Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days
Most startups begin with a few people kicking around ideas. Some grow into Google. Most fail. The critical period is the first year.
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For would–be entrepreneurs, innovation managers or just anyone fascinated by the special chemistry and drive that created some of the best technology companies in the world, this book offers both wisdom and engaging insights—straight from the source.— Chris Anderson, editor–in–chief of Wired Magazine, and author of The Long Tail“All the best things that I did at Apple came from (a) not having money and (b) not having done it before, ever.” —Steve Wozniak, AppleNow available in paperback—with a new preface and interview with Jessica Livingston about Y Combinator!Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days is a collection of interviews with founders of famous technology companies about what happened 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.Where did they get the ideas that made them rich? How did they convince investors to back them? What went wrong, and how did they recover?Nearly all technical people have thought of one day starting or working for a startup. For them, this book is the closest you can come to being a fly on the wall at a successful startup, to learn how it's done.But ultimately these interviews are required reading for anyone who wants to understand business, because startups are business reduced to its essence. The reason their founders become rich is that startups do what businessesdo—create value—more intensively than almost any other part of the economy. How? What are the secrets that make successful startups so insanely productive? Read this book, and let the founders themselves tell you.
Foreword ix Preface xi About the Author xiii Acknowledgments xv Introduction xvii Chapter 1 Max Levchin: PayPal 1 Chapter 2 Sabeer Bhatia: Hotmail 17 Chapter 3 Steve Wozniak: Apple Computer 31 Chapter 4 Joe Kraus: Excite 61 Chapter 5 Dan Bricklin: Software Arts 73 Chapter 6 Mitchell Kapor: Lotus Development 89 Chapter 7 Ray Ozzie: Iris Associates, Groove Networks 103 Chapter 8 Evan Williams: Pyra Labs (Blogger.com) 111 Chapter 9 Tim Brady: Yahoo 127 Chapter 10 Mike Lazaridis: Research In Motion 141 Chapter 11 Arthur van Hoff: Marimba 153 Chapter 12 Paul Buchheit: Gmai 161 Chapter 13 Steve Perlman: Web TV 173 Chapter 14 Mike Ramsay: TiVo 191 Chapter 15 Paul Graham: Viaweb 205 Chapter 16 Joshua Schachter: del.icio.us 223 Chapter 17 Mark Fletcher: ONElist, Bloglines 233 Chapter 18 Craig Newmark: craigslist 247 Chapter 19 Caterina Fake: Flickr 257 Chapter 20 Brewster Kahle: WAIS, Internet Archive, Alexa Internet 265 Chapter 21 Charles Geschke: Adobe Systems 281 Chapter 22 Ann Winblad: Open Systems, Hummer Winblad 297 Chapter 23 David Heinemeier Hansson: 37signals 309 Chapter 24 Philip Greenspun: ArsDigita 317 Chapter 25 Joel Spolsky: Fog Creek Software 345 Chapter 26 Stephen Kaufer: TripAdvisor 361 Chapter 27 James Hong: Hot or Not 377 Chapter 28 James Currier: Tickle 387 Chapter 29 Blake Ross: Firefox 395 Chapter 30 Mena Trott: Six Apart 405 Chapter 31 Bob Davis: Lycos 419 Chapter 32 Ron Gruner: Alliant Computer Systems, Shareholder.com 427 Chapter 33 Jessica Livingston: Y Combinator 447 Index 455
