Work
Putting Ideas into Words
Paul Graham · Passages from the same work, in order.
Putting Ideas into Words, Excerpt 1
Writing about something, even something you know well, usually shows you that you didn't know it as well as you thought. Putting ideas into words…
Direct reading
Leadership · Cognition · Decision · Entrepreneur memoirs
Putting Ideas into Words, Excerpt 2
Presumably there were others that turned out to be too broken to fix, and those you discarded instead. It's not just having to commit your ideas to…
Direct reading
Leadership · Action · Growth · Learning · Entrepreneur memoirs
Putting Ideas into Words, Excerpt 3
If he's not satisfied because you failed to mention x or didn't qualify some sentence sufficiently, then you mention x or add more qualifications.…
Direct reading
Action · Cognition · Leadership · Human nature · Entrepreneur memoirs
Putting Ideas into Words, Excerpt 4
Indeed, this is a trope in movies: the guy who claims to have a plan for doing some difficult thing, and who when questioned further, taps his head…
Direct reading
Action · Leadership · Human nature · Entrepreneur memoirs
Putting Ideas into Words, Excerpt 5
But this only seems possible with ideas you can express in a formal language. [ 1 ] Arguably what such people are doing is putting ideas into words…
Direct reading
Action · Cognition · Leadership · Human nature · Entrepreneur memoirs
Putting Ideas into Words, Excerpt 6
What I'm saying is that however much you learn from exploring ideas in other ways, you'll still learn new things from writing about them. Putting…
Direct reading
Leadership · Cognition · Growth · Learning · Entrepreneur memoirs
Putting Ideas into Words, Excerpt 7
Far from it. But though it's not a sufficient condition, it is a necessary one. Notes [ 1 ] Machinery and circuits are formal languages. [ 2 ] I…
Direct reading
Cognition · Leadership · Human nature · Entrepreneur memoirs