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Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days (Hardcover)

by Jessica Livingston (Author)

4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

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Product Details

Hardcover: 500 pages
Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (Jan 22 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1590597141
ISBN-13: 978-1590597149
Product Dimensions: 23.1 x 15.5 x 3.3 cm
Shipping Weight: 772 g

Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #76,833 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in this category:
#40 in Books > Business & Investing > Industries & Professions > High-Tech

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Product Description

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, Apple

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.

About the Author

Jessica Livingston is a founding partner at Y Combinator, a seed-stage venture firm based in Cambridge, MA, and Mountain View, CA. She was previously VP of marketing at investment bank Adams Harkness. In addition to her work with startups at Y Combinator, she organizes Startup School. She has a BA in English from Bucknell.

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Customer Reviews

3 Reviews

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4.3 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)

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4.0 out of 5 stars Great Book, Jul 21 2009

By	Emad Saif "Emad" (Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days (Paperback)

This book is great and easy to read. You can choose and read the interviews that interest you the most.
Many books on business startup focus on mostly principles and lack real examples. However, this book focuses on real examples from large successful and famous organizations.

I would have given it 5 stars if it had follow up comments after each interview to elaborate on the lessons learned with reference to some principles that should be considered when starting a business.

I recommend this book to be read after understanding some important business principles, such as the ones outlined by Guy Kawasaki in his book "The Art of Start".

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5.0 out of 5 stars Those who were "present at the creation", Jan 17 2008

By	Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

What we have here are interviews of 32 founders of start-up companies, interviewed by Jessica Livingston. To most readers, few of the names are familiar (e.g. Steve Wozniak and Apple Computer) and the interviews will often seem rambling, poorly edited, etc. That is a fair reaction. However, they have the value of being extemporaneous rather than "sanitized." However different the start-ups' circumstances were and however different their founders' perspectives on those circumstances may be, there are common themes: naivet�, almost unlimited enthusiasm, little (if any) fear of failure, and especially, a rock-solid faith in what could be accomplished. Those with an ability to read between the lines will also develop a sense that most of the founders do not second-guess themselves when recalling their blunders.

To me, the greatest single value of this book is that we are learning about 32 start-ups from eyewitness accounts provided by those centrally involved. True, human memory can often be selective and on occasion self-serving. Nonetheless, these founders (with few exceptions) seem to be making a sincere effort to "tell it like it was" without aid of a ghostwriter or even an editor with special talents for clarity and (especially) concision.

Of special interest to me are the interviews of Craig Newmark (Craigslist), Blake Ross (Firefox), Paul Buchheit (Gmail), Sabeer Bhatia (Hotmail), Mitchell Kapor (Lotus Development), Max Levchin (PayPal), Mike Ramsay (TiVo), and Tim Brady (Yahoo). Of course, each reader must determine for herself and himself which interviews are most interest and, perhaps more to the point, which interviews are most valuable to those who about to launch a new company or have only recently done so.

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4.0 out of 5 stars A great book despite poor implementation, April 26 2007

By	Y. Gingras - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

At last, we can have a peek at the life in the early stage of a
successful startup. Jessica Livingston interviewed several leaders of
the digital age. She takes us from the very beginning when there is
just a handful of founder and no one else to the culmination of the
exercise: IPO, acquisition, or commercial domination.

The stories are really interesting, unfortunately this book could use a
lot more editing. We get the interview verbatim, including the
praises by Livingston and the polite acknowledgments. When the
interview diverges, she is slow to bring it back on track; I really
was looking forward to the story of Wozniak, most of it end up in
technical details on the Apple II and few insights regarding the
startup. Some people are really terse and Livingston just go through
her list of questions without asking for more details.

If there was another book, the poor editing might lead to recommend it
instead. But there is no other book. This is the only book where you
learn about the pain and the joy of the first few years of those
companies. This is the only book where you can receive the advice of
the most successful founders. This is a book that must be read.

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