Paul Graham's collection of essays on technology, creativity, and startups — arguing that great hackers and painters share the same creative impulse and that making things is the highest form of human activity.
The hacker-as-artist thesis: programming is not engineering (systematic application of known techniques) but closer to painting — exploration, aesthetics, taste, and the making of things. Graham's essays established much of the intellectual foundation for Y Combinator startup culture: the importance of good taste, why Lisp is superior, how to spot good hackers, the relationship between wealth creation and making things people want. Among the most widely read collections in tech culture.
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