# Best of paulgraham.com on Kiwi News Page: https://news.kiwistand.com/source/paulgraham.com 31 stories from paulgraham.com have been shared on Kiwi News since 26 April 2023, with 69 upvotes and 6 comments in total. The latest was shared on 5 March 2026. They are listed below, most upvoted first. Summaries are AI summaries of the linked article. ## 1. The Reddits - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/The-Reddits?index=0x660430b4907a85cd7e0e3ce2331d80d536f1d3e36e193af703a705ae97fcde0747dd62eb - Source: https://www.paulgraham.com/reddits.html - Shared 27 March 2024, 6 upvotes, 0 comments Paul Graham recounts how Reddit began as a Y Combinator application from Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, who were rejected for their original cell-phone food ordering idea but funded after pivoting to a link-sharing site. Graham says he encouraged them to change direction because he had noticed that del.icio.us/popular was being used as a de facto Reddit. The founders launched about three weeks into the first YC batch, and the site grew steadily despite a period of weak management after Huffman left, and Graham says Huffman's return in 2015 showed what the company could do. ## 2. New PG Essay: How to Do Great Work - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/New-PG-Essay-How-to-Do-Great-Work?index=0x64a03ddc3eeb2ca0090fae369ec35d6327c4ec507ca6d2516eda5e951ff25412c06cb345 - Source: http://paulgraham.com/greatwork.html - Shared 1 July 2023, 5 upvotes, 0 comments Paul Graham's essay "How to Do Great Work" presents a recipe for doing great work: choose a field you have aptitude for and deep interest in, learn enough to reach its frontier, notice gaps, and explore the promising ones. He argues that interest drives the hard work required, and that the best strategy is usually not to plan too much but to pursue whatever seems most interesting at each stage, which he calls "staying upwind." He notes that the right choice often comes from working, since people can't know what most kinds of work are like without doing them. He also advises making yourself a target for luck by trying many things, reading widely and asking many questions. ## 3. Good Writing - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Good-Writing?index=0x6832c4316b32a633215dba412ea73c587b675c4c9ee96691fb9e7927434e3aa18a4af6ee - Source: https://paulgraham.com/goodwriting.html - Shared 25 May 2025, 4 upvotes, 0 comments Paul Graham argues that writing that sounds good is more likely to be right, because the two qualities are linked. He compares rewriting awkward passages to shaking a bin of objects, which makes them pack more tightly, and says that sounding good helps the writer notice mistakes, since the writer is the first reader. He adds that the rhythm of good writing should match the natural rhythm of a train of thought, so getting the rhythm right can serve as a guide to getting the ideas right. He notes the claim does not hold for liars or for writing that reports ideas formed elsewhere, and concludes that clumsy writing usually signals wrong ideas. ## 4. The acceleration of addictiveness - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/The-acceleration-of-addictiveness?index=0x64e6cf09c607db0deb05035ccd89eb388391b9d1137532edc95c8a0ac866de26b8288b67 - Source: http://paulgraham.com/addiction.html - Shared 24 August 2023, 4 upvotes, 0 comments Paul Graham argues that addictiveness is accelerating because technological progress makes things we like more concentrated and more engaging, and that people will increasingly have to define themselves by what they refuse. He gives examples such as opium becoming heroin, food shaped by factory farming and processing, and the Internet becoming addictive while he used it. He notes that cigarettes took about 100 years for social customs to turn against them, and he says that rate of adaptation may not keep pace with new addictions. He says he avoids an iPhone to keep the Internet from following him outside. ## 5. The Brand Age - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/The-Brand-Age?index=0x69aa067d51cd3f3e69e31ab6a57149b9c7cfdca1ad4e4e5365e555af2a115bd2524de123 - Source: https://paulgraham.com/brandage.html - Shared 5 March 2026, 3 upvotes, 2 comments Brand is what remains when substantive product differences disappear, so branding and good design are fundamentally in conflict. The Swiss watch industry illustrates this: after the quartz crisis, unit sales fell by almost two thirds between the early 1970s and early 1980s, and surviving firms like Patek Philippe shifted from precision engineering to luxury brands. Patek's Golden Ellipse case, launched in 1968, expanded the brand name's printed area from 8 to 800 square millimeters, while Omega, which pursued more accuracy, became insolvent by 1981. ## 6. Founder Mode - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Founder-Mode?index=0x66d49a6e727f8aeba90975aa005cd6796f6efcf8129a6197aa0c5a437ca75ddabbf04ab0 - Source: https://paulgraham.com/foundermode.html - Shared 1 September 2024, 3 upvotes, 0 comments Paul Graham's essay "Founder Mode" argues that scaling a startup does not require switching to a manager style of running a company, and that founders who try to follow conventional management advice are often harmed by it. He cites Brian Chesky's talk at a YC event, in which Chesky says that advice to "hire good people and give them room to do their jobs" was disastrous for Airbnb, and that he instead studied how Steve Jobs ran Apple. The essay notes that many successful YC founders in the audience reported the same experience, and it predicts that founder mode will eventually be as well understood as manager mode, though it acknowledges that little is currently known about how it works. ## 7. Superlinear Returns - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Superlinear-Returns?index=0x652ee6fc633a1d471e49c93971aaf0d2d662a4f8fff639e607090754c056522fd62376b4 - Source: http://paulgraham.com/superlinear.html - Shared 17 October 2023, 3 upvotes, 0 comments Paul Graham argues that returns for performance are superlinear, a feature of the world rather than an artifact of rules people invented, and that ambitious people should understand this. He names two fundamental causes: exponential growth, as with startups whose high growth rates make them immensely valuable, and thresholds, as with winner-take-all outcomes. He says work that compounds, either directly or by teaching you, is the most obvious route to superlinear returns, and that these returns are growing as organizations matter less. ## 8. Paul Graham on how to procrastinate well - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Paul-Graham-on-how-to-procrastinate-well?index=0x64d0fc88e09f2d0a6e5d8d46a738bef7178f83d65b5aceaee82faa6c5e981e28c35f2c40 - Source: https://paulgraham.com/procrastination.html - Shared 7 August 2023, 3 upvotes, 0 comments Paul Graham argues that procrastination can be good if it means putting off small errands to work on more important things, and that the real danger is "type-B" procrastination, where people feel productive while doing the wrong things. He cites Richard Hamming's question of why you are not working on the most important problem in your field, generalized to asking what the best thing you could be working on is. He also notes that big problems are hard to start because they offer no near-term reward and feel frightening, so people often need to approach them obliquely, and he concludes that letting an enjoyable ambitious project pull you forward works better than a to-do list pushing you. ## 9. Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule by Paul Graham - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Makers-Schedule-Managers-Schedule-by-Paul-Graham?index=0x649c41e3e5e58de19f85dcdd8711abf754c4bfea4ac5e0033538312f4f62d8886f46fd64 - Source: http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html - Shared 28 June 2023, 3 upvotes, 0 comments Paul Graham argues that programmers and other makers dislike meetings because they run on a different schedule from managers: makers need blocks of at least half a day, while managers schedule in one-hour slots. He says a single meeting can break a maker's afternoon into pieces too small for hard work, and can also dampen their willingness to start ambitious projects in the morning. Graham describes Y Combinator as operating on the maker's schedule while most investors use the manager's schedule, and says it handles founder meetings through clustered office hours at the end of the day. He says the speculative meetings common among managers are costly for makers, and asks that managers understand that cost. ## 10. Default Dead or Default Alive? - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Default-Dead-or-Default-Alive?index=0x644e6d095999c65c577f661755b9f0323e5839e0deb046895eaee291e9474c791ca17211 - Source: http://www.paulgraham.com/aord.html - Shared 30 April 2023, 3 upvotes, 0 comments Paul Graham argues that founders should ask early whether their startup is default alive or default dead, because hiring too fast is the biggest killer of startups that raise money. He notes that half the founders he talks to don't know which they are, and that Trevor Blackwell has published a calculator to help find out. He advises treating fundraising only as plan A and always having a written plan B. He cites Airbnb, which waited four months after raising money at the end of Y Combinator before hiring its first employee. ## 11. Schlep Blindness - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Schlep-Blindness?index=0x644952c7598478ff968fbaf1727e16a3d0f37030988ea3d8611e54a237f6dc000cb7e128 - Source: http://paulgraham.com/schlep.html - Shared 26 April 2023, 3 upvotes, 0 comments Paul Graham argues that many good startup ideas go unnoticed because of "schlep blindness," an unconscious aversion to tedious, unpleasant work that keeps founders from seeing ideas involving painful tasks. He cites Stripe as the clearest example: for over a decade, many hackers who had processed online payments knew the process was painful, yet they chose to build recipe sites or local event aggregators instead of fixing payments. He adds that ambitious ideas face less competition because others are frightened off by their challenges, and that younger founders have an advantage because they underestimate both how much they can grow and how much they will need to. ## 12. How to Do Great Work | A Reminder - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/How-to-Do-Great-Work-or-A-Reminder?index=0x66abfafdb52bcdb4b5c1540f3fce45c3c06c67c27b7c6072bb5c0894fac7ed13f25ad309 - Source: https://paulgraham.com/greatwork.html - Shared 1 August 2024, 2 upvotes, 2 comments Great work comes from pursuing projects you have a natural aptitude for and find deeply interesting, rather than from following a fixed plan. Choosing a field means learning enough to reach its frontier, noticing the gaps others take for granted, and exploring the promising ones, and since most kinds of work can only be understood by doing them, the choice is usually made by working. Interest drives harder effort than diligence alone, and the advice is to "stay upwind" by doing whatever seems most interesting at each stage. Working in long uninterrupted blocks and tricking oneself past the reluctance to start are offered as practical techniques. ## 13. The Shape of the Essay Field - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/The-Shape-of-the-Essay-Field?index=0x683ec656defbf24f99e11713a18e74c90238811ef78b5a2930e6047b9312469e00ed0941 - Source: https://paulgraham.com/field.html - Shared 3 June 2025, 2 upvotes, 0 comments Paul Graham argues that an essay's impact equals how much it changes readers' thinking multiplied by the importance of the topic, and that writers aiming at smart people about important things will mostly reach the young. He says the tradeoff is not consciously chosen but is a kind of gravitational field every essayist works in. He describes realizing this only while writing the essay, and says he will keep following curiosity rather than optimizing for a particular age of reader. He cites The Selfish Gene as an example of a book that changed his own thinking. ## 14. The origins of Wokeness - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/The-origins-of-Wokeness?index=0x678537c35558259f7962e398ae326367a552c92ddd7587de3b0357805bb9729b812f51e0 - Source: https://paulgraham.com/woke.html - Shared 13 January 2025, 2 upvotes, 0 comments Paul Graham's essay argues that wokeness is a recent form of an old pattern, the moralistic "prig," and that its origin lies in the political correctness of the late 1980s. He says that political correctness, which he defines as an aggressively performative focus on social justice, began in the humanities and social sciences because those fields allowed politics to shape the work itself, unlike physics. He ties its rise to 1960s radicals gaining tenure, to a shortage of other moral causes after religion and sex faded as targets, and to the Soviet collapse, which weakened Marxism as a source of moral purity. ## 15. Superlinear Returns - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Superlinear-Returns?index=0x66e40a831ee0eecb1791604b0cbd3403bab8841861a9d8e4316e7808de2644f4aff7c070 - Source: https://paulgraham.com/superlinear.html - Shared 13 September 2024, 2 upvotes, 0 comments Paul Graham argues that the returns for performance are superlinear, not linear as teachers and coaches often imply, and that this is a feature of the world rather than a product of economic rules. He identifies two fundamental sources: exponential growth, as in startups whose high growth rates make them immensely valuable, and thresholds, as in winner-take-all contests where a slightly better performer gets the same single win. He advises seeking work that compounds, including through learning, and says the territory for superlinear returns is expanding as technology progresses and organizations matter less. ## 16. How people get rich now - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/How-people-get-rich-now?index=0x65829f2c92f9b23f2e7a9a68e06fd2fbd7d64422dc6d4c1ab0f1063aa86a9212a4f47d19 - Source: http://paulgraham.com/richnow.html - Shared 20 December 2023, 2 upvotes, 0 comments Paul Graham argues that the rise of tech-company founders is not a break from history but a return to a norm that was suppressed in the mid-20th century, and that rising inequality follows naturally from more people starting more valuable companies. In 1982, 60 of the 100 richest Americans had inherited their wealth, while by 2020 that number was 27. Of the 73 new fortunes in 2020, 56 derived from founders' or early employees' equity, and about 30 came from tech companies. The essay attributes the change to cheaper startup costs, higher valuations and faster company growth. ## 17. What you can't say - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/What-you-cant-say?index=0x6547acf16b99beb2fd314313077af94ccc6e0bbdec3202bf838f3140cfae0aa5890fec59 - Source: http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html - Shared 5 November 2023, 2 upvotes, 0 comments Paul Graham argues that moral fashions, like clothing fashions, are arbitrary and invisible to most people, yet far more dangerous, since violating them can cost someone their job, freedom or life. He proposes finding today's taboos by examining what people get in trouble for saying, asking whether such statements might be true, and tracking labels like "defeatist" or "divisive" that shut down debate. He also suggests comparing present ideas with those of past and other cultures, and noting that any idea harmless in many times and places but taboo now may be a mistake. The essay adds that a well-brought-up child's mind is largely a collection of adult taboos. ## 18. Write Like You Talk - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Write-Like-You-Talk?index=0x653d5e7faf8b5fad46ca0417920bfa398717d0558d0f77dd8779651ec7f3a76132eda54c - Source: http://paulgraham.com/talk.html - Shared 28 October 2023, 2 upvotes, 0 comments Paul Graham argues that writers should write in spoken language, since complex prose makes text harder to read and can give the writer a false sense of saying more than they are. He says specialists discussing difficult subjects use sentences no more complex than everyday talk, and that a useful test is to ask whether each sentence is how the writer would say it to a friend. He recommends reading drafts aloud or explaining a draft to a friend and then replacing the draft with that explanation, and he claims that writing this way puts a writer ahead of 95% of writers. ## 19. Why Twitter is a big deal [2009] - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Why-Twitter-is-a-big-deal-2009?index=0x648463eee371713ad682afa113d83bea007097f3a0f24bf70982040d752d43753ca81e7a - Source: http://www.paulgraham.com/twitter.html - Shared 10 June 2023, 2 upvotes, 0 comments Paul Graham's essay argues that Twitter matters because it is a new messaging protocol in which the sender does not specify recipients, and new protocols that catch on are rare. He notes that TCP/IP, SMTP and HTTP are among the few commonly used protocols, and that Twitter is unusual in being owned by a private company. He suggests the founders' slowness to monetize may help it, since Twitter feels to users like earlier open protocols and its private ownership is easy to forget. ## 20. What I've Learned from HackerNews - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/What-Ive-Learned-from-HackerNews?index=0x6455072142f4582348d84c961a4f136283bcd5881d53ac539dd89e056696e04916cc6d36 - Source: http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html - Shared 5 May 2023, 2 upvotes, 0 comments Paul Graham, writing in February 2009 two years after Hacker News launched, argues that a community site can keep its character by preventing bad behavior and attracting the right people rather than relying on technology. He says weekday traffic grew from about 1,600 daily uniques at the February 2007 launch to around 22,000, and he cites the broken windows theory and the Reddit experience to argue that tolerated bad behavior spreads. He also describes the Fluff Principle, that the easiest-to-judge links take over a user-voted site unless specific measures are taken. ## 21. What the Bubble Got Right (2004) - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/What-the-Bubble-Got-Right-2004?index=0x69133319fd092199421598d0cbbc5767a22ccf7fbefa61089c42e583c892a3f0907e0d84 - Source: https://www.paulgraham.com/bubble.html - Shared 11 November 2025, 1 upvote, 1 comment Paul Graham argues that the Internet Bubble, though overvalued, was built on real trends that will matter more in the long run than its excesses. He recalls that while working at Yahoo in 1998 and 1999 he calculated a price of $12 per share when the stock traded around $200, and that the stock later lost 95% of its value after January 2000. He says the Bubble's core truths include early public listings as "retail VC," the Internet's large long-term effects, the rise of young founders, and the decline of formality, with nerds' focus on substance. He adds that the Internet lets good work reach people more directly than the old channels did. ## 22. It's Charisma, Stupid - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Its-Charisma-Stupid?index=0x680f37a77eea3c54299737b531f7f1f3c642c3a86745d86de8bb6b75917f3a6f881f6f47 - Source: https://paulgraham.com/charisma.html - Shared 28 April 2025, 1 upvote, 1 comment Paul Graham argues that in US presidential elections the more charismatic candidate wins, and that party strategists cancel out differences on issues, leaving charisma to decide the outcome. He cites Clinton over Bush in 1992, Gore's 2000 loss despite Clinton's policies, and Kerry's 2004 defeat to Bush as examples. He also says every presidential election since TV became widespread has gone to the apparently more charismatic candidate, with 1968 and 1960 as the main cases he considers. ## 23. Writes and Write-Nots - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Writes-and-Write-Nots?index=0x671e4ad286cd5f6da850f51d57c1c21d9c57ec46148250cfba27f7de954bc60706b8761d - Source: https://paulgraham.com/writes.html - Shared 27 October 2024, 1 upvote, 0 comments Paul Graham predicts that in a couple of decades few people will be able to write, because AI removes the pressure to learn writing while writing remains fundamentally tied to clear thinking. He argues that the middle ground between good writers and people who cannot write will disappear, leaving a world of "writes and write-nots" that he says is dangerous because writing is thinking. He compares this to physical strength, which now requires deliberate exercise, and concludes that only people who choose to write will remain sharp. ## 24. When to do what you love - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/When-to-do-what-you-love?index=0x66f9534f75a917a3a6f99c593296de89a5d9c4388692af1050fb70ac417f3119543f7c5c - Source: https://paulgraham.com/when.html - Shared 29 September 2024, 1 upvote, 0 comments Paul Graham argues that whether to follow your passion cannot be answered with a simple yes or no, and that the answer depends on how much money you want and how much ability you have. For people aiming to become very rich through a startup, working on what interests you is described as an excellent way to find startup ideas, since Apple, Google, and Facebook all began as side projects. The essay also says that when people are unsure what to do, the uncertainty usually reflects ignorance, which can be reduced by trying work early. For anyone who wants to do great work, the essay concludes that working on what interests you most is the answer. ## 25. How art can be good - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/How-art-can-be-good?index=0x66d621a987ac6c3eb82cc7ca7dfccda6ffa67bd449d668bdddcc23cb9ca85c77fe132c5f - Source: https://paulgraham.com/goodart.html - Shared 2 September 2024, 1 upvote, 0 comments Good taste is real, and good art is art that interests its audience, which for the broadest standard means all humans. Humans share basic responses, such as interest in faces, primary colors, three-dimensional objects and edge-finding, so preferences are not random. Because brand and artists' tricks distort reactions, a vote cannot measure this, but individuals can reduce their own biases by revisiting a famous work, standing close to it, learning common tricks, and traveling widely across cultures and eras. ## 26. How to start Google - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/How-to-start-Google?index=0x65f9c72f5c6323c6523e3ecb0ec5d2f6cd8ee79a5f28213f5ec58fa97b4b3d737e143406 - Source: https://paulgraham.com/google.html - Shared 19 March 2024, 1 upvote, 0 comments Paul Graham argues that young people can avoid ever needing a conventional job by starting their own company, and he explains how to build the skills and ideas to do so. He says the three requirements are being good at some technology, having a startup idea, and finding cofounders, and that the first two come from working on personal projects rather than classwork, since programming has been the source of the median startup for the last 30 years. Graham cites Facebook, Apple and Google as examples of startups that began as projects, with Mark Zuckerberg building a Harvard photo directory and Larry Page and Sergey Brin trying to improve search. He concludes that the best startup ideas are things the founder and their friends actually want. ## 27. Economic Inequality - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Economic-Inequality?index=0x65e45f5cb9451ebdc7a0c069abd159a63bc617db1f42bd3b3d046eb890a5966a2cf14ca2 - Source: https://paulgraham.com/ineq.html - Shared 3 March 2024, 1 upvote, 0 comments Paul Graham argues that economic inequality should not be treated as a single phenomenon, because it has many causes, some harmful and some beneficial, such as tax loopholes and drug addiction on one side and the creation of new companies on the other. He writes that wealth from creating new companies is not taken from others, citing startup founders who would have joined big companies or become professors in 1960. He also argues that variation in productivity, driven by accelerating technology, is the irreducible core of inequality and that eliminating great variation in wealth would mean eliminating startups, which could simply move to other countries. ## 28. The Fatal Pinch - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/The-Fatal-Pinch?index=0x6579c63f0c1c453ee18f92c9d8f31028873ad8c9c61bef3e4029cf166545c14144ef35ab - Source: http://paulgraham.com/pinch.html - Shared 13 December 2023, 1 upvote, 0 comments Paul Graham argues that startups in the "fatal pinch," where they have months of cash left but are losing money with flat or weak revenue, should not count on raising more funding and should act quickly to cut costs or increase revenue. He says investors set much higher standards for companies that have already raised money, and that a struggling company is now read as a failure. His suggested responses include shutting down if failure is certain, firing people when overhiring is the problem, and pursuing "consultingish" custom work to earn revenue quickly. He notes that the situation is self-reinforcing, since overconfidence about fundraising makes founders slow to reach profitability. ## 29. Default Alive or Default Dead? - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Default-Alive-or-Default-Dead?index=0x653cfb7e47fdc6b4995dda87bfa042506b6cc5bc814c40729ac425aea24b8233b0e91e3b - Source: https://www.paulgraham.com/aord.html - Shared 28 October 2023, 1 upvote, 0 comments Paul Graham argues that founders should ask early whether their startup is default alive or default dead, because overhiring is the biggest killer of startups that raise money. He notes that many founders cannot answer the question, and that the danger of worrying too early is small compared with worrying too late. He advises treating fundraising as only a plan A, with a written plan B. He cites Airbnb, which waited four months after raising money at the end of Y Combinator before hiring its first employee. ## 30. Startup = Growth - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Startup-Growth?index=0x653616ccf35ad791d408b4d5077de86d5865fc948647871fb3ed2e5218809e77cd16cf07 - Source: http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html - Shared 23 October 2023, 1 upvote, 0 comments Paul Graham argues that a startup is defined by growth: a company designed to grow fast, whether or not it is new, technology-based, or venture-funded. He distinguishes startups from ordinary businesses such as barbershops, which are constrained in their ability to serve a large market. He says growth rate is the number founders should always track, and that Y Combinator measures it weekly, with 5-7% a week considered good and 10% exceptional. He also suggests founders pick a target growth rate and use it as a compass for decisions. ## 31. How to raise money [by PG] - Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/How-to-raise-money-by-PG?index=0x6474b3a29d450868cefb06e3bbc1d50e70a18a19f753ffe156552f32cfef1ad5ab8231f3 - Source: http://www.paulgraham.com/fr.html - Shared 29 May 2023, 1 upvote, 0 comments Paul Graham's essay "How to raise money" covers phase 2 fundraising, the round startups typically do after an initial raise of tens of thousands and before later growth rounds. He argues that founders should only raise when they want the money and investors can be convinced, and should treat investors as having said no until they confirm a definite offer in writing. He also recommends pursuing many investors in parallel, prioritized by expected value, which he defines as the likelihood of a yes multiplied by the size of the investment.