders

The Environment Framework

Where You Work

  1. Cities send messages - Different cities value different types of ambition. Place yourself where your goals are valued
  2. Discouragement outweighs encouragement - Few can keep working on something no one around them cares about
  3. Geographic clustering drives innovation - Proximity to peers and shared ambition accelerates achievement

How to Structure Time

  1. Eliminate distractions - Don't pursue side projects when building something important
  2. Protect uninterrupted blocks - Knowledge of upcoming meetings depresses morale
  3. Stay default alive - Spend as little as possible to extend runway

The Superlinear Returns Principle

Returns on performance are not linear. In fields with superlinear returns:

  1. A few big winners outperform everyone else - This includes science, investing, art, startups
  2. Success enables further success - More knowledge helps you learn faster
  3. Independent-mindedness required - Your ideas must be correct AND novel
  4. Starting is hard - Initial efforts yield small visible returns. Push through to where the curve steepens

Quick Reference: Key Questions

When exploring any idea, ask:

  • [ ] Problem: Is this a real problem I've experienced, or am I making up a solution?
  • [ ] Obsession: Would I work on this even without external rewards?
  • [ ] Schlep: Am I avoiding this because it's hard, or because it's wrong?
  • [ ] Identity: Am I defending this idea because it's good, or because it's "mine"?
  • [ ] Depth: Does this solve an acute need for someone, or a mild need for everyone?
  • [ ] Scale path: Is there a clear expansion from initial users to a larger market?
  • [ ] Conviction: Can I explain why this works to a skeptical expert?
  • [ ] Energy: Does working on this energize me or drain me?
  • [ ] 100-year test: Would this still matter in a century?

Source Essays

For deeper exploration, key essays include:

  • "How to Do Great Work" - Comprehensive framework for excellence
  • "How to Get Startup Ideas" - Problem-finding methodology
  • "Do Things that Don't Scale" - Early-stage execution
  • "Schlep Blindness" - Uncovering hidden opportunities
  • "How to Think for Yourself" - Independent-mindedness
  • "The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius" - On obsessive interest
  • "Superlinear Returns" - Why inequality in outcomes
  • "Keep Your Identity Small" - Clear thinking
  • "Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule" - Time management
  • "Relentlessly Resourceful" - Founder mindset

All essays available at paulgraham.com/articles.html