Beating the Averages

paulgraham.com

Startups

19 min read → 70 sec

A case for using more powerful programming languages in startups, built around Viaweb's use of Lisp to ship faster, outbuild competitors, and exploit the slow-moving habits of mainstream programmers.

Lisp gave Viaweb a real competitive edge over 20 to 30 rivals

Faster development, lower costs, features competitors could not match

Viaweb, started in summer 1995, let end users build online stores through Web pages

It was, as far as he knew, the first Web-based application

Startups that do what average startups do should expect to fail

Startup survival is well below 50%

Server-based software lets startups choose any language, so the best choice is the most powerful one

A startup should ignore what other companies use and choose technology only by what works best

Web applications magnify rapid development because you can release software the minute it is done

Viaweb could sometimes copy a competitor's announced feature within a day or two

Lisp macros matter because Lisp code is made of traversable data structures that programs can rewrite

Viaweb had about 20 to 30 competitors, but none of their software could compete with it

Customers cared that Viaweb worked well, not that it was written in Lisp

Programming languages differ in practical power, even if they are all Turing equivalent

For application software, using anything but the most powerful reasonably efficient language is usually a mistake

Programmers using weaker languages can see what they lack below them, but not what they miss above them

This is the Blub paradox

Programming practice often lags hardware by 10 to 20 years because languages are habits of mind

Competitor job listings reveal technical strength. Oracle was safest, Perl or Python was scarier, Lisp was most dangerous