The unbound shelf

All Essays

• 2026

  • How to Earn a Billion Dollars June
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  • How to Convert Between Wealth and Income Tax May
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  • The Brand Age March
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• 2025

  • The Shape of the Essay Field June
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  • Good Writing May
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  • What to Do March
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  • The Origins of Wokeness January
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• 2024

  • Writes and Write-Nots October
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  • When To Do What You Love September
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  • Founder Mode September · in the library
  • The Right Kind of Stubborn July
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  • The Reddits March
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  • The Best Essay March
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  • How to Start Google March
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• 2023

  • Superlinear Returns October
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  • How to Do Great Work July
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  • How to Get New Ideas January
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• 2022

  • What You (Want to)* Want November
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  • The Need to Read November
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  • Alien Truth October
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  • What I've Learned from Users September
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  • Heresy April
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  • Putting Ideas into Words February
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• 2021

  • Is There Such a Thing as Good Taste? November
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  • Beyond Smart October
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  • Weird Languages August
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  • How to Work Hard June
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  • A Project of One's Own June
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  • Fierce Nerds May
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  • Crazy New Ideas May
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  • An NFT That Saves Lives May
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  • The Real Reason to End the Death Penalty April
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  • How People Get Rich Now April
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  • Write Simply March
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  • Donate Unrestricted March
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  • What I Worked On February
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• 2020

  • The Airbnbs December
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  • Earnestness December
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  • Billionaires Build December
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  • How to Think for Yourself November
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  • Early Work October
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  • Modeling a Wealth Tax August
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  • The Four Quadrants of Conformism July
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  • Orthodox Privilege July
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  • Coronavirus and Credibility April
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  • How to Write Usefully February
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  • Haters January
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  • Being a Noob January
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• 2019

  • The Two Kinds of Moderate December
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  • The Lesson to Unlearn December
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  • Having Kids December
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  • Fashionable Problems December
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  • The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius November
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  • Novelty and Heresy November
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• 2017

  • General and Surprising September
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  • The Risk of Discovery January
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  • Charisma / Power January
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• 2016

  • This Year We Can End the Death Penalty in California November
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  • How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub April
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  • The Refragmentation January
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  • Life is Short January
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  • Economic Inequality January
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• 2015

  • Jessica Livingston November
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  • Write Like You Talk October
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  • Default Alive or Default Dead? October
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  • A Way to Detect Bias October
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  • Why It's Safe for Founders to Be Nice August
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  • Change Your Name August
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  • What Microsoft Is this the Altair Basic of? February
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  • What Doesn't Seem Like Work? January
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  • The Ronco Principle January
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  • Don't Talk to Corp Dev January
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• 2014

  • The Fatal Pinch December
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  • Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In December
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  • How to Be an Expert in a Changing World December
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  • How You Know December
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  • Mean People Fail November
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  • Before the Startup October
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• 2013

  • How to Raise Money September
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  • Investor Herd Dynamics August
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  • How to Convince Investors August
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  • Do Things that Don't Scale July · in the library
  • Startup Investing Trends June
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• 2012

  • How to Get Startup Ideas November · in the library
  • The Hardware Renaissance October
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  • Startup = Growth September
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  • Black Swan Farming September
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  • The Top of My Todo List April
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  • Writing and Speaking March
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  • How Y Combinator Started March
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  • Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas March
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  • Defining Property March
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  • Schlep Blindness January
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  • A Word to the Resourceful January
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• 2011

  • Why Startup Hubs Work October
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  • The Patent Pledge August
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  • Subject: Airbnb March
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• 2010

  • Tablets December
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  • Founder Control December
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  • Where to See Silicon Valley October
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  • What We Look for in Founders October
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  • The New Funding Landscape October
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  • High Resolution Fundraising September
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  • What Happened to Yahoo August
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  • The Future of Startup Funding August
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  • The Top Idea in Your Mind July · in the library
  • The Acceleration of Addictiveness July
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  • How to Lose Time and Money July
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  • Organic Startup Ideas April
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• 2009

  • Apple's Mistake November
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  • What Startups Are Really Like October
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  • The List of N Things September
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  • The Anatomy of Determination September
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  • Post-Medium Publishing September
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  • Persuade xor Discover September
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  • What Kate Saw in Silicon Valley August
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  • The Trouble with the Segway July
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  • Ramen Profitable July
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  • Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule July · in the library
  • Why Twitter is a Big Deal April
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  • The Founder Visa April
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  • Five Founders April
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  • A Local Revolution? April
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  • Why TV Lost March
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  • Relentlessly Resourceful March
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  • How to Be an Angel Investor March
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  • What I've Learned from Hacker News February
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  • Startups in 13 Sentences February
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  • Keep Your Identity Small February
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  • Can You Buy a Silicon Valley? Maybe. February
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• 2008

  • The High-Res Society December
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  • Could VC be a Casualty of the Recession? December
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  • After Credentials December
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  • The Other Half of "Artists Ship" November
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  • Why to Start a Startup in a Bad Economy October
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  • A Fundraising Survival Guide August
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  • The Pooled-Risk Company Management Company July
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  • Lies We Tell Kids May
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  • Disconnecting Distraction May
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  • Cities and Ambition May · in the library
  • Why There Aren't More Googles April
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  • Some Heroes April
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  • Be Good April
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  • You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss March
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  • How to Disagree March
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  • A New Venture Animal March
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  • Trolls February
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  • Six Principles for Making New Things February
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• 2007

  • Why to Move to a Startup Hub October
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  • The Future of Web Startups October
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  • News from the Front September
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  • How to Do Philosophy September
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  • How Not to Die August
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  • Holding a Program in One's Head August
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  • The Equity Equation July
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  • Stuff July
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  • An Alternative Theory of Unions May
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  • Two Kinds of Judgement April
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  • The Hacker's Guide to Investors April
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  • Microsoft is Dead April
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  • Why to Not Not Start a Startup March
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  • Is It Worth Being Wise? February
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  • Learning from Founders January
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• 2006

  • How Art Can Be Good December
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  • The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups October
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  • A Student's Guide to Startups October
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  • How to Present to Investors August
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  • The Island Test July
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  • Copy What You Like July
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  • The Power of the Marginal June · in the library
  • Why Startups Condense in America May
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  • How to Be Silicon Valley May
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  • The Hardest Lessons for Startups to Learn April
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  • See Randomness April
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  • Why YC March
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  • Are Software Patents Evil? March
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  • 6,631,372 March
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  • How to Do What You Love January · in the library
• 2005

  • Good and Bad Procrastination December
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  • Web 2.0 November
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  • The Venture Capital Squeeze November
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  • How to Fund a Startup November
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  • What I Did this Summer October
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  • Ideas for Startups October
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  • What Business Can Learn from Open Source August
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  • Inequality and Risk August
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  • After the Ladder August
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  • Hiring is Obsolete May
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  • Why Smart People Have Bad Ideas April
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  • The Submarine April
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  • Writing, Briefly March
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  • Undergraduation March
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  • Return of the Mac March
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  • How to Start a Startup March
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  • A Unified Theory of VC Suckage March
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  • What You'll Wish You'd Known January
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• 2004

  • Made in USA November
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  • It's Charisma, Stupid November
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  • Bradley's Ghost November
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  • A Version 1.0 October
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  • What the Bubble Got Right September
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  • The Age of the Essay September
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  • The Python Paradox August
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  • Great Hackers July · in the library
  • Mind the Gap May
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  • How to Make Wealth May
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  • The Word "Hacker" April
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  • What You Can't Say January · in the library
• 2003

  • Filters that Fight Back August
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  • If Lisp is So Great May
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  • Hackers and Painters May · in the library
  • The Hundred-Year Language April
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  • Why Nerds are Unpopular February
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  • What Languages Fix January
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  • Design and Research January
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  • Better Bayesian Filtering January
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• 2002

  • A Plan for Spam August
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  • Succinctness is Power May
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  • Revenge of the Nerds May
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  • Taste for Makers February
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• 2001

  • What Made Lisp Different December
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  • The Other Road Ahead September
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  • Five Questions about Language Design May
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  • Being Popular May
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  • Lisp for Web-Based Applications April
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  • Java's Cover April
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  • Beating the Averages April
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• 1998

  • Snapshot: Viaweb, June 1998 June
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