As someone who is in the middle of trying to get a software company off the ground, I can say that the stories in this book tell the real story of what it means to found a startup. I highly recommend it to anyone thinking about starting a software/tech company, because it will give you a great insight into what to expect.

The book can get technical at times, so it will be best appreciated by someone with a background in computer science. And all the stories are about software companies as well (not apparent from the title). All in all, a great book!

Inspiring and amazing! Originally borrowed from library, then decided I had to own a copy of my own. One of the best purchases I've made all year!

This book's stories will reward anyone struggling with a start-up idea, especially whether or not to go for it. In combination with books that more straightforwardly tell the reader how to get up to speed (like my own book "The Expert's Edge") and outdistance the competition, "Founders At Work" will help you survive your ups and owns, i.e., doubts and emotions, as you battle your way through the process. Don't give up the fight!

Having started programming in 1979, I remember most of the book. The author has done an excellent job in eliciting information from the people being interviewed. In some cases they were allowed to wander a bit but it was extremely interesting what their thoughts were. I would imagine the editing process has cut out a lot of other information. Maybe publish that as an aside to this book. Maybe on the web or something. I'm sure it will bring a deeper sense of what they were going through.
I really enjoyed the book and have learned several lessons from the people in the book. I believe any entrepreneur in tech should read this. The lessons are invaluable and most likely you are an naive as many of them were.
I highly recommend this book. Its an excellent read.
-T-

32 intervies wiht some of the biggest names in technology in history. anyone in this industry should find some interviews worth reading and re-reading. i've found the following interviews realy interesting; Sabeer Bhatia (hotmail.com) and his advice on business plans. Stephen Kaufer (TripAdvisor.com) experience on building the largest online travel community in the world. James Hong (HotOrNot.com) - a lot of wisdom from a young entrepreneur.

worth reading indeed - just take some time ... it's a thick book

If you want to be a millionaire, who do you ask how to do it? You ask millionaires how they did it. If you want to start a tech company, what do you do? You read this book. Simply the best.

This is a good book on what it took for 32 entrepreneurs to become successful in the technology field. However it is focused only on the technology field. If that is your area of interest this would be a great book for you to read. But if your area of interest is startups in another field you would be disappointed by this book. Great for the area it covers, and it does give many insights that could be adapted to other fields, but for me it was too narrow a view of entrepreneurship.

Great book! Very fun stories to read, during which you can't stop wishing you were one of those lucky guys :)

Great Book! Makes me want to re-join a dot com. Gives insight into why they succeeded, and love the task, it wasn't a job, it wasn't about the money, it was the love for what they were doing.

The best thing about this book is that it's real. It shows the uncertainties, the highs and the lows of every startup... If you want to read a tale or fantasy about how companies grow, this book is not for you. If you want to know the strength, weaknesses, and "craziness" of some who wanted to have their own startups, it's worth to read. You might want to read this too if you are starting your own project or company.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

I found the stories highly inspiring and informative. It was nice to read about, in Mitch Kapor's story for instance, how mistakes were almost made, where the concerns with intellectual property and non-competes were etc. These are very real issues that entrepreneurs don't think about when they start a company and yet wind up facing every day. I will recommend this book as a companion to my book, LIES STARTUPS TELL THEMSELVES TO AVOID MARKETING because the value, I believe, is in hearing not just the success, but how the entrepreneur's got there. My book shows many befores and afters, and like FOUNDERS, these are valuable, and very graphic, experiences to share.

An inspiring book that carries good operational, legal and financing tips beside the usual motivational stuff. Each chapter has an entrepreneurial story, you may be tempted to skip the ones you don't know, however, I guarantee you will find wisdom and new perspectives in each; from dealing with VCs, starting a company while in employment, to balancing between morality and growth (Craigslist).

On the down side, the book lacks emphasis on the social lives of the entrepreneurs, I would like to know more how they balanced their work and lives; did they make any sacrifices? I also wished to see less technical terms so entrepreneurs can share the book with non-technical family members who will be part of the entrepreneurial journey. I also hoped to see more diversity in selecting the entrepreneurs; stories of Indian, Asian and African entrepreneurs who succeeded in the valley.

This is a wonderful book with special appeal to entrepreneurs, especially those interested in Internet and software companies. It covers the bases, and includes interviews with Steve Wozniak (Apple), Mitch Kapor (Lotus), Tim Brady (Yahoo), Steve Perlman (WebTV), James Hong (Hot or Not), and about two dozen others. There's an incredible diversity of backgrounds of these founders, as well as the lessons that can be gleaned from their stories. While most business biographies demonstrate diminishing marginal returns relative to the wisdom they can impart, this book is a clear exception. Every story is different and teaches something new. And some of these interviews are incredible -- revealing stories that I've never heard before. This book is highly recommended as a great source of entrepreneurial wisdom and inspiration.

Steven K. Gold
Author, Entrepreneur's Notebook: Practical Advice for Starting a New Business Venture

If you're interested in starting a business, particularly a technology business, or are just curious how some of the major players in the tech field today started then you absolutely have to get this book. In it the founders of some of the most well known and ubiquitous web sites that we utilize today are interviewed about the early starting stages of their companies. You can read about their milestones and challenges, mistakes they've realized in hindsight and advice overall for technology start-ups. I myself have been developing a web project for the last year but since reading this book I've found new entirely new perspectives on my plans and ideas. I've also added different features having a better understanding of what translates into a market feasible and viable solution to customer interest.

Aside from ideas the experiences that some of these founders share about dealing with venture capitalists and funding a start-up makes the book worth its price alone.

Ever wonder what goes on in the minds of entreprenuers when they are just starting out? With this book, you literally go into the trenches with this entreprenuers. Because of the interview style format the book is in, all the raw details are there. It's like sitting with the founder in the same room.

You'll feel the anxiety when they are looking for funding. You'll share their joy on their first IPO. Their enthusiasm literally seeps through the pages.

This book is as close to creating a startup yourself. Seriously. It's that good.

The book focuses mainly on technology related companies though. I like technology related companies.

Note that I didn't buy this book from amazon.com and yet somehow I felt compelled to write this review.

I just finished reading "Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days". I've been nibbling away at it over the last five months or so. It's now one of my favorite books. If you work at a startup or are thinking of starting a startup, this book is a must read!

I like to interview, so when I'm looking for a new job, I tend to interview a lot. The last time I was looking for a job, I felt like this book was my personal guidebook to Silicon Valley (which loosely includes San Francisco). So many of the people and companies I was interviewing for were in the book. I felt like I was getting the inside scoop. Even when they weren't in the book, the book gave me insights on what a good startup looks like.

Now that I've finished launching my current product, it's time for me to look for my next startup. I wonder where the book will lead me next.

Each chapter in this book is a retrospective interview with someone who either founded or otherwise played an important role in a start-up. Some of these companies are well known, some will be well known one day, and others we'll never hear of. The cast of characters is quite divers, so even though the questions that are asked are similar and some common themes emerge quickly, each interview provides a fascinating insight into the characters and situations they had to deal with. Looking forward to seeing a "More Founders at Work"... Some suggestions: Try to get several different angles on the same stories, and perhaps talk a bit more about failures, which can provide valuable insights, too.

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: naiveté, 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.

i open it up before bed, and one section is just enough to read by the time I am tired enough to sleep. I am not saying this book puts me to sleep - it's really good, but I like that you can read it in little chunks.

There's plenty of great information here, as all the other reviews said. But this interview format is really excruciating to read. Casual speech is very hard to transcribe in such a way that it becomes readable. This is why journalists and other writers are trained in how to reduce a long, tangential speech into something meaningful and clear. These interviews tend to run on and on and on, with the subjects jumping around, sometimes contradicting themselves, or misspeaking; all the stuff we do when talking, but which doesn't really matter in conversation, where other cues like body language make up for it. It really takes a lot of work to read this stuff, you're constantly having to hear the subject "out loud" in your head for it to make sense.

This book's easily twice as long as it could be if these interviews were edited down to a few really useful pages each. Or better: rewritten as short essays.

Founders at Work is a fairly interesting read but lacks some depth. I'm the founder of a startup at the moment and am always keen to learn more about other founder's stories. The structure of this book is more like an interview with the interviewer rarely delving into the deeper human emotions, problems, issues, feelings etc of the founders. This really gives a basic "guided story" approach about each of the founders without any "pearls of wisdom" or "lessons learned".

Good for a single read or the average person who has an interest in technology startups from a founder's perspective, not worth being made into a hardcover.

Loved this book. The interviewer asked a similar set of questions for all participants yet improvised when needed to follow an interesting train of thought to it's natural conclusion. All of the participants were refreshingly candid. Almost as if they were unloading on a therapist. Each interview is just long enough to feel complete but not so long as to feel redundant. On another note, I'm pretty anal when it comes to the physical presentation of a book and this one passes all my criteria: Decent margins, pleasant type face, good line space and font sizes, flexible spine stays open easily without trying to close itself, and easy to browse logical organization. If you're an entrepreneur working on tech start up this is one of the few "must read" books.

Better than the 7 Harry Potter books together (wich is a bad comparison as I didn't like them that much). The book is a collection of interviews with founders of famous technology companies about what happened in the very earliest days and later. Within each interviews, you'll catch dozen of interesting infos. Believe me , when you start it, you'll finish it within the week.

Hey, maybe I'm just an old-fashioned chocaholic but books like this are what I turn to to get a lift.

In the same way a quick snack on a Mars Bar gives me a physical energy boost, I get a spiritual boost from reading about other people's struggles. An author needs a special style to pull off this kind of book and Jessica Livingston deftly steers the reminiscing. Maybe the book is just well-edited but there were many times when I think she asked just the perfect next question to keep the stories flowing.

I wish I'd been in the room.

This book is a collection of 32 interviews with founders of IT startups. The interviewer is Jessica Livingston who herself is a founding partner of Y-Combinator. The interviewees are:

1. Max Levchin (Paypal)
2. Sabeer Bhatia (Hotmail)
3. Steve Wozniak (Apple Computer)
4. Joe Kraus (Excite)
5. Dan Bricklin (Software Arts)
6. Mitchell Kapor (Lotus Development)
7. Ray Ozzie (Iris Associates, Groove Networks)
8. Evan Williams (Pyra Labs - Blogger.com)
9. Tim Brady (Yahoo)
10. Mike Lazaridis (Research in Motion)
11. Arthur Van Hoff (Marimba)
12. Paul Buchheit (Gmail)
13. Steve Perlman (WebTV)
14. Mike Ramsay (TiVo)
15. Paul Graham (Viaweb)
16. Joshua Schachter (del.icio.us)
17. Mark Fletcher (ONEList, Bloglines)
18. Craig Newmark (craigslist)
19. Caterina Fake (Flickr)
20. Brewster Kahle (WAIS, Internet Archive, Alexa Internet)
21. Charles Geschke (Adobe Systems)
22. Ann Winblad (Open Systems, Hummer Winblad)
23. David Heinemeier Hansson (37signals)
24. Philip Greenspun (ArsDigita)
25. Joel Spolsky (Fog Creek Software)
26. Stephen Kauffer (TripAdvisor)
27. James Hong (Hot or Not)
28. James Currier (Tickle)
29. Blake Ross (Firefox)
30. Mena Trott (Six Apart)
31. Bob Davis (Lycos)
32. Ron Gruner (Alliant Computer Systems, Shareholder.com)

Most of the interviews follow this line:

* Getting started.
* Interactions with VCs.
* Some of the more intense moments.
* Turning Points.
* Things that were surprising.
* Felt like quiting at any time ?
* Advice for people looking to start a startup.

Most of the interviews were good, a few were boring and a few came out to be outstanding. I dont want to specify which ones bored because you will be prejudiced in case you are planning to read it. The interviews I found most interesting were the ones with Steve Wozniak, Dan Bricklin, Mitchell Kapor, Craig Newmakr, Charles Geschke, Philip Greenspun, Joel Spolsky and Blake Ross.

Most of these startups had more than one founder and they all swear it would have been impossible to do it alone. There were one man shows also, albeit few. Another interesting fact is that most of these people knew each other during their college period or previous jobs. It makes one wonder whether you need to be in an elite circle to rise above the ordinary.Many of these founders came from Stanford or MIT and several of them previously worked at HP. It seems that HP used to be the ultimate dream company for engineers.

Another fact which might not surprise you is that most founders were young when they cut all the safety ropes at went for it. This shouldnt be surprising because that is the time when you have boundless energy and you dont have a family to take care of so there is less risk. Ofcourse there are exceptions to the young founder phenomenon, but very few.

In the interview with Blake Ross he talks about his new company called Parakey which was developing a new application which was under cover at the time of the interview. It turns out that they were developing an application platform for web and desktop - providing applications the framework to work online and offline. Parakey was bought by Facebook recently.

This book follows the style of a 1986 book from Microsoft Press called Programmers at Work. Interestingly Dan Bricklin and Ray Ozzie are interviewed in that book also.

My rating 4/5.

This book covers a lot of ground on high-tech, particularly software, startups. It goes from the old, Apple, to the new, 37 Signals. This is nice, because everyone has probably heard about Apple but it gives perspective on how the industry has changed between then and, say, Yahoo! I shouldn't admit it, but I had no idea what some of these companies do, so that alone made it worthwhile.

Most of the companies took venture capital (VC) money, it's probably worth reading if you plan on doing that. There is much less on organic companies, like Fog Creek and Craigslist, but they get a mention.

The book typically focuses on the startups' success but doesn't dwell too much on failures that follow. (Question: is a company successful if it goes from 0 to $250 million to 0?)

The author doesn't ask the same set of questions to every founder, but there are some common themes: Were you ever about to quit? Were you affraid of competition? I might want to hear whether the founders thought they were lucky or smart.

Another interesting note is how many of these founders came from families with entrepreneurs.

"Founders at Work" is a inspiring book for anyone interested in reading the stories of successful software companies' early days. A lot of well-known companies' founders get to tell their story on how they made it all happen, and how they felt at the time of the start-up.

It is fascinating to learn that so many successful companies struggled in their early days, and that they often didn't know which product to market. Many of the founders tell stories of how they stumbled upon their successful idea after many failed attempts, and that they the product which finally took off was just a side project. This is for example true for both Blogger and PayPal, among many more.

"Founders at Work" should be mandatory reading for anyone running a start-up software company or with such aspirations. It is especially interesting to read the founders take on venture capital and company ownership.

I am only on the first half and i can tell this is a very detail and well done book. I enjoy the way Jessica ask question and what motivate those founder achieve their success.I am hoping more interviews book will come in the future and hoping also from a different industry.

Nat

Great book. Good questions asked by Livingston. Few of the articles were boring and could be replaced with better person.

The Summary
Jessica Livingston has written an amazing book. If you want to read the stories behind some of the most well known software companies in the last 30 years, you will find it in this book. But Livingston hasn't just covered the usual suspects (Google, Microsoft), she has included a diverse collection from Steve Wozniak (Apple) to David Heinemeier Hansson (37 Signals), Dan Bricklin (Visicalc) to Blake Ross (Firefox). It covers a lot of ground from the early 80's software boom to the Web 2.0 starts ups. But there is more than just stories about starting companies, there is real advice from the frontline trenches of software start-ups. Keep your post-it notes and highlighter handy, if you are like me you will be annotating and highlighting a lot!

The Audience
If you have ever considered a start-up you should definitely read this book. It's like picking the brains of some very experienced entrepreneurs. Anybody that has already tried their hand at start-ups will recognize the value of this book. Most will probably feel like I did, and wish that they had had this book before they started their first company. It could have saved me many painful lessons (both financially and personally). Reading these interviews is like having 32 mentors.

The Details
Like many people I am always a little skeptical of `success stories'. Just because someone did x, y and z, doesn't mean that I could follow these very steps and be as successful. Just because Aunt Ethel, who lived to be a 100, attributes her long life to drinking a glass of whisky every day, doesn't mean I can drink a glass of whisky every day and live to be a 100. Instead of a collection of fluffy `creation myth' stories written about software companies, Livingston has put a lot of thought into how she approached these interviews and has collected some real gems of insights from these entrepreneurs. She has uncovered a gold mine of valuable advice and information about starting a company. As you read these stories you start to see some patterns emerging. Some of these patterns I recognize from my own experiences, but others were new to me. Sometimes you see contradictory advice from different founders; one tells you, you need to focus on the technology and somebody else explains that it's more important to focus on business/market opportunity. There are definitely multiple paths to starting a company, but some advice is repeated story after story, and these seem to be universal truths.

The Ideas
Here are some of the universal truths that I culled from the interviews:
- Iterate through ideas, the first idea isn't always the best
- Business plans are important - but be prepared to change it many times
- You need to be naïve - "unencumbered by reality"
- Persistence makes all the difference
- Passion - you need to be really excited about what you are doing and think it's really important
- Understand and listen to your end users

The book is full of ideas and advice like this.

The Take-Aways
Overall, I can't say enough good things about this book. Obviously it's aimed at entrepreneurs, but I know there are going to be many people just interested in the stories behind their favorite companies or people. Personally I loved the interviews with Ray Ozzie, Joel Spolsky, Joe Kraus and Steve Wozniak. I was also fascinated by the stories behind companies like: 37 Signals, Six Apart, del.icio.us and Craigslist. I was even surprised by the story behind `Hot or Not', it's not as shallow as you might think.

Entrepreneurs -- wanna-be, new and experienced -- you NEED to read, think, digest and act on the advice in this book and your next/current entrepreneurial venture will go much smoother.

Kes Sampanthar
Inventor of ThinkCube

A good book . Holds a lot of information about how start ups did what they did.

Some of the stuff that these founders went through was good to read. Shows that they are not all super men but men with super dreams.

A casual Sunday evening - lie by the pool - sip on a lemonade kind of book !

This compendium of interviews with tech founders is a must for every tech entrepreneur's bookshelf. Whether you are on your first startup or your seventh, you will find something in the experience of others to help you avoid mistakes, take advantage of your opportunities, or just commiserate about the challenges and frustrations of getting something started. Full of wisdom and humor, a great read for those who want to become a tech entrepreneur, or find themselves in the middle of it already.

"Founders at Work" is an excellent book containing interviews between the author and many successful entrepreneurs. The "founders" share stories and lessons about their prior startups. I enjoyed reading about PayPal, RIM, Hotmail, Adobe, Excite, Del.icio.us, and many other companies.

Among the things I'll take to heart:
- Do something you're passionate about
- Find a solid team to work with, even if just a single partner
- Don't be afraid to start a company even if you have no ideas
- Getting money from VCs is not necessarily important. It can help and hurt.

Just a great book with authentic stories of how large companies were started. With a focus on high-tech and internet stories. Thrilling to hear how many disruptions and things that was not planned contributed to the success of many entrepreneurs.

The book, "Founders at Work," is basically just a collection of interviews with several founders of tech companies, with one chapter for each of 32 people. If you aren't at all familiar with the people or companies, there is a small half-page blurb on each founder. However, you should know that it seems like there was literally no editing done to the interviews, which were obviously voice-recorded, and then later written down. Some founders, like Steve Wozniak, go off on complete tangents. He talks in-depth on hardware design and different types of RAM. There's a lot of esoteric knowledge in there that I think will lose a non-technical person. This book may be much easier to digest as a book-on-tape.

One negative: the author definitely doesn't coddle you by explaining the world of start-ups and Venture Capital (VC), which is absolutely full of jargon. It's never explained what Angel Investors, Limited Partners, or "becoming incorporated" are. It would have been nice to learn at the beginning of the book what the difference between an LLC (limited liability company) and a "C corporation" is. (FYI: the former can't have stockholders.) Some terms I was able to figure out from context. An example would be that many founders had problems with VC's and tried to avoid taking money by "growing organically," which is never explicitly defined. It just means that they don't take money from sources outside the company to supplement their hiring.

The founders that I most wanted to read about only took up about 10 pages each - David Heinemeier Hansson (37signals / Ruby on Rails), Paul Buchheit (gmail), Blake Ross (firefox), and Joel Spolsky (Fog Creek Software). However, a positive is that there is a wide range of founders that were included. There's blogging companies (blogger/six apart), webmail (hotmail/gmail), search (yahoo/lycos), Apple, Adobe, and TiVo. The article that was my favorite was actually about a company I'd never heard of: ArsDigita and Philip Greenspun. The story of ArsDigita was that they wound up taking VC money and got run into the ground. Greenspun explains this all, but also goes into how a programmer should really be more than just a coder; he should be a true professional like a doctor or lawyer. For instance, a developer should be speaking directly to customers, because when you send a sales guy to do it, they can promise anything. And if you're off in a corner coding, that's a perfect candidate to outsource. He talks about how software developers should be good writers and communicators, and should care about quality by doing things like code reviews. Since that's my job right now, Greenspun really struck a cord with me. Most companies could treat the profession differently; it could and should be more.

There were several pervasive themes repeated by everyone in the book. The main one was to be persistent. Also, make sure that you found the company with more than yourself, and with people you like on a personal level. And keep expenses low, so that you don't have to take VC money.

You should do what your customers want and deliver a product that makes them happy. Or solve a problem that YOU have personally, and see if it applies to others. Don't force yourself to follow the idea from your original business plan. And definitely don't worry about what your competitors are doing because you're bought out for having a large user base, and for having "buzz" (being popular).

"Founders at Work" is eye-opening to read, mainly because you learn that these techy guys starting companies aren't all that business savy and most don't have good communication skills, but they work through it. You don't need an MBA to succeed; they simply hire in the sales or marketing guys. You get somebody else to be CEO/CFO/COO. It really makes you think, "hey, I could actually be doing this."

This is why I recommend the book: it is inspiring. It could use some editing, but it's worth a read.

Wow...what a book! I just finished reading Founders at Work and I've got to admit it's one of the best books I've read in the past several years. What makes it so special? It's a series of interviews with 32 different tech entrepreneurs, so it's like getting 32 mini-books in one. The book also has a nice mix of old and new technologies. For example, are you old enough to remember VisiCalc? If so, you'll enjoy the interview with Dan Bricklin.

You really get the feeling your sitting down with each one of the founders being interviewed. Great questions are asked throughout that help shed light on key turning points with each company, whether the founder ever wanted to give up, etc. You could argue that much of this information is probably available via magazine articles and online resources, but rather than having to gather it all up on your own, this book presents it all in one nice package. Highly recommended!

I would have wanted some other founders that probably haven't been heard of to much. However, the book is interesting and motivational to a degree. Some stories are a bit boring but the others make up for it. Keep in mind that these are interviews.....

This book takes u to the times when the action happened! I never finish books but this is one book I will read cover to cover.... A MUST HAVE FOR ANY ENTREPRENEUR!!!!

This book is very good. I found a lot new and interesting information there. Some story is relay amazing. For people which going to run startup it would be great to have another book with interview with founders from unsuccessful startups. The examples of success is interesting but examples of failure is more instructive. Thanks.

I wrote the book twenty years ago entitled Programmers at WorkProgrammers at Work: Interviews With 19 Programmers Who Shaped the Computer Industry (Tempus) which interviewed the first generation of technologists who launched the pc software industry, including some featured in this Founders at Work book, Ray Ozzie, Dan Bricklin among others. The book explored what drives them and their creative processes. I've got to commend the author of Founders on coming up with a second act and a new slant on what was a successful approach twenty years ago. I wish I had done it!

The insights Livingston draws out from looking at the business side of the efforts of these innovators are definitely instructive, compelling to read, and valuable to anyone setting out on the start-up path. It's a perfect companion to Programmers. Congrats.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to know what successful people who made it with their startup have to say about the difficulties of the beginning of their road.

One of best book I've ever read! It explain the essential problem of starting with a startup, technically and emotionally as well.
Great!

Two types of people should read this book ASAP -- people who:
1. Are thinking about creating a start-up, or working for one
2. Want to understand the real inner workings of the information technology business -- hardware, software, VC, etc.

I've had the distinct privilege of working with many of the people interviewed for the book, and I now have a fuller appreciation for what they were able to accomplish -- in many cases against all odds.

The book is especially timely in these days of "Web 2.0," bubble v2, etc. -- as the hype-to-reality index goes off the scale once again, "Founders at Work" includes many insights about why it's only a matter of time until the next "correction" kicks in.

Highly recommended.

This is an incredibly inspiring book if you're into software and computer science and you have this itching feeling that maybe you should make the plunge and (co)found something for yourself. Especially if you've ever felt that you're onto something new and exciting in terms of a new application, algorithm, or anything else that you think may make a big impact if you tried to take it to market.

Most of the times these ideas slowly die because people don't dare to take the next step. Especially engineers tend to be worried about the risk of failing, investing your savings and not being able to run a company or talk to investors. A lot of this insecurity stems from not knowing what to expect and stepping into an unknown territory.

Reading the interviews in this book really sheds some light on these unknowns. You'll find that many of the founders of these high-tech companies were single-minded engineers themselves that didn't know what to expect either. It doesn't give you a clear set of rules for how to be successful in a business and luck appears to have been a significant ingredient of some of these stories, but it never fails to inspire you.

This book really takes you back to first days of those well-known tech companies, mostly from the perspective of engineers. You feel the atmosphere and enthusiasm that these people felt when they first started.

I was surprised about the overlap in terms of key people among the individual stories. Often the same people turned up in the history of these companies, which seems to underline the importance of knowing the right people and building a professional network. Sure, most of the interviewed companies are headquartered in California, but I never realized the heart of the sotware industry was such a small world.

The interviews are wonderfully informative. It's hard to describe what this book tells you, but think of it as giving story-based technical/business lessons (you do the extrapolating), emotional comfort for when 'all feels lost' (Evan William's tale of Blogger is terrific here) and inspiration for the good times to come, and an entertaining history of startups (Wozniak's discussion of Apple is great, altho the story is well-known by now). So that's 3 or 4 great reasons to buy this book.