Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days

Book description

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 businesses do—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.

Table of contents

  1. Title Page
  2. Dedication
  3. Contents
  4. Foreword
  5. Acknowledgments
  6. Introduction
  7. CHAPTER 1: Max Levchin Cofounder, PayPal
  8. CHAPTER 2: Sabeer Bhatia Cofounder, Hotmail
  9. CHAPTER 3: Steve Wozniak Cofounder, Apple Computer
  10. CHAPTER 4: Joe Kraus Cofounder, Excite
  11. CHAPTER 5: Dan Bricklin Cofounder, Software Arts
  12. CHAPTER 6: Mitchell Kapor Cofounder, Lotus Development
  13. CHAPTER 7: Ray Ozzie Founder, Iris Associates, Groove Networks
  14. CHAPTER 8: Evan Williams Cofounder, Pyra Labs (Blogger.com)
  15. CHAPTER 9: Tim Brady First Non-Founding Employee, Yahoo
  16. CHAPTER 10: Mike Lazaridis Cofounder, Research In Motion
  17. CHAPTER 11: Arthur van Hoff Cofounder, Marimba
  18. CHAPTER 12: Paul Buchheit Creator, Gmail
  19. CHAPTER 13: Steve Perlman Cofounder, WebTV
  20. CHAPTER 14: Mike Ramsay Cofounder, TiVo
  21. CHAPTER 15: Paul Graham Cofounder, Viaweb
  22. CHAPTER 16: Joshua Schachter Founder, del.icio.us
  23. CHAPTER 17: Mark Fletcher Founder, ONElist, Bloglines
  24. CHAPTER 18: Craig Newmark Founder, craigslist
  25. CHAPTER 19: Caterina Fake Cofounder, Flickr
  26. CHAPTER 20: Brewster Kahle Founder, WAIS, Internet Archive, Alexa Internet
  27. CHAPTER 21: Charles Geschke Cofounder, Adobe Systems
  28. CHAPTER 22: Ann Winblad Cofounder, Open Systems, Hummer Winblad
  29. CHAPTER 23: David Heinemeier Hansson Partner, 37signals
  30. CHAPTER 24: Philip Greenspun Cofounder, ArsDigita
  31. CHAPTER 25: Joel Spolsky Cofounder, Fog Creek Software
  32. CHAPTER 26: Stephen Kaufer Cofounder, TripAdvisor
  33. CHAPTER 27: James Hong Cofounder, HOT or NOT
  34. CHAPTER 28: James Currier Founder, Tickle
  35. CHAPTER 29: Blake Ross Creator, Firefox
  36. CHAPTER 30: Mena Trott Cofounder, Six Apart
  37. CHAPTER 31: Bob Davis Founder, Lycos
  38. CHAPTER 32: Ron Gruner Cofounder, Alliant Computer Systems; Founder, Shareholder.com
  39. Index

Product information

  • Title: Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days
  • Author(s):
  • Release date: January 2007
  • Publisher(s): Apress
  • ISBN: 9781590597149