Guest Lecture by Paul Graham

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On Monday, March 7, at 6PM, the Harvard Computer Society will be presenting a talk by programmer, entrepreneur and essayist Paul Graham.
The talk will be held in Emerson 305 in Harvard Yard. This is easily
accessible from the MBTA Red Line and walk through Harvard Yard, passing
Widener Library on your right. Emerson Hall will be straight ahead. Proceed
to the third floor, and follow the signs to Lecture Hall 305.
You may find it helpful to consult Harvard's online map. The talk is free and open to the public. If you have any questions, please contact Steven Melendez at melend (at) fas dot harvard dot edu. For a brief summary of the talk, provided by Dr. Graham, read on:

How to Start a Startup (and Why and When and Whether)

Nearly everyone in computers thinks at some point about starting or joining a startup. In this talk I'll try to explain everything I wish I'd known when we started ours. (I'm going to have to talk fast.) Where do you get ideas for a startup? What sort of people make good founders? Do you need to have business people? Where do you get investors, and what are they looking for? What makes startups succeed or fail? How do you get customers? What should you do about patents (competitors' or your own)? If you succeed, how do you cash out? What does starting a startup do to your life, and is it worth it?

Most of this stuff isn't written down anywhere yet. So this talk should be helpful not only to people who want to start startups, but also to those considering working for or investing in them, and to those interested in business in general who wonder if established companies could be made more like startups.