Paul Graham: In Ten Years, Long-Form Readers Will Form a Powerful Club; In the Shortest Attention Era, Longest Thoughts Are the Most Valuable
Paul Graham stated that in ten years, there may be very few people left who can write or are willing to read more than one or two pages. But at least there will be a few of us, and we will form a powerful club.
This viewpoint focuses on the potential loss of long-form reading ability due to fragmented attention, while emphasizing that the few who persist in deep reading and writing will gain a scarce advantage.
Graham is known for his long-form essays, and his commentary continues to reflect a consistent focus on writing, thinking, and independent judgment.
This discussion arises in the context of AI-generated content and short videos dominating information consumption.
The few who insist on long-form content are positioned as a cognitive scarce resource for the future.
From a market mechanism perspective, the ability to write and read deeply becomes a differentiated capital, with funds and influence flowing towards groups that can produce and consume long content; events are driven by public opinions, benefiting creators and readers who maintain deep thinking, while platforms dominated by short content relatively divert attention.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
As a co-founder of Y Combinator, Paul Graham has long provided observations on entrepreneurship, technology, and society through long-form writing. This time, he positions long-form ability as a scarce club in ten years, continuing to emphasize the value of deep thinking.
On the capital path, Graham directs attention towards long-form adherents through public statements, motivated by encouraging a minority to maintain non-mainstream cognitive habits, with specific actions including directly predicting and self-including in that club.
Similar cases can be seen in history with the impact of printing and television on deep reading, and the rise of a minority of persistents after each media transformation; the current information environment is dominated by short content and AI generation.
This is essentially a technological substitution: long-form reading and writing are being massively replaced by short content and generative tools, with the mechanism being that the attention economy marginalizes deep capabilities, making them a competitive advantage for a minority.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
In ten years, those who can read long texts will automatically form a club.
In the era of shortest attention spans, the longest thoughts are the most valuable.
The persistence of a minority will ultimately become a scarcity for the majority.