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Published · transcript-backed

Paul Graham: observation

9 Aug 2023 Conversations with Tyler Paul Graham on Ambition, Art, and Evaluating Talent

“I’m sure someone is building some good houses somewhere. The point is, you don’t really need to, and so it only happens by accident.”

— Paul Graham

Source trail

Everything needed to verify it.

Speaker
Paul Graham
Attribution
Verified speaker
Claim type
observation
Recorded
9 Aug 2023
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

Transcript context

…Okay, but that’s 70 years ago. Now, I mean, we haven’t done anything in 70 years? What’s your model of that? I’m sure someone is building some good houses somewhere. The point is, you don’t really need to, and so it only happens by accident. The developers mostly are thinking, “We need to just turn this land into houses as soon as possible. The buyers don’t have any taste. We don’t need to sweat that, so we’ll just build random houses that look big and have large master bedrooms. People will buy them. We’ll get our capital back and go on and do the next one.” They don’t need to be good. Houses don’t need to be good. They didn’t need to be beautiful in the old days, either. It was just technology was so constrained, you didn’t have any choice. You get to go back in time. Your health is guaranteed, and you know whichever languages you might need, and you spend six months somewhere safe. Your safety is guaranteed. Where do you choose?…

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