Paul Graham：Billionaires Build, Excerpt 6

So that's what YC looks for in founders: authenticity. People's motives for starting startups are usually mixed. They're usually doing it from some combination of the desire to make money, the desire to seem cool, genuine interest in the problem, and unwillingness to work for someone else. The last two are more powerful motivators than the first two. It's ok for founders to want to make money or to seem cool. Most do. But if the founders seem like they're doing it just to make money or just to seem cool, they're not likely to succeed on a big scale. The founders who are doing it for the money will take the first sufficiently large acquisition offer, and the ones who are doing it to seem cool will rapidly discover that there are much less painful ways of seeming cool.

Source： https://paulgraham.com/ace.html
Locator：Essay, additional excerpt 6 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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