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Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days | 
 enlarge | Author: Jessica Livingston
Publisher: Apress
Category: Book
List Price: $25.99
Buy New: $15.40
You Save: $10.59 (41%)
New (29) Used (15) from $13.93
Avg. Customer Rating:  57 reviews
Sales Rank: 2860
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 500
Shipping Weight (lbs): 4.7
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.3
ISBN: 1590597141
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.11
EAN: 9781590597149
ASIN: 1590597141
Publication Date: January 22, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 52 more reviews...
 Insightful. April 23, 2008
This book is insightful. It's especially nice that I can just pick it up, read one review and not come back to the book for a while. Nicely compartmented.
A must for every entrepreneur! April 18, 2008
This book captures the vision and courage of some of the most important entrepreneurs in high tech market. It also reveals the human side of these legendary people
 Some great insights from even greater thinkers March 2, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The value to be found in this book is undeniably from the access to a sampling of some truly great minds. Most of the interviews are worth reading, but a few of them are simply stellar; not because of Livingston's questions, but because the interviewees are very expressive and thoughtful people. When a single response in this book spans more than a typed page, generally the wisdom contained therein is worth its weight in gold.
A few of the founders were boring or useless, but I think that's just the nature of things. Livingston's questions could have been less scripted and forced at times, but overall she did a good job presenting this in a readable and compelling piece. I recommend it to anyone interested in entrepreneurship or the tech industry in general.
Inspiration at its finest February 22, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book has been so inspirational to me as I work on my internet startup. In just through reading the interviews with the founders I've picked up some excellent tips and have adjusted my business to avoid some of the mistakes they've made and implement some of their winning ideas. Read this book if you want to be inspired to create the next great technology company.
It is what it is - Life in a start-up January 15, 2008
Being in a start-up myself, I read this book to find comfort and confirmation about the volatility and emotional roller-coaster that comes with a working at the brink of software-as-a service. This book was just what it promised - interviews from some of the great successes in SV and elsewhere, their humble and sometimes difficult beginnings ('against all odds') that I am experiencing right now. It's not a literary piece of work - never intended to be, on the contrary, I felt the writing style was just what fits with a life in the fast lane - little time, easy to read chapters, inspiring and thank god, very 'down to earth.'
The one critical point I would like to make: I am somewhat perplexed how the companies were chosen - there are so many other companies that could have fit the profile which seem much more of a success than some of the companies/products in the book (gmail? Comm'on, I guess the author wanted to have Google in there, but didn't get an interview so she went with gmail?). Other great companies are easy to find - they don't even need to be in the consumer space. How about Salesforce.com? I definitely liked the mix of 'new' and 'experienced' start ups. This book was a breeze to read and insightful for us start-up enterpreneurs.
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