Suggest founders for new edition of 'Founders at work' • Hacker News Board

Re: Suggest founders for new edition of 'Founders at work'

#21

Post by euccastro » Thu, May 24, 2007, 2:30 PM UTC

bootload wrote: post #2

Reading Founders at Work and going through the stories I was struck by who was not in the list. Another edition is in the planning by JL. What founders would you suggest for the second edition? Mine would be ... - Donna Dubinsky, Jeff Hawkins (Ed Colligan) ~ Palm Computing - CmdrTaco ~ Slashdot - Larry Ellison ~ Oracle - Hasso Platner ~ SAP - David Kelly ~ IDEO - John Carmack ~ Id Software - Peter Molyneux ~ Bullfrog…

As said elsewhere, you can read all about Carmack in Masters of Doom. Besides, I think he'd have technical rather than entrepreneurial advice to give. Still, if he made the cut I'd read his interview voraciously anyway.

I'm not looking forward to Molyneux, though.

Re: Suggest founders for new edition of 'Founders at work'

#22

Post by danw » Thu, May 24, 2007, 3:32 PM UTC

Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank would be great. He started a microfinance bank and recently won a Nobel Peace prize for his work! That's not something many startups can claim. Possibly Iqbal Quadir of Grameen Phone too.

Also some European startups such as skype, last.fm, moo etc

Re: Suggest founders for new edition of 'Founders at work'

#23

Post by zach » Thu, May 24, 2007, 3:43 PM UTC

corentin wrote: post #12

zach wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good suggestions. Haven't we all had enough of Molyneux, though? Plus, who out there is starting a game company? Nobody. Maybe Nolan Bushnell would be interesting, though. I have a few suggestions of my own: - Jeremy Wertheimer (ITA) - Justin Frankel (Nullsoft) - Lars Rasmussen (Where2) - Jawed Karim (YouTube) - Wil Shipley (Delicious Monster) Longshots: Bill Joy, Larry or Sergey, Marc Andreessen, Pierre Omidyar

"Plus, who out there is starting a game company?" The target audience for "Founders at work" is not just news.YC ;)

Sure, but like I said on my blog, if even Jason Rubin and Andy Gavin started Flektor instead of a game company, is there a whole lot of opportunity out there for anyone else?

http://www.zachbaker.com/articles/2007/05/19/congrats-to-flektor

That was also around the time last year at E3 where Warren Spector gave his advice to those who wanted to start the next big studio:

"You have a zero percent chance of success. The barrier to entry in terms of cost, quality required, access to a market... forget it."

Re: Suggest founders for new edition of 'Founders at work'

#24

Post by zach » Thu, May 24, 2007, 3:54 PM UTC

bootload wrote: post #13

staunch wrote: post #5

++++ Brad Fitzpatrick / LiveJournal ++++ Joe Kraus / JotSpot (not Excite) +++ Chad Hurley or Steve Chen / YouTube +++ Reid Hoffman / LinkedIn +++ Jason Calacanis / Weblogsinc ++ Markus Frind / PlentyOfFish ++ Kevin Rose / Digg ++ Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook + Michael Arrington / TechCrunch

Kraus is in the current edition. I'd have to agree with Fitzpatrick. I know your thoughts on his brilliance. Didn't think of Hurley/Chen. For Calacanis I'd also add Dave Winer. Rose, Zuckerberg are still playing out. What did Arrington do thats so interesting with TechCrunch?

I agree with Kraus even though he's in the current edition. More!

Re: Suggest founders for new edition of 'Founders at work'

#25

Post by bradyforrest » Thu, May 24, 2007, 3:55 PM UTC

Greg Stein - compare.net (sold to MS, originally founded with Pierre O. -- he left to found eBay); Greg worked on SVN and ended up at Google. Fascinating guy. Bill Gross BradFitz Justin Frankel Mark fraunfelder -- boingboing John Hanke - keyhole

Re: Suggest founders for new edition of 'Founders at work'

#26

Post by byrneseyeview » Thu, May 24, 2007, 4:47 PM UTC

danw wrote: post #22

Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank would be great. He started a microfinance bank and recently won a Nobel Peace prize for his work! That's not something many startups can claim. Possibly Iqbal Quadir of Grameen Phone too. Also some European startups such as skype, last.fm, moo etc

You really think an interview with Yunus would be helpful? He's just a loan shark with good PR.

Re: Suggest founders for new edition of 'Founders at work'

#27

Post by puneetht » Thu, May 24, 2007, 5:35 PM UTC

please include Markus Frind from PlentyOfFish. His story is both fascinating, inspiring and so not the norm. Also.. it may be better if you dont include YC companies, since most of their stories are already so well publicized.

Re: Suggest founders for new edition of 'Founders at work'

#28

Post by comatose_kid » Thu, May 24, 2007, 6:06 PM UTC

Sean Adams - founder of Slim Devices. He seems like a great example of bootstrapping and initiative. Web startups are one thing, but starting a company that builds neat consumer electronics hardware, builds a great community, and then gets acquired by Logitech - that would be an excellent case study.

Re: Suggest founders for new edition of 'Founders at work'

#29

Post by nextplayground » Fri, May 25, 2007, 10:18 AM UTC

maybe the topics should be categorize into a few subtopics like web, gaming, OS, gadgets (the creators of PS, Nintendo, Xbox) and so forth...

Re: Suggest founders for new edition of 'Founders at work'

#30

Post by bmazurek » Fri, May 25, 2007, 10:31 AM UTC

There will obviously be companies that appeal to certain people and companies that don't. Why not have different themed editions of the book....one that is hardware focused, one infrastructure, one software platforms (OSes, languages, frameworks), etc.

As well, add some from notable companies that grew up large enough to be recognizable but failed. Perhaps we could learn something from the seeds of their destruction...