I could also go with full of himself, pompous, pretentious, more-boring-than-a-slatestarcodex-post-at-3AM-without-drugs, but incompetent is a good recap for a man whose career can be resumed as "got lucky during the dot com boom and has been riding that money ever since"
Paul Graham is a successful entrepreneur, investor, and essayist. He's done multiple things which have a global impact - YC and HN for example. He's made a billion plus dollars for himself. Calling him "incompetent" is, objectively, wrong.
And we all wished that he skipped the essays part, because it's a bunch of self centered bullshit from a man who got rich and had an easy life.
YC is not a miracle product. The man had money and said "Hey I'm going to give it to higher risk companies to get some money back". It takes zero ability. Venture capital has existed for centuries. He's a glorified bank, except my bank doesn't put out pompous essays on their blog at least.
HN, aside from being a great purveyor of laughably inaccurate comments does not nearly have the global impact you think it has. It's the laughing stock of most of the tech internet. But at least sometimes the links posted are good.
You're damn right, I'm fucking hilarious at parties. But maybe not the ones where it's just a bunch of VC bros.
Once again, you said it yourself. His accomplishments are "he made money" and "he found ways to give money". Let's not mention the fact that YC has funded many extremely dubious companies and that _giving money isn't work_. Had PG not been here, someone else would have had that money, and would have given it to startups. He's a glorified (quite bad) essayist with money.
I am not into VC parties either, and I have no intention of budding with anyone into the Silicon Valley life.
Anyway, I've heard lots of PG critics, and some of them I even say I'd admire because they actually did something of interest and according to their values. But you? You haven't shown anything of value that you can do. Let me repeat: I'd love to know more about your accomplishments.
My man, I am not looking for your admiration. And I'm not looking to make you an admirer either. Worship your billionaires all you want, and I have nothing to prove to you.
But if anything, you just keep proving that you might just have a talent for egregiously mind numbing, self absorbed essays just like PG
