[camillomiller]

People, are you seriously this crazy about Paul Graham here? I really don't get it. Hacker News is like some sort of PG echo chamber.

"Background: Paul Graham is probably one of the most influential technology pundit[s] of our times." SERIOUSLY? Small hint: he's not.

[futureishere]

Hey! I am sorry if I rubbed you the wrong way. It was definitely not my intention to eulogize Paul Graham unnecessarily. I wrote that out of sincerity, I genuinely feel that his essays have been highly educational for me, and for a lot of my friends as well. Maybe his essays have not had the same effect on you, and a lot of other people. I guess if enough people complain about it, I'd edit that line out of the README, no questions asked.

I'd also like to add that I mentioned, "one of the.." and "pundit[s]" implying that there are many others who'd be in the club, and Paul Graham isn't the only or most influential. Hope that helps!

[camillomiller]

Don't get me wrong, what you've done is cool, and everybody's free to just love this or that "pundit" (PG is a lot of things, but I wouldn't call him a pundit). It's just that here on HN sometimes PG's writing's treated like the fifth Gospel. Sorry if it came out harsher than I wanted, I had a hard day with a hard client. :)

[futureishere]

No worries, I totally understand :-)

[cuspycode]

Lacking an exact measure that we can all agree on, "influential" is kind of subjective. So I'll contribute with my subjective opinion: Paul Graham's essays are (collectively) among the highest quality content that I have found on the Internet. They are the opposite of click-bait and attention-spam. I don't agree with everything Paul writes, but so far I have never regretted spending the time to read one of his essays. This is rare in today's Internet environment. I can only think of Scott Aaronson and a few others who are comparable. But to repeat myself, this is my subjective opinion.

[futureishere]

I totally agree with your view!