Paul Graham’s new essay is “Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas.” From my reading of it, it talks about great startup ideas, fear and cynicism. The meat of the article is a series of shall we say audacious startup ideas, most of which you’ve had yourself and in each case you may have thought: “You’d have to be crazy to try this!”.

I once read, “If you’re not a little bit nervous, you’re not pushing yourself enough”. I like that mantra. It works for me. This essay is related to that thought:

“One of the more surprising things I’ve noticed while working on Y Combinator is how frightening the most ambitious startup ideas are.” (from Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas.)

And if you are a certain kind of person that also may translate to always being able to find the 100 reasons why something will not work.

I’ve often said that if I think of my proud career accomplishments so far, in each case I tried something because I didn’t have any idea what I was getting myself info. Ignorance is bliss.

Paul Graham goes a step further:

“In this essay I’m going to demonstrate this phenomenon by describing some. Any one of them could make you a billionaire. That might sound like an attractive prospect, and yet when I describe these ideas you may notice you find yourself shrinking away from them.

Don’t worry, it’s not a sign of weakness. Arguably it’s a sign of sanity. The biggest startup ideas are terrifying. And not just because they’d be a lot of work. The biggest ideas seem to threaten your identity: you wonder if you’d have enough ambition to carry them through.” (from Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas.)

Read the article. It will inspire you!