[nadam]

I think Paul Grahams essay IS somewhat contradicting Paras's essay. For example look at this paragraph:

"organic startup ideas usually don't seem like startup ideas at first. We know now that Facebook was very successful, but put yourself back in 2004. Putting undergraduates' profiles online wouldn't have seemed like much of a startup idea. And in fact, it wasn't initially a startup idea. When Mark spoke at a YC dinner this winter he said he wasn't trying to start a company when he wrote the first version of Facebook. It was just a project. So was the Apple I when Woz first started working on it. He didn't think he was starting a company. If these guys had thought they were starting companies, they might have been tempted to do something more "serious," and that would have been a mistake."

I think Paul is suggestinging (at least emotionally) that you shoud follow your creativity and hope for a later opportunity of a great business.

In my opinion Paul is focusing on the kind of businesses which are mostly B2C, very innovative and very very risky.

My taste is somewhere in-between: my idea is that somewhow the joy of creativity should be combined with some seemingly boring old fashioned B2B market's need.