Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days

Founders at Work recounts the early struggles for independence and acceptance of many of modern technology’s giants, through personal interviews that are at times hilarious, at times painful, and always inspiring. The book will interest anyone curious about what goes on in a startup, and places particular focus on the questions of technologists, business people and the general public. The stories in Founders at Work are dramatic and funny, and they’re about people getting rich. As human-interest stories they will appeal to the same audience that enjoys reading about the Google founders in PEOPLE magazine. For such an audience, these stories should be exceptionally interesting, because they’re about the early stages, when the founders were younger and inexperienced. Most readers know startup founders only as confident millionaires. As novices trying to find their way by trial and error, they’re more human, and easier for the reader to identify with.

Jessica Livingston is a founding partner at Y Combinator, a seed-stage venture firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Mountain View, California. She was previously vice president of marketing at investment bank Adams Harkness. In addition to her work with startups at Y Combinator, she organizes Startup School (www.StartupSchool.org). She has a bachelor’s degree in English from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.