Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle Reading App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Apple
Android
Windows Phone
Android
To get the free app, enter your email address or mobile phone number.
Best Books of the Year So Far
Looking for something great to read? Browse our editors' picks for 2015's Best Books of the Year So Far in fiction, nonfiction, mysteries, children's books, and much more.
$13.35
FREE Shipping on orders over $35.
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Gift-wrap available.
Frequently Bought Together
{"currencyCode":"USD","itemData":[{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":13.35,"ASIN":"1430210788","moqNum":1,"isPreorder":0},{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":14.81,"ASIN":"0307887898","moqNum":1,"isPreorder":0},{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":15.6,"ASIN":"0804139296","moqNum":1,"isPreorder":0}],"shippingId":"1430210788::1xcDNO%2FLWxA%2FyrQ5hUXgT56YAivCtilEoqrCz3kY2fMWMoPZXLDai%2BYWzM6OsQ8%2BP4miqD1TJU0o6a0P3HAm65mWqbRMMndqbDnS%2FIRcbXk%3D,0307887898::FVT90sce4dOMo7fvQkhjwW0gxJj3FhKXVDELcJShQ3MhTmRaKtE34aCPvARwjRwHUsHaBL3LNf8vKpIYDrXytU%2BquhHsIS3h5O0Jis82zXJ86r5AszFRiA%3D%3D,0804139296::F5X1Aw6ijHhIUlwMuSFGjKVtR3e2F2n8UFsYrEE3u1ne44Y04QMiC%2FFTAa9Eqo5QDS%2FMV5ITMnRGzAMonndiw%2FZggqnp%2BM9IgH7i6kkBiseOLqA9irRLbQ%3D%3D","sprites":{"addToWishlist":["wl_one","wl_two","wl_three"],"addToCart":["s_addToCart","s_addBothToCart","s_add3ToCart"],"preorder":["s_preorderThis","s_preorderBoth","s_preorderAll3"]},"shippingDetails":{"xz":"same","xy":"same","yz":"same","xyz":"same"},"tags":["x","y","z","w"],"strings":{"addToWishlist":["Add to Wish List","Add both to Wish List","Add all three to Wish List","Add all four to Wish List"],"addToCart":["Add to Cart","Add both to Cart","Add all three to Cart","Add all four to Cart"],"showDetailsDefault":"Show availability and shipping details","shippingError":"An error occurred, please try again","hideDetailsDefault":"Hide availability and shipping details","priceLabel":["Price:","Price for both:","Price for all three:","Price For All Four:"],"preorder":["Pre-order this item","Pre-order both items","Pre-order all three items","Pre-order all four items"]}}
This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.
Shop the New Digital Design Bookstore
Check out the Digital Design Bookstore, a new hub for photographers, art directors, illustrators, web developers, and other creative individuals to find highly rated and highly relevant career resources. Shop books on web development and graphic design, or check out blog posts by authors and thought-leaders in the design industry.
Shop now
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.Read more ›
3 Comments
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
A better title would be "Lucky Founders at work". Well luck is very important in business, and more important in Silicon Valley. You happen to be employee # 10 or #20 at a successful company (call that Google, Facebook, or Uber). You make a lot of money. Lots of money. You become a VC, and based on that experience you invest in start ups. That's where you realize that finding companies involve mostly luck. Few exceptions: some of the top firms and top VC's (think Mike Moritz or Peter Fenton) are so regular at finding luck, that they are good at 90% of the work required to find that luck. Back to the title. It is misleading. Most of them made it, made money one way or another. Maybe because they got lucky, or because the time was right, whatever. There is this myth about repeat entrepreneurs. Well a lot of founders who were lucky in the first venture tried to replicate that a second, and most of the time, it did not work so well. Most of those ventures are worthless today.
For one lucky/smart entrepreneurs there are thousands of poor fellows, as smart as the others, or even smarter. They just worked for days and nights, months and years. They missed the boat and they deserve a good story. It is misleading because this kind of book is about success. And that's all good in a good economy, hot markets. So it would have been good to open up to failed entrepreneurs, not the ones who "failed", only to have this roaring success on their second venture. But our friends who took a second mortgage on the house, piled up with a home equity loan, gained weight, ended in a divorce (you just end working all the time with no results, you are a failure).Read more ›
Comment
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more
This item: Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days
![]({"http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51bQdw5ndHL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg":[333,499],"http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51bQdw5ndHL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg":[231,346]})
