I once had this idea for Y-Combinator: The Amazon of church supplies. All those pews, alters and candles aren’t gifts from God. Somebody here on Earth makes them. And they cost a lot of money. Well, I began looking into this church supplies business and I saw the market was enormous. So, I put a pitch deck together and sent it to Paul Graham. This was before he retired to the woods in England to write.

Well, Paul was a busy man. Trying to get an appointment with him was like trying to get ahold of God while he was creating Earth. Just impossible. So, I got clever and started sending him bibles. Every day, I’d send Paul a bible. Each bigger than the day prior. What began as a bible no bigger than a matchbox grew to a behemoth that required a fork lift driven by a ham fisted man named Larry to deliver.

One day, buried up to his ears in bibles, Paul relented. He had his secratary get in touch with me. When I walked into Paul’s office, his frustration was palpable. Hundreds of bibles were stacked in every corner of his office and the elephant of a bible that Larry delivered had been converted into a makeshift coffee table. I immediately dove into my pitch. To my surprise, Paul seemed genuinely interested. He nodded along. Reading the deck with a pair of Eagle eyes. Licking his fingers, from time to time, to turn a page.

In the end, he had just one question… “What are you going to call this thing, Cole?”

I said… “Holy shit.”