[ritchiea]

Well it depends on what pg wants doesn't it? If his priority with his writing is to continue leveraging the YC brand then he should certainly write under his own name. And there are dozens of other reasons to write under his own name such as being able to speak to people about all his work in person very easily.

On the other hand, depending on how PG views his writing oeuvre, if he wants to be taken seriously as an essayist outside of the domain of business advice I could see it being in his best interest to write under a pseudonym. For better or worse most people are going to see him as Paul Graham startup investor/former startup founder. If he wants people to take writer Paul Graham very seriously, like Paris Review seriously, it would probably help to divorce himself as an author from his business background.

[ownagefool]

You're then putting him in a situation that nobody has any reason to listen to him. Okay, sure, maybe over the years he can build another brand around his pseudonym as a domain exert in something else, but that struggle is potentially just as difficult.