Founders At Work
Well, I'm kind of late to this party, but I finally got a copy of Founders At Work. I had a feeling it would be good, from reading the free bits on the website, and I was not disappointed. This book rocks!
It's a collection of interviews with startup founders and early employees talking about the early days of some now-famous software companies. I've been hooked on these kinds of stories ever since I read Microserfs. Of course, that was fiction, and this is the real thing. I love the interview format; it seems honest and unpretentious in a way that a narrative style wouldn't be. Jessica Livingston's done a great job in drawing out all kinds of interesting anecdotes. One draw is the entertainment value of getting a look behind the scenes at companies that I've been following for years.
Aside from entertainment value, this book is full of business experience. I say "experience", rather than "advice", because the interview format makes the book descriptive, rather than prescriptive. It's a kind of oral history -- a wisdom download, that's much more valuable than a set of guidelines or a dogma.
Okay, I can't resist distilling some advice. It's interesting to see how many founders' businesses developed out of, or were aided by their previous experience. A lot of these successes have to do with thinking along certain lines for 10-20 years, and then being in the right place at the right time. It's not so much about having the world-changing idea, as finding a way to make useful that stuff that you've been mulling over for the last decade. That and hard work. Or luck. Or both.
Finally, there's the nostalgia value. The interview with one of Adobe's founders, Charles Geschke, reminded me of what it felt like to first see a Macintosh, and a laser printer. My dad introduced me to Macs soon after they came out. I was a student, and he was a teacher at Northview Heights Secondary School at the time. They had the computer facility for the whole area, but the school had fallen on rough times. There were literally rooms full of state-of-the-art Macs, with no one using them. I still remember that first whiff of laserjet toner. 300 dpi! Wow! You just new this was going to be good.
It's a collection of interviews with startup founders and early employees talking about the early days of some now-famous software companies. I've been hooked on these kinds of stories ever since I read Microserfs. Of course, that was fiction, and this is the real thing. I love the interview format; it seems honest and unpretentious in a way that a narrative style wouldn't be. Jessica Livingston's done a great job in drawing out all kinds of interesting anecdotes. One draw is the entertainment value of getting a look behind the scenes at companies that I've been following for years.
Aside from entertainment value, this book is full of business experience. I say "experience", rather than "advice", because the interview format makes the book descriptive, rather than prescriptive. It's a kind of oral history -- a wisdom download, that's much more valuable than a set of guidelines or a dogma.
Okay, I can't resist distilling some advice. It's interesting to see how many founders' businesses developed out of, or were aided by their previous experience. A lot of these successes have to do with thinking along certain lines for 10-20 years, and then being in the right place at the right time. It's not so much about having the world-changing idea, as finding a way to make useful that stuff that you've been mulling over for the last decade. That and hard work. Or luck. Or both.
Finally, there's the nostalgia value. The interview with one of Adobe's founders, Charles Geschke, reminded me of what it felt like to first see a Macintosh, and a laser printer. My dad introduced me to Macs soon after they came out. I was a student, and he was a teacher at Northview Heights Secondary School at the time. They had the computer facility for the whole area, but the school had fallen on rough times. There were literally rooms full of state-of-the-art Macs, with no one using them. I still remember that first whiff of laserjet toner. 300 dpi! Wow! You just new this was going to be good.
posted by Jaba Adams at 7:12 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home