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Paul Graham

Essayist, paulgraham.com

  • Essayist, paulgraham.com1

Paul Graham is a programmer, writer and investor who has published essays on paulgraham.com since 2001. Paul is the author of the programming books On Lisp and ANSI Common Lisp and the essay collection Hackers & Painters, and in 2019 published Bel, a Lisp dialect written in itself. Paul co-founded the software company Viaweb in 1995, which became Yahoo Store, and co-founded the startup incubator Y Combinator in 2005.1

At a glance

Current role
Essayist
Sector
Independent
Education
Cornell, Harvard
Work listed
2
Sources cited
8
Profile reviewed

Career

Graham started the software company Viaweb with Robert Morris in 1995, and Graham's bio describes it as a software-as-a-service company. Yahoo acquired Viaweb in 1998, and the product became Yahoo Store. In 2005 Graham, Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris and Trevor Blackwell started the startup incubator Y Combinator.1

Programming languages

Graham's first book, On Lisp (Prentice Hall, 1993), studies advanced Lisp techniques with bottom-up programming as its theme, giving extended treatment to macros and building a working model of the Common Lisp Object System. ANSI Common Lisp (Prentice Hall, 1995) pairs an introduction to the language with a reference manual and more than twenty worked example programs. On Lisp is now offered as a free download from Graham's site.23

Graham presented Arc, a new Lisp dialect, at the LL1 workshop in November 2001 when it was about three weeks old, and later released it through arclanguage.org. In October 2019 Graham published Bel, a specification for a Lisp dialect written in itself, made up of a language guide and the Bel source meant to be read side by side.456

Essays and books

Graham has published essays on paulgraham.com since 2001, and the site's essay index collects writing on startups, programming and how to do good work. Hackers & Painters (O'Reilly, 2004) gathers essays on programmers, the people who become them and how technology shapes everyday life.178

Work and contributions

  • Essays at paulgraham.com Show, channel or publication

    Has written and published essays on the site since 2001.1

  • Bel Show, channel or publication

    Published Bel, a new Lisp dialect written in itself, in 2019.1

Timeline

  1. Published On Lisp, a study of advanced Lisp techniques, with Prentice Hall.2
  2. Started the software company Viaweb with Robert Morris.1
  3. Published ANSI Common Lisp, an introduction and reference for the language, with Prentice Hall.3
  4. Viaweb was acquired by Yahoo and became Yahoo Store.1
  5. Began publishing essays on paulgraham.com.1
  6. Presented the new Lisp dialect Arc at the LL1 workshop.5
  7. Published the essay collection Hackers & Painters with O'Reilly.8
  8. Co-founded Y Combinator with Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris and Trevor Blackwell.1
  9. Published Bel, a specification for a Lisp dialect written in itself.6

Other documented roles

Roles the sources document that are not confirmed as current.

  • Co-founder, Y Combinator1
  • Co-founder, Viaweb1

Where they work

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References

8 sources · profile reviewed Oct 21, 2026 · data updated Oct 21, 2026

  1. Paul Graham — BioPaul Graham · Official page · accessed Oct 21, 2026
  2. On Lisp — book pagePaul Graham · Official page · accessed Oct 21, 2026
  3. ANSI Common Lisp — book pagePaul Graham · Official page · accessed Oct 21, 2026
  4. Arc — language pagePaul Graham · Official page · accessed Oct 21, 2026
  5. Arc at 3 WeeksPaul Graham · Official page · published Nov 2001 · accessed Oct 21, 2026
  6. BelPaul Graham · Official page · published Oct 2019 · accessed Oct 21, 2026
  7. Essays — indexPaul Graham · Official page · accessed Oct 21, 2026
  8. Hackers & Painters — book pagePaul Graham · Official page · accessed Oct 21, 2026