Reading List · Lisanne Swart
Authors Like
By Lisanne Swart · 6 authors · Startups & Essays · Updated July 2026
Paul Graham, co-founder of Y Combinator, writes essays that read like someone thinking out loud in real time rather than delivering polished conclusions — on startups, but just as often on ambition, taste, or how to have original ideas. His prose is plain and direct, built from close observation of what actually works rather than borrowed theory. The writers below share that same essayistic, first-principles style applied to business, decision-making, and how to live and work well.
Readers who enjoy Paul Graham often turn to Naval Ravikant for similarly aphoristic, first-principles thinking about wealth and happiness, Derek Sivers for short, plainspoken essays on business and living deliberately, Peter Thiel for contrarian startup thinking taken to a more provocative extreme, Ray Dalio for systematic principles distilled from decades of decision-making, Steven Bartlett for a contemporary podcaster-entrepreneur synthesizing similar ideas for a wider audience, and David Brooks for essayistic thinking about character and a well-lived life.
Similar Voice & Approach
Naval Ravikant
Ravikant shares Graham's first-principles style, compressing ideas about wealth, happiness, and decision-making into short, quotable, almost aphoristic statements rather than extended argument. Both writers trust the reader to do the work of unpacking a dense idea rather than over-explaining it.
Read Ravikant for Graham's compressed, first-principles style applied even more directly to wealth and personal philosophy. The Almanack is the essential entry point.
Derek Sivers
Sivers writes in short, direct essays and books built from his own experience running CD Baby, sharing Graham's distrust of received business wisdom and preference for plain, tested observation over theory. Both writers keep their prose short enough that the idea, not the writing, stays the point.
Read Sivers for Graham's plainspoken, experience-tested essay style condensed even further. Anything You Want is short and essential.
Peter Thiel
Thiel, Graham's contemporary in the same Silicon Valley startup world, shares his first-principles skepticism of conventional wisdom, pushed toward a more openly contrarian and provocative extreme in Zero to One's argument that genuine innovation means avoiding competition entirely rather than winning it.
Read Thiel for Graham's startup thinking taken to a sharper, more deliberately contrarian edge. Zero to One is the essential entry point.
Ray Dalio
Dalio shares Graham's instinct to distill hard-won experience into explicit, testable principles rather than vague inspiration, though Dalio's Principles is far more systematic and exhaustive, covering both life and management decisions built from decades running Bridgewater Associates.
Read Dalio for Graham's principle-extraction instinct scaled into an exhaustive personal operating system. Principles is long but comprehensive.
Steven Bartlett
Bartlett, host of The Diary of a CEO podcast, synthesizes ideas from entrepreneurship, psychology, and business strategy for a wide contemporary audience, sharing Graham's interest in what actually works in building a company rather than received management theory.
Read Bartlett for Graham's practical business thinking synthesized for a broader, more contemporary audience. The Diary of a CEO is the natural entry point.
→ Read more about Steven BartlettDavid Brooks
Brooks shares Graham's essayistic instinct to think in public about how to live well, though his territory is character and moral formation rather than startups and wealth, examining what it takes to build a substantial inner life rather than an external résumé.
Read Brooks for Graham's essayistic thinking-in-public style applied to character and meaning rather than business. The Road to Character is the essential entry point.
→ Read more about David BrooksMore from the shelf
Frequently asked questions about authors like Paul Graham
Who should I read if I like Paul Graham?
Readers who enjoy Paul Graham often turn to Naval Ravikant for similarly aphoristic, first-principles thinking about wealth and happiness, Derek Sivers for short, plainspoken essays on business and living deliberately, Peter Thiel for contrarian startup thinking taken to a more provocative extreme, Ray Dalio for systematic principles distilled from decades of decision-making, Steven Bartlett for a contemporary podcaster-entrepreneur synthesizing similar ideas for a wider audience, and David Brooks for essayistic thinking about character and a well-lived life.
Is Naval Ravikant similar to Paul Graham?
Yes, both share a first-principles style, compressing ideas into short, quotable, almost aphoristic statements rather than extended argument. Both trust the reader to unpack a dense idea rather than over-explaining it, though Ravikant's focus leans more toward wealth, happiness, and personal philosophy where Graham's centers on startups and original thinking.
What should I read after Paul Graham's essays?
Derek Sivers's Anything You Want condenses a similarly plainspoken, experience-tested essay style even further. Peter Thiel's Zero to One takes Graham's startup thinking toward a sharper, more contrarian edge. For principles distilled from decades of decision-making at a much larger scale, Ray Dalio's Principles is comprehensive, if considerably longer.
Is Steven Bartlett's work similar to Paul Graham's?
Both share an interest in what actually works in building a company rather than received management theory, though Bartlett works primarily through podcasting and synthesis of ideas from many sources, where Graham writes original essays drawn from his own experience investing in and mentoring startups through Y Combinator.
