You are seeing respect for Paul Graham because, as flawed as some of his opinions might be, he also has the experience backing them. Louis CK said this best:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXcWeFn-YYM (NSFW in the latter half)
If you're under 40, I'm largely uninterested in your take on the world. That includes my own; I know I still have things to learn and I make a proactive effort to listen more than I talk. I don't always succeed.
"pg's response is actually priceless: it is like a soft-spoken witness upending a bullying lawyer who had just viciously attacked him, leaving the attacker reeling for all to see."
Which you don't mention at all in your response...
"If you're under 40, I'm largely uninterested in your take on the world. That includes my own; I know I still have things to learn and I make a proactive effort to listen more than I talk. I don't always succeed."
Are you actually being serious? Your brain works in such a way that any person who has lived less than 14,610 days couldn't possibly add any value to your life? I don't mean to be harsh but this could be the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. Certainly worse than anything I've seen on Medium.
If I was pg and this was these were the type of people and defenses that were coming to my aid, I would be mortified.
If that's the case, then you're a very sheltered person.
Lay off the hyperbole next time.
-Should I listen to anything this person has to say or take value from their life experiences?
-Well I dunno, have they turned 40 yet.
Is very certainly in the top 5 dumbest things I've ever heard if not the dumbest. A human being going well out of their way to avoid learning things and gaining more experience. But thanks for contributing with the random insult. Hope it helped rebuild your self esteem?
Now I am 33 and I tend to ignore what most people my age and younger think about things like global politics or new programming languages. This has less to do with intelligence than perspective. Basically, if the 'Arab Spring seemed like a new and good thing you don't know enough about the situation to make informed commentary.
I'm 25 years old, and it's been one of -if not the- most important discovery of my life so far that compared to those older than me, I know hilariously little about (all aspects of) life.
Of course young people add value, we do after all make our own world by our subjective views, but those older than you generally have had more time to explore more of those views, and have a much richer notion of how things are and can be.
pg isnt peddling his "take on the world". He talks about serious academic topics in a chronically under and misinformed way. My 50 year old plumber knows jack about Metaphysics, Quantum Field Theory or Abstract Expressionism despite - as in a Louis CK bit - his seeing a dead body "one time".
If you want to have a fire-side chat with him - be my guest. But I ain't fetching the scribe because he's had a few decades wandering around.
Well, most of the stuff guys "under 40" think they know about "Metaphysics, Quantum Field Theory or Abstract Expressionism" are a half-understood mismash too (I'm not talking about someone with a PhD in Physics here).
And, as some they will find out later in life, not only knowledge of those "serious academic topics" doesn't matter as much as they thought, but also most of them are inherently bullshit too.
There is a kind of wisdom that arises through knowledge of oneself and other people that comes with age. A kind of knowledge which helps you predict what is going to be worthwhile, etc.
However we shouldnt fall into the trap of saying "academic persuits might leave you unsatisfied therefore you can be blase about them whilst discussing them". You cant dispense with the particulars of physics when discussing gravity because your interest in "the universe" owes to a unfulfilled religious need.
"age" is a different category of knowledge and doesnt excuse or justify glorified amateurism in another.
But that's kind of the point isn't it? We should judge people on their qualifications and achievements, not their age.
I too was very uncomfortable when reading that paragraph. When I read comments like that I can see why it's possible that PG is starting to run into this recurring theme with the outside world. First it was a misunderstanding around founders with accents. Now it's a misunderstanding of women in technology. If he's becoming inadvertently surrounded with such adoring followers he's likely to find few of his assumptions challenged by such a receptive audience. He speaks, no one challenges him, he becomes emboldened. Then he speaks to a third party not under his spell and all heck breaks loose.
1. Keep the interview short and stick to the script. This is what Laura Bush does better than almost anybody. Don't give reporters any "gotcha's" to their tricky line of questions.
2. If possible, do the inteview by email, not phone, videochat or in person. This way, you can give a considered response to their questions, which is what folks like PG excel at.
PG is not a professional interview giver. It shows.
And I'm no PG fan boy. I think his Startup = Growth article is flat out misleading w/r/t startups that start from a base of one user or one cent in revenue (to take extreme examples) and then say a startup is growing if it has 5% weekly growth.
Jefferson was 33 when he penned the Declaration of Independence. Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed when he was 39. Marx published The Communist Manifesto when he was 30.
Seriously, this list could go on for ages. Dismissing the perspective of youth is as indicative of an ignorance of history as youthful naivete.
People with high confidence in themselves often over estimate their experience around this time and look silly to anyone with actual experience.
I don't think 40 is some magical number. In fact many experiences that happened over 10 years ago in high tech starts to "fade" and become less relevant.
