Ask YC:How did you first get to know about HN/Y Combinator?
I first got to know about Paul Graham/YCombinator and the "Hacker News" when I did a Google search for the term "web 2.0" way back in 2007. I read his essay and over the course of time I have probably read virtually all his essays which have been a great source of inspiration to me considering the fact that where I live (Lagos, Nigeria) still has a very poor hacker/startup and VC community.
Thats my story, so I would like to know how you first got to know about Paul Graham/YCombinator and Hacker News?
15 comments
I wanted to learn lisp a while ago, and stumbled on pg's ANSI Common Lisp after reading a few glowing reviews. Then I read some of his essays, then heard about YC, then arrived here. Don't remember exactly when I first saw this board or the day I registered, but haven't been able to stay away since.
I remember coming across a pg essay (via Google or Slashdot) a year or two ago then reading through a dozen more. That led to YC which lead to Jessica's book, Hackers News, and lots of hours learning web development (current career is in network architecture).
I moved to silicon valley in 07 and was (and still am) very interested in the bookmarking space... I was doing an analysis of delicious and came onto a link for startupschool, which I then applied to and got into, not really understanding anything of what was going on until after the event... So actually, Jessica Livingston told me about what YC was at a reception for startup school, which is probably a unique way to get an introduction, if not the best way to make a first impression. (:
I found out about Paul Graham through comp.lang.lisp. Way back in my freshman summer of college, I had an internship where I didn't really have very much or very important work to do, so I spent a lot of it reading about Lisp. Graham's name came up a lot, and his essays were interesting. Ended up reading On Lisp after that.
I moved over to Hacker News from Reddit the day it became publicly available.
I moved over to Hacker News from Reddit the day it became publicly available.
When kiko.com first came out and then I read about reddit.com. I then stumbled upon his essays and hid in the server room of work for two days to read them all in one sitting.
I'm still not rich yet.
I'm still not rich yet.
Beating the Averages (http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html) is one of pg's more famous essays, and I've seen it make it's way some tech sites a few times in the past ~5 years.
One of my articles got linked here, I found it in my referrer log.
I am not sure about how I came to hear of it, but I remember accessing the website in 2006 while looking at funding options for a startup I had in mind.
Wanted to purchase a lappy and a friend of mine posted my doubts here. Seeing the quality of response I started hanging out here regularly.
I think I saw something about YC on VentureBeat, but I didnt really start reading HN until an angel investor recommended it to me.
His essay on Lisp/HTML/Viaweb was a reading assignment in my Programming Languages class at Brown (thanks, Shriram!).
Saw it mentioned offhand in an article about "Hackers", which of course made me come and take a look
joel mentioned it in the SO podcast, i used to read reddit, but it seems so bad lately.
My adult son was talking about one of the articles he read by Paul Graham. I told him to send me the link.