About the book
Jessica Livingston interviewed the founders of 32 well-known technology companies about what happened in their very first days. The people she questions include Max Levchin of PayPal, Steve Wozniak of Apple, Caterina Fake of Flickr, Craig Newmark of craigslist, Mitch Kapor of Lotus, Paul Buchheit of Gmail and Sabeer Bhatia of Hotmail. They describe where their ideas came from, how they won over investors, the mistakes they made and how they recovered from them, and how the companies grew past early obstacles. The publisher's case is that startups are business reduced to its essence, creating value with more intensity than nearly any other corner of the economy, so their early stories teach business in general.
Ryan Holiday said it shows how founders produce huge growth, usually with very few resources, and Facebook content strategist Angela Pham called it the most valuable business book she has read. Buffer co-founder Joel Gascoigne read it in Buffer's earliest months and found it both inspiring and practical.
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This book has 8 recommendations
Ryan Holiday (Founder/Brass Check)
Now this one is certainly a little less historical than the others, if only because most of the profiles are about companies founded in the last ten years. Written by Jessica Livingston, a founder of YCombinator, the book profiles some of the hottest and most successful startups in Silicon Valley history. It shows how the founders manage to create massive growth, usually with very few resources. Now I’m not saying that companies like Hot or Not compare with the accomplishments of Pericles or Da Vinci, but you can certainly see how this book captures a moment in time—and its leading men and women—and what that means. This is the most current book on the list (besides mine) but I think many of you will like it. Plus you can learn a lot about the tech scene in one swoop.
Recommended by Bogdan Iordache (Co-Founder/How to Web)
Joel Gascoigne (Co-founder/Buffer)
I read Founders at Work in the earliest few months of Buffer, before I had managed to drop my freelance work which I was doing on the side to pay the bills before our revenues grew. It was inspirational and practical at the same time, and laid out very clearly the paths that many of the biggest tech successes took to reach their prominence.
Craig Pearce (Co-Founder/Kid Genius)
What probably helped, ironically, was the feeling of confusion when reading the book Founders at Work: Stories Of Startups Early Days. I read the book when I first became interested in startup culture and I was under the impression there was a formula for success that all startups had followed. While reading the various stories contained within the book, I was confused when every company seemed to follow a different path to success; founders came from different backgrounds, different motivations and started at different ages. There are themes, in many of these stories, but it was the realization that you don’t have to be a 20-something, Stanford Grad, with a Computer Science degree to start a company that really helped me pursue my interest in startups.
Joan Boixados (Founder/everydayCheck)
Computers and Business.
Angela Pham (Content Strategist/Facebook)
Founders at Work is the most valuable business book I’ve ever read, which compiled transcripts from dozens of tech entrepreneur interviews before the bubble burst.
David Kramaley (Co-Founder/Chessable)
When asked what books he would recommend to youngsters interested in his professional path, David mentioned Founders at Work.
Santiago Basulto (Co-Founder/rmotr.com)
Founders at Work and Coders at Work are really good ones too. They’re filled with interesting and inspiring stories.
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Ryan Holiday, Bogdan Iordache, Joel Gascoigne, Craig Pearce, Joan Boixados, Angela Pham, David Kramaley, Santiago Basulto
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Often recommended alongside
- The Lean Startup by Eric Ries (4 shared recommenders)
- The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg (4 shared recommenders)
- Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (3 shared recommenders)
- Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne (3 shared recommenders)
- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie (2 shared recommenders)
- Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t by Jim Collins (2 shared recommenders)
Appears in collections
Sources
- 13 Moral Biographies That Make You A Better Person And Teach You About Life
- Bogdan Iordache: Recommended Books and Learnings
- 50 books that transformed my business and my life
- Interview with Craig Pearce
- Interview with Joan Boixados
- Interview with Angela Pham
- David Kramaley, Co-Founder of Chessable: 'Human potential is limitless as long as we apply ourselves'
- Santiago Basulto, Co-Founder of rmotr.com, Provides a Reading List for Founders, Coders & Stoics