Paul Graham Canon

Paul Graham Canon

Essay deep-dives for founder judgment — not a checklist OS.

Paul Graham’s load-bearing essays rebuilt as working chapters: ideas, schlep, users, growth, default alive, mistakes, fundraising, psychology. Modern cases and decision trees, with notes naming the one idea to pull from each original URL.

From paulgraham.com. This is judgment training — read the cited essay when the idea matters, then run the practice. For a short habit OS, use YC OS; for a lecture sequence, use HTSaS.

Choose your stageBrowse chapters

How to use this playbook

Today

Choose one priority and check in

Learn

8 concise lessons with cases and sources

Practice

7 exercises that turn ideas into action

Roadmap

Mark milestones when the evidence is real

Chapters

  1. 01How to Get Startup Ideas
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  2. 02Do Things That Don't Scale
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  3. 03Understand Your Users
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  4. 04Startup = Growth
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  5. 05Default Alive, Ramen Profitable
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  6. 06Mistakes That Kill Startups
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  7. 07How to Raise Money
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  8. 08Founder Psychology
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Source library