Comments on: Founders At Work

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 03 May 2007 21:40:51 +0000

If you want to read the definitive book about this sort of thing, check out Fire in the Valley.

By: willy nelson

willy nelson — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 23:36:01 +0000

PS: I’ll be the first to admit it’s this nonsensical traveling for YouKnowWhoo that is making me so sour, when I get back to the valley I’ll feel a lot better, I promise.

By: willy nelson

willy nelson — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 23:33:38 +0000

the goal of writing a book on startups? sell books and make money

I should be an author. I’ll make my book web 2 compatible by aggregating the interviews as data clusters and plotting them on a Google Maps API so people can sms the location of their latest fart and it’ll be plotted on MySpace profiles via a heatmap. The book will compile the twenty hottest locations for farts, with extensive q&a on why that place is prime for ass ripping, what foods contributed to the gas, and how it plays into the new economy. First we’ll target the US techsumer, then we’ll sell it in emerging markets out of our offices in Dubai and Japur. This is all before the DJIA and NASDAQ reach 25,000 and 10,000 respectively, it is, after all, 1999 all over again.

I’m just kidding around guys, I am such a willy nelson today, just in a bad mood and here to rain on everyones parade.

but really, that author is going to make some cash.

and keep up the good work on xobni, when will a public demo be available? I need the public demo so I can rip off your idea and rewrite it in Ruby, rename it to Fobni (beta), and sell it to YaHoo for my quick $20 mil payday.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 08:00:35 +0000

Ryan, I agree that the book is long. I haven’t made it all the way through yet either. I treat each interview as a separate essay - each being valuable standing alone or part of the collection.

Founders at Work might do well as a searchable E-book. That way you can find all the anecdotes about servers with one grep.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 04:47:24 +0000

I’m in the middle of reading Founders at Work right now. The stories are absolutely excellent, but the book is just too long! I’ve been reading in my spare time for 3 weeks and haven’t even finished half the book. Additionally, because all the lessons are parables in the middle of interviews, there’s no way to quickly find that good lesson about quickly scaling servers, for example. It’s an enjoyable read, but its length makes it tiring and ultimately not too useful.