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Book Review: Founders At Work

Posted on March 11, 2007
Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment

I really liked this book.  Basically, its a bunch of interviews with founders of some of the greatest technology startups over the last three decades.  It includes the likes of Apple, Hotmail, PayPal, Yahoo, Adobe and so on and so forth.  For me, a techie born in the UK it was a real eye opener just how differently things work over on the US west coast.  It was a common theme throughout the book that things just seem to happen on the west coast in the land of the VCs.

 

Of all the startups, very few had a business plan that they followed to the letter.  Some did try but later adapted to market demands and/or customer needs.  Some changed a little too late.  Reading between the lines, successful companies had business plans that continually changed as the company learnt more about who they were and what business opportunity they were now best positioned to capitalise on. 

 

There are some great stories in this book with Steve Wozniak (Apple) and Charles Geschke (Adobe) giving great insights into how technology by itself is not enough.  As an aside, it scares me just how many startups Steve Jobs appears to have had a hand in…

 

However, the write up of ArsDigita by Philip Greenspun was one of my favourites in which he describes a business model that celebrates the programmer as a first class citizen within a technology company.  Strange as it may sound but programmers are still perceived and treated as coding resources.  I have experienced first hand what a small team of high talented developers can produce versus an army of mediocre developers.  There is simply no comparison.  The value that gets delivered is poles apart.  This is one of the reasons why Cognifide invests so much time and effort in recruitment.  Great people build great things, you’ve just got to find them.  And that ain’t easy…

 

I highly recommend that you go read Founders at Work.

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