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You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss (2008)

https://paulgraham.com/boss.html
28•downbad_•2h ago

Comments

lordkrandel•36m ago
If I hear the argument of "naturality" and "natural design" I explode. We are "naturally" meant to die at 21, after getting whatever illness, never to move with massive transport, not even speak. 'cause all we naturally are is monkeys, right? AaaaaRGHHHH This argument makes me nuts
jjulius•18m ago
There's a lot more nuance to the "natural" conversation than the assumption that we should go back to stone tools and all die before we hit 25. I've not really seen someone with that general belief, and I'm one of them myself, argue for such an all-or-nothing approach.

It's about balance.

bradrn•16m ago
Or, as Terry Pratchett so eloquently put it in The Fifth Elephant:

> “Not natural, in my view, sah. Not in favor of unnatural things.”

> Vetinari looked perplexed. “You mean, you eat your meat raw and sleep in a tree?”

wavemode•14m ago
> We are "naturally" meant to die at 21

Not really? Historical life expectancies were low because it was so common to die in infancy and childhood (thus dragging down the "average").

For people who made it to 20, it was common to live past 60.

stabbles•12m ago
I think this is fair criticism. It's hard to read this blog cause its premise is based on an "appeal to nature" fallacy.
debo_•10m ago
I have been tired of this guy since I first saw him speak in 2006
microsoftedging•2m ago
I'm curious as to why? Regardless of the rest of his output or how you feel about him, this essay seems somewhat interesting (at least to me). There are many examples of where this applies and small teams appear to have an advantage (eg. Posthog).
zkmon•6m ago
I don't think the analogies of animals in the wild or groups of hunter-gatherer is correct to the modern companies. A better analogy is the teams who built pyramids or armies who empowered Alexander or the medieval peasant settlements who regulated societies.

It's not about acting on your own or achieving something for yourself. It's about building something which is only possible with collective effort of hundreds or thousands of humans. The size of such organization needs hierarchy, management and process.

Think of what processes and management was used for pyramid building. And what would have happened if the workers worked without a boss and process.

wavemode•6m ago
None of what pg writes here is factually wrong per se, but he is obviously making a bigger deal out of a lot of these things than they really are (that is, he was obviously writing this to convince more people to start and join startups - hopefully at YC).

Some people (most people?) are perfectly happy with just working a stable job within a giant corporation. Either because they are capable of still finding fulfillment from work despite not having so much control (the kind of control that people who start businesses tend to crave), and/or because they find their fulfillment outside of work entirely.

Dav2d

https://jbkempf.com/blog/2026/dav2d/
253•captain_bender•3h ago•71 comments

Cloudflare Turnstile requiring fingerprintable WebGL

https://hacktivis.me/articles/cloudflare-turnstile-webgl-fingerprinting
75•HypnoticOcelot•1h ago•30 comments

The solution might be cancelling my AI subscription

https://thoughts.hmmz.org/2026-05-31.html
30•dmw_ng•58m ago•10 comments

The Website Specification

https://specification.website/
319•k1m•8h ago•130 comments

London's Free Roof Terraces

https://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2026/05/londons-free-roof-terraces.html
178•zeristor•8h ago•90 comments

I Put a Datacenter GPU in My Gaming PC for £200

https://blog.tymscar.com/posts/v100localllm/
82•birdculture•1h ago•44 comments

Restartable Sequences

https://justine.lol/rseq/
6•grappler•42m ago•0 comments

Domain expertise has always been the real moat

https://www.brethorsting.com/blog/2026/05/domain-expertise-has-always-been-the-real-moat/
741•aaronbrethorst•18h ago•437 comments

The people who actually want AI to replace humanity

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/489976/ai-successionism-transhumanism-posthumanism
44•plastic-enjoyer•1h ago•38 comments

Security Envelope Pattern collection – S.E.C.R.E.T

https://secret-archive.org/
51•ColinWright•2d ago•5 comments

Shantell Sans (2023)

https://shantellsans.com/process
334•aleda145•17h ago•40 comments

One year of Roto, a compiled scripting language for Rust

https://blog.nlnetlabs.nl/one-year-of-roto-the-compiled-scripting-language-for-rust/
82•Hasnep•2d ago•17 comments

Frost: [Browser] Fingerprinting Remotely Using OPFS-Based SSD Timing [pdf]

https://hannesweissteiner.com/pdfs/frost.pdf
3•simjnd•1h ago•1 comments

The AV2 Video Standard Has Released (Final v1.0 Specification)

https://av2.aomedia.org
285•ksec•17h ago•127 comments

The "Stars" of Titanic (2012)

https://blogs.loc.gov/inside_adams/2012/04/the-stars-of-titanic/
5•tosh•2d ago•0 comments

A Gentle Introduction to Lattice-Based Cryptography [pdf]

https://cryptography101.ca/wp-content/uploads/lattice-based-cryptography.pdf
125•jayhoon•2d ago•10 comments

I found a seashell in the middle of the desert

https://github.com/Hawzen/I-found-a-seashell-in-the-middle-of-the-desert#i-found-a-seashell-in-th...
371•Hawzen•2d ago•101 comments

Avian Visitors

https://theodore.net/projects/AvianVisitors/
87•fdb•9h ago•7 comments

Inkstravaganza

https://www.inkandswitch.com/newsletter/dispatch-015/
11•surprisetalk•3d ago•2 comments

Show HN: Atomic Editor – Obsidian-style live preview for CodeMirror 6

https://kenforthewin.github.io/atomic-editor/
8•kenforthewin•2h ago•1 comments

Show HN: Breathe CLI – Paced resonance breathing in the macOS terminal

https://github.com/marekkowalczyk/breathe-cli
77•marekkowalczyk•18h ago•10 comments

Telli (YC F24) is hiring in engineering, design, and GTM [Berlin, on-site]

https://hi.telli.com/join-us
1•sebselassie•8h ago

You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss (2008)

https://paulgraham.com/boss.html
29•downbad_•2h ago•10 comments

A pictorial introduction to differential geometry (2017)

https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.08492
87•ricudis•9h ago•2 comments

Racket v9.2

https://blog.racket-lang.org/2026/05/racket-v9-2.html
209•spdegabrielle•3d ago•20 comments

Folding Beijing

https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/folding-beijing-2/
5•root-parent•30m ago•0 comments

Associative learning turns DEET from aversive to appetitive in Aedes aegypti

https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/229/10/jeb251935/371741/Associative-learning-switches...
57•croes•2d ago•25 comments

Mechanical Pencil: An illustrated celebration of the engineering around us

https://mechanical-pencil.com/
141•Muhammad523•14h ago•17 comments

Accenture to acquire Ookla

https://newsroom.accenture.com/news/2026/accenture-to-acquire-ookla-to-strengthen-network-intelli...
309•Garbage•22h ago•156 comments

What it's like to have your insulin pump die while you're on vacation

https://blog.lauramichet.com/what-its-like-to-have-the-machine-that-keeps-you-alive-die-while-you...
45•speckx•2d ago•44 comments