You mean like the cult-like reverence for the pseudo-intellectual issues commentary on Twitter and Medium? The people who have less than a decade in the industry but are experts on compensation, ocracies, power dynamics, and psychology? The ones who work at Silicon Valley startups and lecture the entire industry about how things work, then surround themselves with like-minded people to have strength in numbers?
You are seeing respect for Paul Graham because, as flawed as some of his opinions might be, he also has the experience backing them. Louis CK said this best:
If you're under 40, I'm largely uninterested in your take on the world. That includes my own; I know I still have things to learn and I make a proactive effort to listen more than I talk. I don't always succeed.
I don't mean to get in the way of your hyperbole, but the person above you seemed to have no objection to "respecting" pg, he was taking issue with this:
"pg's response is actually priceless: it is like a soft-spoken witness upending a bullying lawyer who had just viciously attacked him, leaving the attacker reeling for all to see."
Which you don't mention at all in your response...
"If you're under 40, I'm largely uninterested in your take on the world. That includes my own; I know I still have things to learn and I make a proactive effort to listen more than I talk. I don't always succeed."
Are you actually being serious? Your brain works in such a way that any person who has lived less than 14,610 days couldn't possibly add any value to your life? I don't mean to be harsh but this could be the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. Certainly worse than anything I've seen on Medium.
If I was pg and this was these were the type of people and defenses that were coming to my aid, I would be mortified.
A day later I see no hyperbole here. If the logic one uses is:
-Should I listen to anything this person has to say or take value from their life experiences?
-Well I dunno, have they turned 40 yet.
Is very certainly in the top 5 dumbest things I've ever heard if not the dumbest. A human being going well out of their way to avoid learning things and gaining more experience. But thanks for contributing with the random insult. Hope it helped rebuild your self esteem?
"largely uninterested in your take on the world" is far from "couldn't possibly add any value"
Now I am 33 and I tend to ignore what most people my age and younger think about things like global politics or new programming languages. This has less to do with intelligence than perspective. Basically, if the 'Arab Spring seemed like a new and good thing you don't know enough about the situation to make informed commentary.
I find there's some truth to his philosophy, though. There doesn't seem to go even a week between my having said or thought something, and then realising I've been a fool or at best not quite correct in my reasoning.
I'm 25 years old, and it's been one of -if not the- most important discovery of my life so far that compared to those older than me, I know hilariously little about (all aspects of) life.
Of course young people add value, we do after all make our own world by our subjective views, but those older than you generally have had more time to explore more of those views, and have a much richer notion of how things are and can be.
> If you're under 40, I'm largely uninterested in your take on the world.
pg isnt peddling his "take on the world". He talks about serious academic topics in a chronically under and misinformed way. My 50 year old plumber knows jack about Metaphysics, Quantum Field Theory or Abstract Expressionism despite - as in a Louis CK bit - his seeing a dead body "one time".
If you want to have a fire-side chat with him - be my guest. But I ain't fetching the scribe because he's had a few decades wandering around.
>My 50 year old plumber knows jack about Metaphysics, Quantum Field Theory or Abstract Expressionism despite - as in a Louis CK bit - his seeing a dead body "one time".
Well, most of the stuff guys "under 40" think they know about "Metaphysics, Quantum Field Theory or Abstract Expressionism" are a half-understood mismash too (I'm not talking about someone with a PhD in Physics here).
And, as some they will find out later in life, not only knowledge of those "serious academic topics" doesn't matter as much as they thought, but also most of them are inherently bullshit too.
I agree that a lot of the time intellectual pursuits are misdirected ways of solving life's problems (though the worst culprit here is wealth acquisition, doubling the critique of pg here).
There is a kind of wisdom that arises through knowledge of oneself and other people that comes with age. A kind of knowledge which helps you predict what is going to be worthwhile, etc.
However we shouldnt fall into the trap of saying "academic persuits might leave you unsatisfied therefore you can be blase about them whilst discussing them". You cant dispense with the particulars of physics when discussing gravity because your interest in "the universe" owes to a unfulfilled religious need.
"age" is a different category of knowledge and doesnt excuse or justify glorified amateurism in another.
I see a lot of "two wrongs make a right" stuff here in rebuttals. The problem OP is pointing out is the cult like reverence for PG in this responders comments. Coming to his defense by pointing out that there are other authors on Medium and Twitter who also have a cult like reverence amongst their followers is a mis-direction at best. I think the point is non one deserves cult-like reverence. Maybe Ghandi but certainly no one sitting at the top of a money optimizing fountain.
I too was very uncomfortable when reading that paragraph. When I read comments like that I can see why it's possible that PG is starting to run into this recurring theme with the outside world. First it was a misunderstanding around founders with accents. Now it's a misunderstanding of women in technology. If he's becoming inadvertently surrounded with such adoring followers he's likely to find few of his assumptions challenged by such a receptive audience. He speaks, no one challenges him, he becomes emboldened. Then he speaks to a third party not under his spell and all heck breaks loose.
PG only suffers from trust/naivete in dealing with reporters. Here are some ways to avoid the tricks reporters play on those they interview:
1. Keep the interview short and stick to the script. This is what Laura Bush does better than almost anybody. Don't give reporters any "gotcha's" to their tricky line of questions.
2. If possible, do the inteview by email, not phone, videochat or in person. This way, you can give a considered response to their questions, which is what folks like PG excel at.
PG is not a professional interview giver. It shows.
And I'm no PG fan boy. I think his Startup = Growth article is flat out misleading w/r/t startups that start from a base of one user or one cent in revenue (to take extreme examples) and then say a startup is growing if it has 5% weekly growth.
What people (entrepreneurs, other investors, the public market) respect about PG is his judgment and pattern recognition. This comes from starting a few companies, and more importantly having the best seat in the house for watching new companies sprout and grow. This gives him pattern recognition well beyond most people. And this is why people respect what he has to say about both starting companies, and the raw inputs (people, ideas and money) needed to create them.
I suppose you wouldn't listen to Einstein when he was under 40 too, hmmm?
There are numerous examples of younger, less experienced people being in the right while the older, more experienced are at fault because of one thing or another. Of course, this is the exception, not the rule. However, less experienced people often have an interesting take on things that more experienced people miss. When you're 35 you might be better served reading a brilliant 35 year old's thoughts than a brilliant 55 year old's. In many ways, you may be able to better relate and understand the younger one's thoughts.
Did Einstein say something profound about social issues or people interactions when he was younger than 40? I don't say I agree that younger people have nothing of value to say in these areas, but I think you are mixing a bit different things there, experience in some field and life experience. And while age has some correlation with life experience it does not mean that someone older will be wiser at all.
>Did Einstein say something profound about social issues or people interactions when he was younger than 40?
Jefferson was 33 when he penned the Declaration of Independence. Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed when he was 39. Marx published The Communist Manifesto when he was 30.
Seriously, this list could go on for ages. Dismissing the perspective of youth is as indicative of an ignorance of history as youthful naivete.
"The ones who work at Silicon Valley startups and lecture the entire industry about how things work, then surround themselves with like-minded people to have strength in numbers" - Love this... this phenomenon sounds so familiar in my job I really think it should have a name. Anyone know if it has a name?
The first couple of years in industry you (generally) know you are a newb. It is that awkward 2-6 years of experience range where you a fair bit of experience but really you don't. You just aren't a newb.
People with high confidence in themselves often over estimate their experience around this time and look silly to anyone with actual experience.
I don't think 40 is some magical number. In fact many experiences that happened over 10 years ago in high tech starts to "fade" and become less relevant.
You are seeing respect for Paul Graham because, as flawed as some of his opinions might be, he also has the experience backing them. Louis CK said this best:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXcWeFn-YYM (NSFW in the latter half)
If you're under 40, I'm largely uninterested in your take on the world. That includes my own; I know I still have things to learn and I make a proactive effort to listen more than I talk. I don't always succeed.