Overview

Gender

male

Investor Type

Investment Partner,Angel

Investor Stage

Seed

Paul Graham is a co-founder of Y Combinator, a startup accelerator in Mountain View, California. He is also a programmer, venture capitalist, and essayist.


Graham is the author of On Lisp (1993), ANSI Common Lisp (1995), and Hackers & Painters (2004). In 1995, he and Robert Morris started Viaweb, the first ASP, which in 1998 became Yahoo! Store. In 2002, he discovered a simple spam filtering algorithm that inspired the current generation of filters.


Graham has obtained a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Cornell University. He earned an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Applied Sciences with specialization in computer sciences from Harvard University, and studied painting at Rhode Island School of Design and the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence.