{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Craftsmith","title":"Letter to Paul Graham: Learning to See","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":1073,"description":"Paul Graham is known as a programmer, essayist, and cofounder of Y Combinator. But alongside all of that, he is a painter - studying still lifes at RISD and the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, learning to override his brain's shortcuts and see what was actually there.\n\"You feel as if you're an animal in its natural habitat. Doing what you were meant to do. Not always happy maybe, but awake and alive.\" Paul Graham\nThis Craftsmith Letter traces a single skill - the painter's eye - through everything Paul has worked on: Lisp, Viaweb, his essays, Y Combinator, and a decade of writing about how to find work you love. The letter is also an invitation; Paul, if anything here rings true, let's record an episode together.\nIn this letter:\nHow painting still lifes in Florence taught Paul to see past abstractions\nThe \"garage sale test\" - strip away prestige to find what's real\nHow Paul applied the garage sale test to everything he worked on\nWhy interest is more unevenly distributed than ability\nThe traps that steer you away from following your authentic curiosity\n\"Always produce\" as a heuristic that finds your life's work\nWhy most great work starts as a project\nWhat it actually feels like to do work you love\nChapters:References:\n\"What I Worked On\" — Paul Graham\n\"How to Do Great Work\" — Paul Graham\n\"How to Do What You Love\" — Paul Graham\n\"The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius\" — Paul Graham\n\"How to Get Startup Ideas\" — Paul Graham\nOn Lisp — Paul Graham (book)\nHelp deliver this letter:Paul is @paulg on X. Send him this episode and help it reach him.\nFollow Craftsmith:\nApple Podcasts\nSpotify\nYouTube\nCraftsmith is a podcast by Bill Allred about people doing work they love, so you can too.","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/mnil4TEdy5rGEUo6IuvhxUEr4GSXz8Qm-4imQkoJ9ho/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9jNjgy/MzFmZGZjNWE5NjQy/ZjYwNjU3ZTNjOTJj/MTdhMy5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}