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Conference Presentation

Paul Graham: What does it mean to do things that don't scale?

Y CombinatorPaul Graham
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  • Manual artisanal tasks cannot be maintained indefinitely as a company scales to a "giant" size.
  • Startups that do not execute manual work for early customers are predicted to fail to achieve significant scale.
  • Performing manual tasks early is presented as a guaranteed mechanism for founders to accumulate knowledge.
  • Early-stage startups face a low-risk outlook regarding the adoption of manual labor, as they possess little to lose.
  • Founders are expected to personally encounter these operational realities through direct experience rather than theoretical instruction alone.