"How to Build a Google-Like Company That Even Middle Schoolers Can Understand" (Paul Graham)

Date

Sep 21, 2025

Classification

Startups

Product/Methodology
BM/Scale-up

Alex Note / NOWBELL, Developer

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Source: Inc.Magazine

Paul Graham's "2 Secrets to Founding Google" for a 15-Year-Old Boy

🫑 3-Line Summary

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Paul Graham, the founder of Y Combinator, advises 15-year-olds that to build a company like Google, three elements are necessary: ① acquiring skills, ② discovering ideas, and ③ securing co-founders.

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The core of all this lies not in a grandiose business plan, but in the process of personally executing 'side projects' that interest you, learning skills, and solving inconveniences around you (like stiff doors).

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In particular, emphasizing that the reason for entering a prestigious university with good grades is not merely for academic background but because the best co-founders and ideas gather there, it presents the simple and clear principle of 'Build and Study.'

🥦 Insight

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'Toys' change the world.

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Facebook was a directory of Harvard dormitories, and Apple was a hobby of eccentrics assembling computers. Even Google started as a project to help search for academic papers. The beginning of great companies was always not a 'business plan,' but a trivial curiosity like, "This looks interesting," or "Why is this so inconvenient?"

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Paul Graham's message is clear. Don't resolve to "start a business!" and force yourself to look for an item. Instead, "build" something with your own hands right now. It doesn't matter if it's a game or a crude app. Learning skills, discovering inconveniences, and meeting colleagues to stay up all night with in the process of building—that journey itself is the surest preparation for a future unicorn.

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If you are sitting at your desk right now just worrying, turn on your computer immediately and start with a very small project. Because the 'toy' you are making might change the world 10 years from now.

— View original —

Hello, this is Alex.

Lately, I've been hooked on the essays by Paul Graham (founder of Y Combinator). I've been reading one every day, and the content is really good.

This post is a translation of the essay ** **.

This is about him explaining entrepreneurship to 15-year-old students.

I also feel a sense of regret, thinking, 'If only I had heard a lecture like this when I was 15...'

How to Start Google

Introduction

This article summarizes a lecture I gave to 14 and 15-year-old students who want to start a business in the future, discussing what they need to do now. Many schools are educating students about entrepreneurship, but I believe this is exactly the kind of content they should be conveying.

Text

Most students probably think that they must take on any job once they enter the workforce. However, that is not necessarily the case. Today, I will share a secret to living a life free from being tied down by a job.