Full review and highlights at https://books.max-nova.com/hackers-and-painters/

I was looking at my highlights for Paul Graham's "Hackers and Painters" and it seems like I basically highlighted the entire book. It's that good.

At its core, this is a book about how changes in technology (particularly computer tech) has changed economic and social realities... and the new breed of tech-savvy doers that these technological shifts have brought to the forefront of our society.

Graham begins at the beginning of the alpha-nerd's journey - middle school. He launches a withering salvo of criticism at the current educational system - a system which he fashions more of a prison than a temple of learning. He's a sharp critic of what he proclaims "the emptiness of school life" and he points out that "Misrule breeds rebellion" (in reference to troubled schools). Graham also contends that the total lack of real purpose in schools is the root of the crazy teenage drama that goes on in middle schools and high schools around the country.

He moves on to discussing the role of "makers" in society - from the eponymous hackers to painters. He makes a great observation - which is that while both of these professions involve creating things, painting has a far longer tradition of training and educating its practitioners. Graham notes that almost all great programmers are self-taught, but the lack of a good training regimen for programmers means that society misses out on a lot of potentially great hackers.

Graham touches on the often subversive, counter-authority, and contrarian culture of hackers - noting, "Whatever the reason, there seems a clear correlation between intelligence and willingness to consider shocking ideas." He goes on a bit of a (justified) rant against political correctness and moral fashions - noting that, "when people are bad at open mindedness, they don't know it. In fact they tend to think the opposite. Remember, it's the nature of fashion to be invisible. It wouldn't work otherwise"

He also emphasizes how goddam patriotic it is to be a hacker: "There is such a thing as American-ness. There's nothing like living abroad to teach you that. And if you want to know whether something will nurture or squash this quality, it would be hard to find a better focus group than hackers, because they come closest of any group I know to embodying it." He pulls in a great Jefferson quote too:

"When you read what the founding fathers had to say for themselves, they sound more like hackers. "The spirit of resistance to government," Jefferson wrote, "is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive." Imagine an American president saying that today. Like the remarks of an outspoken old grandmother, the sayings of the the founding fathers have embarrassed generations of their less confident successors. They remind us where we come from. They remind us that it is the people who break rules that are the source of America's wealth and power."

In the next section of the book, Graham discusses the nature of writing code itself. He emphasizes the design and complexity of software - "designing web-based software is like designing a city rather than a building: as well as buildings you need roads, street signs, utilities, police and fire departments, and plans for both growth and various kinds of disasters." He notes that, "with the rise of industrialization there are fewer and fewer craftsmen. One of the biggest remaining groups is computer programmers"

Graham's next topic is on wealth creation - and why startups are so good at it. He claims that "I think every one who gets rich by their own efforts will be found to be in a situation with measurement and leverage. Everyone I can think of does: CEOs, movie stars, hedge fund managers, professional athletes. A good hint to the presence of leverage is the possibility of failure." He also puts forth some pretty bold historical analysis: "Understanding this may help to answer an important question: why Europe grew so powerful. Was it something about the geography of Europe? Was it that Europeans are somehow racially superior? Was it their religion? The answer (or at least the proximate cause) may be that the Europeans rode on the crest of a powerful new idea: allowing those who made a lot of money to keep it."

He pulls out a few great examples of technology fundamentally reshaping society, noting "But it was not till the Industrial Revolution that wealth creation definitively replaced corruption as the best way to get rich. In England, at least, corruption only became unfashionable (and in fact only started to be called "corruption") when there started to be other, faster ways to get rich... Technology had made it possible to create wealth faster than you could steal it. The prototypical rich man of the nineteenth century was not a courtier but an industrialist."

In regards to the increasing income gap, Graham says, "Will technology increase the gap between rich and poor? It will certainly increase the gap between the productive and the unproductive. That's the whole point of technology... Technology should increase the gap in income, but it seems to decrease other gaps. A hundred years ago, the rich led a different kind of life from ordinary people. They lived in houses full of servants, wore elaborately uncomfortable clothes, and travelled about in carriages drawn by teams of horses which themselves required their own houses and servants. Now, thanks to technology, the rich live more like the average person."

A great money quote from Graham is, "It's absolute poverty you want to avoid, not relative poverty. If, as the evidence so far implies, you have to have one or the other in your society, take relative poverty. You need rich people in your society not so much because in spending their money they create jobs, but because of what they have to do to get rich. I'm not talking about the trickle-down effect here. I'm not saying that if you let Henry Ford get rich, he'll hire you as a waiter at his next party. I'm saying that he'll make you a tractor to replace your horse."

The rest of the book is a rant on programming languages and a lot of love for the esoteric Lisp programming language. Probably not of general interest.

Overall though, this book really blew me away. Everything he says seems obvious in retrospect, but that's because he's a genius. The way he approaches this immense topic is totally unique among all the stuff I've read and Graham certainly has the credentials to back it up. Required reading for citizens of the 21st century.

Hackers & Painters - Likewise Book Reviews

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