Before Hacker News, and the wealth of Paul Graham essays that came with it, there was, for me, ignorance.
Of course, I'd heard about the "dotcom boom", and, being a geek, I stayed relatively on the bleeding edge of tools and web-based startups. Hell, I even knew about Ruby on Rails and Basecamp. But the landscape of "learning about startups" was largely made up of the typical books you find in your average library, about "how to deal with your company finances", "10 steps to marketing success" and other dispiriting works, along with more inspiring but largely useless biographies of successful businessmen.
So, when I stumbled upon this treasure trove of startup lore, it shaped my view of entrepreneurship for years to come. Thank you, Paul, for putting so much valuable insight online.
