

Ask YC:How did you first get to know about HN/Y Combinator? - aitoehigie

I first got to know about Paul Graham/YCombinator and the "Hacker News" when I did a Google search for the term "web 2.0" way back in 2007. I read his essay and over the course of time I have probably read virtually all his essays which have been a great source of inspiration to me considering the fact that where I live (Lagos, Nigeria) still has a very poor hacker/startup and VC community.
Thats my story, so I would like to know how you first got to know about Paul Graham/YCombinator and Hacker News?
======
yan
I wanted to learn lisp a while ago, and stumbled on pg's ANSI Common Lisp
after reading a few glowing reviews. Then I read some of his essays, then
heard about YC, then arrived here. Don't remember exactly when I first saw
this board or the day I registered, but haven't been able to stay away since.

------
tannerhiland
I remember coming across a pg essay (via Google or Slashdot) a year or two ago
then reading through a dozen more. That led to YC which lead to Jessica's
book, Hackers News, and lots of hours learning web development (current career
is in network architecture).

------
keefe
I moved to silicon valley in 07 and was (and still am) very interested in the
bookmarking space... I was doing an analysis of delicious and came onto a link
for startupschool, which I then applied to and got into, not really
understanding anything of what was going on until after the event... So
actually, Jessica Livingston told me about what YC was at a reception for
startup school, which is probably a unique way to get an introduction, if not
the best way to make a first impression. (:

------
nostrademons
I found out about Paul Graham through comp.lang.lisp. Way back in my freshman
summer of college, I had an internship where I didn't really have very much or
very important work to do, so I spent a lot of it reading about Lisp. Graham's
name came up a lot, and his essays were interesting. Ended up reading On Lisp
after that.

I moved over to Hacker News from Reddit the day it became publicly available.

------
alaskamiller
When kiko.com first came out and then I read about reddit.com. I then stumbled
upon his essays and hid in the server room of work for two days to read them
all in one sitting.

I'm still not rich yet.

------
michaelfairley
Beating the Averages (<http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html>) is one of pg's
more famous essays, and I've seen it make it's way some tech sites a few times
in the past ~5 years.

------
chaosmachine
One of my articles got linked here, I found it in my referrer log.

------
andreshb
I am not sure about how I came to hear of it, but I remember accessing the
website in 2006 while looking at funding options for a startup I had in mind.

------
l0nwlf
Wanted to purchase a lappy and a friend of mine posted my doubts here. Seeing
the quality of response I started hanging out here regularly.

------
bgnm2000
I think I saw something about YC on VentureBeat, but I didnt really start
reading HN until an angel investor recommended it to me.

------
lsb
His essay on Lisp/HTML/Viaweb was a reading assignment in my Programming
Languages class at Brown (thanks, Shriram!).

------
JimmyL
Saw it mentioned offhand in an article about "Hackers", which of course made
me come and take a look

------
Mankhool
Looking for startup funding, hence via TechCrunch.

------
iterationx
joel mentioned it in the SO podcast, i used to read reddit, but it seems so
bad lately.

------
Mz
My adult son was talking about one of the articles he read by Paul Graham. I
told him to send me the link.

