Paul Graham is a computer programmer, writer, and early-stage tech investor.
His startup fund, Y Combinator, helped start a bunch of famous companies, like Airbnb, Dropbox, DoorDash, Instacart, Zapier, and Reddit.
The total valuation of all Y Combinator companies is now over $400 billion. Y Combinator owns 7% of that, or roughly $30 billion.
Really, the only reason I know this is because I’ve been a regular reader of Hacker News for the past 14+ years.
Hacker News is a news board. Graham started it in 2006 as a way of sharing interesting ideas and getting connected to tech talent. Today, Hacker News gets over five million readers each month.
I’ve been thinking about creating something similar, just with a different focus. So I was curious to read Graham’s 2009 article, What I Learned From Hacker News, about the early experience of creating and running HN.
This bit stood out to me:
But what happened to Reddit won’t inevitably happen to HN. There are several local maxima. There can be places that are free for alls and places that are more thoughtful, just as there are in the real world; and people will behave differently depending on which they’re in, just as they do in the real world.
I’ve observed this in the wild. I’ve seen people cross-posting on Reddit and Hacker News who actually took the trouble to write two versions, a flame for Reddit and a more subdued version for HN.
Maybe this only stood out to me because something I’ve thought and written about before.
Your content, marketing, and offers select a certain type of audience. That much is obvious.
What is less obvious is that your content and marketing and offers also change people. Because none of us is only one type of person all the time.
So if you want an audience that’s smarter, that’s more respectful, that’s more thoughtful and less scatterbrained, then make it clear that’s what you expect. And lead by example.
This can be transformative in your everyday dealings with clients, customers, readers, and prospects. And who knows. It might even become the foundation on which you build a future online community.
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