Introduction
You can be as intelligent and thoughtful as anyone in the world but if you can't communicate your insights effectively success is incredibly unlikely. You won't be able to communicate those insights to your colleagues, investors, stakeholders, or partners. And more importantly if you can't clearly explain your insights then you probably don't understand them very well.
There are a number of different types of writing that you can engage in. In Taking Notes we talked about progressive summarization and moving from different layers of relevant context. That is a critical element of writing. It's a skill to be able to summarize, then summarize, then summarize again. The goal of writing as an investor is meant to be as clear and concise as possible while driving towards some kind of action. Your goal in understanding something is to be able to find a way to invest behind those ideas.
Tips and Tricks
- Make it a general rule to try and write with as few words as possible.
- Write as if your audience is a well-read middle schooler.
- Avoid jargon if at all possible; you don't want to just sound smart, you want to be understood
Quotes on Writing
What People Are Saying
Recommendations
A Founder's Guide to Writing Well - 8 Writing Tips
This article is by Dave Girouard , CEO of AI lending platform , and former President of Google Apps. He's known for leading the business now called Google Cloud through its first billion in revenue. Girouard previously wrote for the Review on why the best startups make speed a habit - here he shares his tips for adding effective writing to your founder's toolkit.
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What makes Paul Graham a great writer?
In the last few months, I've heard these 4 statements from 4 different people: "I wish I could write like Paul Graham." "If I had to pick one writer to imitate, it would be Paul Graham." "Paul Graham's writing is the epitome of clarity." "Paul Graham inspired me to start writing."

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