How to earn a billion dollars

Apply this framework when generating or evaluating startup ideas, advising on what to build, or estimating how big something could get. It distills the mechanics of why startups make founders wealthy and where good ideas actually come from.

Attribution

Adapted from Paul Graham's essay "How to Earn a Billion Dollars" (June 2026), based on a talk he gave at the Oxford Union. The framing, examples, and prescriptions below are his; quoted phrases are kept short.

Two numbers determine the outcome

A startup's eventual size — and its founders' wealth — comes down to two numbers, and nothing else matters nearly as much:

1. Growth rate — how fast revenue (or usage) compounds, usually measured per month.
2. Duration — how long that growth can continue, which is set by market size.

Everything below is in service of pushing one of these two numbers up. When evaluating an idea or a company, anchor on them first.

Exponential growth is the whole story, and it's deeply unintuitive