Author Guide · Essays & Programming
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In the summer of 1998 Yahoo bought Viaweb, the online-store software Paul Graham had built with his friend Robert Morris, for Yahoo shares worth about $49.6 million; it became Yahoo Store. Graham, born in Weymouth, England, in 1964, had come to that company by an odd route: a philosophy degree from Cornell, a PhD in computer science from Harvard, and painting classes at the Rhode Island School of Design and the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence. He wrote Viaweb in Lisp, and his first two books are about that language. The third, Hackers & Painters (2004), gathered the essays from his website that made him widely read, a year before he co-founded Y Combinator. This guide covers his three key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 3 key books · 1993–2004 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Paul Graham has published three books: On Lisp (1993) and ANSI Common Lisp (1995), both about the Lisp programming language, and the essay collection Hackers & Painters (2004). Start with Hackers & Painters unless you program in Lisp. Most of the writing people search for under his name, such as “Do Things That Don’t Scale”, is free essays on paulgraham.com, not books.
Where to Start with Paul Graham
If you want his ideas on making things, startups and nerds
→ Hackers & Painters (2004) — the essays that made him known.
If you want to learn Lisp from the beginning
→ ANSI Common Lisp (1995) — an introduction and reference in one.
If you already write Lisp and want to go deeper
→ On Lisp (1993) — macros and bottom-up programming.
3 Paul Graham Books, in Order
On Lisp
An advanced guide to Common Lisp, published by Prentice Hall in 1993 and built around what Graham calls bottom-up programming: shaping the language to fit the program. Most of the book is about macros, with chapters on functional programming, embedded languages and, at the end, a working model of the Common Lisp Object System. It assumes you already know the language.
ANSI Common Lisp
A 432-page introduction to Lisp programming that doubles as a reference manual for the ANSI standard, published by Prentice Hall in 1995. It covers object-oriented programming with CLOS, includes more than twenty substantial examples and a guide to optimisation, and is written so a beginner can start from scratch.
Hackers & Painters
Essays, most of them first published on his website, gathered by O’Reilly in May 2004. The title essay argues that programming is closer to painting than to engineering; others explain why smart children are unpopular at school, how to think about ideas you are not allowed to say, how a filter could beat spam, and why using Lisp gave Viaweb an edge over its competitors. It came out a year before Y Combinator.
In What Order to Read Paul Graham
The three books do not build on each other and serve different readers. The two Lisp books are for programmers: ANSI Common Lisp teaches the language, On Lisp assumes it, so if you read both, read the later one first. Hackers & Painters needs no programming at all.
After Hackers & Painters, the natural next step is not another book but his essays on paulgraham.com, which include most of his writing on startups, such as “Do Things That Don’t Scale” (2013) and “How to Do Great Work” (2023).
A reading path
1. Hackers & Painters (2004)
2. ANSI Common Lisp (1995)
3. On Lisp (1993)
The years · 1964–2016
Quick facts about Paul Graham
- Known for
- Co-founding Y Combinator, the startup accelerator, and writing the essays on startups, programming and thinking that he publishes free on his own website.
- 1964
- Born in Weymouth, Dorset, England
- 1990
- PhD in computer science, Harvard
- 2016
- Moves back to England
- Born
- 13 November 1964, Weymouth, Dorset, England
- Education
- BA in philosophy, Cornell (1986); MS (1988) and PhD (1990) in computer science, Harvard; painting at RISD and in Florence
- Companies
- Viaweb, with Robert Morris, sold to Yahoo in 1998; Y Combinator, founded in 2005
- Created
- Hacker News (2007) and the Lisp dialects Arc and Bel
- Married
- Jessica Livingston, Y Combinator co-founder, in 2008
- Lives
- England, since 2016
The red mark is 2004: Hackers & Painters, the essay collection that brought his writing to readers outside programming.
How Paul Graham Writes: Short Words, Long Arguments
Graham writes essays in plain, short sentences, usually starting from a question (why are nerds unpopular, how do you get startup ideas) and working towards an answer step by step, often to a conclusion that goes against the usual view. Most of them appeared first on his website, without an editor or a publisher, and he still publishes that way; Hackers & Painters is the only time he collected them in a book.
His subject is less technology than how people make things. The title essay compares programmers to painters because both are makers who work by sketching and revising, and the comparison came from his own life: he studied painting before and after his computer science PhD. The Lisp books show the same habit at a technical level, arguing that you should shape the language to suit the problem.
Many of his essays have become reference points, such as the “hierarchy of disagreement” in “How to Disagree” (2008). For writers who think in the same clear, contrarian way, see Authors like Paul Graham.
Watch
A Conversation with Paul Graham
In an hour-long conversation posted by Y Combinator in August 2018, YC partner Geoff Ralston questions Graham to draw out as much of his startup advice as possible.
Frequently asked questions about Paul Graham’s books
How many books has Paul Graham written?
Three: On Lisp (1993), ANSI Common Lisp (1995) and Hackers & Painters (2004). Everything else he has published is essays on his website, paulgraham.com.
What are Paul Graham’s books in order?
On Lisp: Advanced Techniques for Common Lisp (1993), ANSI Common Lisp (1995) and Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age (2004).
Where should I start with Paul Graham?
With Hackers & Painters (2004), the only one of his three books written for general readers. Start with ANSI Common Lisp only if you want to learn the Lisp programming language.
What is Paul Graham’s most famous book?
Hackers & Painters (2004), his essay collection on programming, startups and why nerds are unpopular at school. His best-known individual pieces, though, are free essays on paulgraham.com.
Is “How to Do Great Work” a book by Paul Graham?
No. It is an essay published free on paulgraham.com in 2023, as are “Do Things That Don’t Scale” (2013) and “How to Disagree” (2008). His only books are the three on this page.
Who is Paul Graham?
A British-American programmer, essayist and investor. He co-founded Viaweb, which Yahoo bought in 1998, and in 2005 co-founded Y Combinator with Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris and Trevor Blackwell. He ran it until 2014, when he handed the presidency to Sam Altman and stepped back from day-to-day work. He also created Hacker News in 2007.
Did Paul Graham fire Sam Altman from Y Combinator?
It is disputed. Altman left as YC president in 2019, and The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post reported that he was pushed out, the Post saying Graham flew back from abroad to tell him to go. In May 2024 Graham wrote that YC did not fire Altman: when OpenAI set up a for-profit company with Altman as chief executive, Jessica Livingston told him he had to choose between OpenAI and YC, and he chose OpenAI.
Is Paul Graham still alive?
Yes. He was born on 13 November 1964 in Weymouth, Dorset, and still publishes essays on his website.
Where does Paul Graham live?
In England, where he has lived since 2016, after years in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is married to Jessica Livingston, his Y Combinator co-founder.
Is Hackers & Painters about painting?
Only partly. The title essay argues that programming is a creative craft like painting rather than a branch of engineering. The rest of the book covers startups, spam filters, programming languages, free thinking and school.
Footnotes
- Paul Graham (programmer) — Wikipedia
- Hacker News — Wikipedia
- ANSI Common Lisp — paulgraham.com
- Hackers & Painters press release — O’Reilly, 2004
- Paul Graham claims Altman wasn’t fired from Y Combinator — TechCrunch, 2024
- A Conversation with Paul Graham — Y Combinator, 2018
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Everything around us is turning into computers.”
— Paul Graham, in O’Reilly’s announcement of Hackers & Painters (2004)
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