Jessica Livingston, a founding partner of Y Combinator, a seed-stage venture firm, has just published a book of interviews with 32 high tech company founders called Founders at Work:
Founders at Work is a collection of interviews with founders of famous technology companies about whathappened in the very earliest days. These people are celebrities now. What was it like when they were just a couple friends with an idea? Founders like Steve Wozniak (Apple), Caterina Fake (Flickr), Mitch Kapor (Lotus), Max Levchin (PayPal), and Sabeer Bhatia (Hotmail) tell you in their own words about their surprising and often very funny discoveries as they learned how to build a company.
I have two copies on the way from Amazon. If you’d like one of them, post an interesting comment on this post and I’ll pick a random contributor to receive one.
engtech on February 1st, 2007 at 11:33 am
I wish I had something interesting to say.
I’ve seen this one mentioned on a couple of other blogs and I’ve been thinking about reading it (particularly for the interview with Joel Spolsky: http://joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/01/30.html)
Being in a startup that makes it big is like winning the lottery… it’s very interesting to find out how it’s done.
Cristian Dorobantescu on February 1st, 2007 at 11:48 am
Hi Dane,
I’ve worked in one of these “technology companies in early days” - which have now been acquired by Adobe.
Why do people (and start-up entrepreneurs ) want to read about these founders? First to validate their ideas and second to prove themselves that they have all it takes to do it as well.
I’m calling this food brain for all wanna-be entrepreneurs. They need something to believe in and to keep them going.
Cristian Dorobantescu
Small Business Entrepreneur
Des Walsh on February 1st, 2007 at 4:29 pm
You know how people say that you learn more about life and business from your failures than for your successes? I know in my own business I am very conscious of how not to repeat past mistakes and I am better at assessing proposals for having been suckered by slick people and bright, shiny objects in the past.
I would like to read a book where thoughtful, smart people whose startup never did start are given space to reflect as objectively as they can on what they did wrong, how they would do things next time, what warning signs they would look for, what tips they would give for people starting up. But that might be a hard book to sell so maybe we won’t see it.
Mark on February 2nd, 2007 at 2:35 am
I must have been out when Jessica rang me for my interview ;)
Matt on February 2nd, 2007 at 2:21 pm
I do consulting and business plan writing for startups all the time, and I have become pretty good at being able to determine who will make it and who won’t. It virtually always comes down to persistence and an intense belief in what you are doing.
If you separate out the people who are in it for the quick buck, the prestige, the ego satisfaction and the ones simply caught up in the ride, you will find the inner core of people who are quietly on their own mission to succeed. I suspect, when I read the book, I will find over and over again those same two qualities represented in the founders - a continuous effort to make headway, and a firm belief that one way or another they would be able to break through and achieve what they were attempting to do.
You would think that all would-be entrepreneurs would recognize the importance of those qualities, but a surprising number don’t, and it usually stops them from reaching their potential at some point, often sooner rather than later.
Matt
Jeff on February 2nd, 2007 at 5:54 pm
You know I have often wondered how such people lived before they made it big, and if they were really expecting to do the next big thing. Whats it like to actually make it and how does ones life really change?
Abhisheq on February 3rd, 2007 at 10:21 am
Hey!
Founders at work do the same things, they were doing before becoming founders. I believe its not what they doing because they are founders. It is the fact that they were doing something which eventually require something to be founded.
I am passionate about my work and put 19 hours of my day in it. Someday later, if my business grows to a remarkable stage, then it does not mean I will stop working hard. I will be working more hard but with better resources, tools and assets.
We all know about Hotmail, founded by Sabeer Bhatia. But how many of us know that the second venture of Sabeer was ‘Arzoo.com’ which turned a big failure. May be it came before time.
We have Yahoo! Answers today which Sabeer foreseen and executed on Arzoo.com
May be he is busy in next innovation, 19-20hrs a day?
Abhisheq
Founder, Xieno.com
Paul on February 5th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
There is nothing better than a good book, wait…a free good book is better!!! In case there are any others out there that feel the same way, I found this great site about a year ago: http://www.inbubblewrap.com/ They give a away a free book relating to business 5 days a week. There hasn’t been any catch that I have found and I haven’t received any spam either. I just thought others might be interested.
Timothy Totten on February 15th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
I watched an interesting video on Scoble’s site from the last big trade show (I can’t remember if it was CES or CSE or some kinda name. I don’t really follow the “Tech World”) and I was surprised what I saw: Bill Gates is just a regular guy.
Is he a geek? Kinda. Would he win any knife fight anywhere? Probably not. But he is passionate about his business. Still.
I imagine that the book you discuss (which I’ve already ordered, based upon your recommendation) will serve to remind me that all entrepeneurs share similar traits: they care about their business.
Of course, if you did give me a copy of the book, I’d be able to do the same contest on my own blog, therefore continuing the whole Web 2.0 thing and building readership and making a billion dollars.
Or maybe I’d just give it away and forget the rest.