Paul GrahamVerified account

What could you do if you were thinking on a 5 year scale? 10? 20?

It’s very hard to do, but it unlocks a whole new set of potential. You move from playing checkers to a game of chess — and as a result, the universe of possibilities looks quite different.

It's interesting to see ppl whodo think in 10-15 year cycles (it takes 10-12 years to go through school, 20 years to raise kids, 10 years to get good at a sport) don't apply that to building companies. They know that things take time, just think it's not about companies.

I think most of big successful startups started seeing growth in years 4-7, never in the first year. Look at even our tiny space - Coinbase is in year 8 of operations, pivoted a half dozen times, saw real growth first time 18 months ago...

No, what I'm talking about has to do with growth numbers. AirBnB was ready to call it quits in year 4, seeing almost no traction. Facebook didn't see any real growth for the fist few years (year 3 was what, a dozen campuses?). It takes a long time to build up the base.