Paul Graham：Earnestness, Excerpt 3

Jessica Livingston's brain , that's what her x-ray vision is seeking out in founders. Earnestness! Who'd have guessed? Reporters literally can't believe it when founders making piles of money say that they started their companies to make the world better. The situation seems made for mockery. How can these founders be so naive as not to realize how implausible they sound? Though those asking this question don't realize it, that's not a rhetorical question. A lot of founders are faking it, of course, particularly the smaller fry, and the soon to be smaller fry. But not all of them. There are a significant number of founders who really are interested in the problem they're solving mainly for its own sake. Why shouldn't there be?

Source： https://paulgraham.com/earnest.html
Locator：Essay, additional excerpt 3 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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